The success of your business relies on having the right people in the right roles doing the right work. But it’s no secret that finding and hiring the right candidate for the job can be challenging, especially if the role requires specialized training or credentials. 

Businesses across the country are struggling to fill open positions and keep up with the workload. And it’s hard to deliver the excellence your clients expect and deserve when you’re understaffed.

The Hiring Challenge: Short Staffed and Struggling

First things first, let’s acknowledge the challenges that come with hiring. Being understaffed can lead to all sorts of headaches, from missed deadlines to overwhelming workloads. The hard truth is that without a qualified candidate, business growth stalls because even managing current projects demands more capacity than you have.

The stress and anxiety that come with trying to hire for a position you desperately need to be filled can take a very real toll on your mental health. 

In this blog, I’ll give you a step-by-step guide to help you overcome your hiring woes and the  burnout that comes with being short-staffed.

The Solution: Reimagine Your Hiring Strategy

If you’re struggling to find the specialized skillset you need in one perfect, shiny candidate, try taking a different approach.

One of my Catapult coaching clients invested a lot of time and money looking for a project manager with a civil engineering certificate before coming to me, drained and defeated.

They had engineers on their team, but no one with project management training. They were in a position where there was an increasing amount of work to be done, and very real opportunities to grow the company, but no potential prospects.

Without a qualified candidate, managing current projects was a challenge, and the business certainly couldn’t capitalize on those growth opportunities.

What do you do when you can’t find the talented players you need to fill your bench and get back to delivering results?

You go back to the drawing board.

Step 1: Ditch the Job Description and Focus on Results Instead

Let’s be honest. Finding the “perfect” candidate is like finding a needle in a haystack. Instead of obsessing over qualifications and experience, focus on the results you need your new hire to produce. 

For my client, that meant creating a list of the results they needed their imaginary ideal hire to create. Once we were sure all the bases were covered, we divided that list into two columns: Tasks that required engineering credentials and tasks that didn’t.

What are the tasks you need to have taken care of? 

What outcomes are you looking for? 

This shift in perspective can help you find someone who may not check all the traditional boxes but can still get the job done.

Step 2: Categorize Your Required Results

When I walked my client through this process, she quickly realized that even if she could reassign those engineering tasks to a  project manager, it wouldn’t actually help manage the increasing workload.

So we shifted gears to look at all the tasks their engineers were doing, made a list of all the things that didn’t require an engineer’s expertise, and let the engineering team know that they wouldn’t need to do that work anymore.

By pulling those non-specialized tasks off their plate, we created capacity for the existing staff to take on the additional engineering tasks and removed them from our Required Results list.

Now that you know what results you need, divide them into two categories: tasks that require specialized training or credentials and tasks that don’t. 

Look at your existing team’s workload and see what non-specialized tasks you can pull off their plate to make room for them to do what they do best.

Step 3: Adjust Your Workload and Hiring Needs

By adjusting her perspective and taking a different approach, my client and I innovated a solution to her hiring challenge. In the process, she also refined her workflows and empowered her team to focus on the magic they bring to the table.

With that taken care of, we turned back to hiring, this time with a singular focus: finding a phenomenal project coordinator to create the results left on the list.

Once you’ve divided your required results into categories, ask yourself:

• Is someone on your team already qualified or doing similar work?

• Could you adjust roles or expectations so your team can cover some of the specialized work that needs to be done?

• How would those possible adjustments shift your hiring needs?

By exploring these options, you might uncover a novel solution of your own that positions your team to focus on what they do best. Because when your team is aligned and firing on all cylinders, your business thrives.

Hiring Doesn’t Have to Be a Headache

Finding the right candidate for the job can be a challenge, but by taking a different approach, you can overcome your hiring woes. Ditch the traditional job description, focus on results, and adjust your workload to empower your team to do what they do best. This will shift your hiring needs so you can find the right person to do the right work and keep your business growing. 

𝘍𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 “𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥” 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘳 “𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦.”

I help business owners expand their vision, close the gaps, and innovate the solutions you need to create more freedom, profitability, and fulfillment in your life and business. 

⇒ 87% of my clients double their revenue within a year of working with me.

⇒ 92% clock 33% fewer hours at work by the end of our engagement.

⇒ 99% report that they are truly satisfied with their work/life balance.

If you want to start seeing results like these, you need to stop being the business owner who tries to do it all. Let’s talk about what else is possible and find out if I’m the high-impact business coach for you. 

Send me an email. Tell me where you need more support in your business and what needs troubleshooting. If we both feel like we make a good team, we can start creating solutions in the next few weeks.