“A players hire A players; B players hire C players.” — Guy Kawasaki
CPA firms (and a lot of other businesses and non-profits) are PKFs — Professional Knowledge Firms (according to Ron Baker) — and their primary asset is intellectual capital derived from their human capital. I think this post by Guy Kawasaki, titled The Art of Recruiting, puts this in perspective:
“The art of recruiting is the purest form of evangelism because you're not simply asking people to try your product, buy your product, or partner with you. Instead, you are asking them to bet their lives on your organization. Can it get any scarier for them, and tougher for you, than this?”
Guy gives us 10 very useful tips in how to think about recruiting:
- Hire better than yourself.
- Hire infected people (passionate about your work).
- Ignore the irrelevant.
- Double check your intuition.
- Check independent references.
- Apply the shopping center test (you have to read this one).
- Use all your weapons (especially your organizational vision and purpose).
- Sell all the decision makers (spouse, mom and dad?).
- Wait to compensate.
- Don't assume you're done.
My favorites are 1, 2, 4,7,8. What are yours?
Guy is a best-selling author, thought leader and former chief evangelist at Apple.
I can't wait to get his new book coming in March, Enchantment: Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.