It’ll be the best thing you ever do 🔮

The above quote is my favorite quote when making recommendations on deepening the company talent pool, just hire a professional. You’re better off spending the duckets on proper talent than someone you can pay a little less until you can afford a professional, relative or a friend’s friend who happens to “code’ or just some cheap outsourced solution in a foreign land; it’s all going to end swell, I promise. To save you the pain, the scenario usually unravels with hiring someone who says they can do the job and then runs half way with it when you realize that is a check their ass could not cash. You now have to find someone who can then execute on it and you’ve now doubled up your spend and wasted away so much time.

The amateur has one perspective on the scenario and the employer has a completely different take. For the employer, some valuable lessons will be learned. They probably won’t do that again unless of course the company needs a refresher in what not to do. Sometimes, we repeat the same scenarios over and over until the lesson is learned.

The amateur is the biggest winner in the whole deal. They just got the biggest wake up call in the career. They are forced to short circuit and reprogram themselves to adjust to the learning curve, immerse themselves in to the job and learn more than they ever thought possible. A startup would be the best place to do this in, they are petri dish for growth.

The people business is not a “what’s in it for me” exchange, that’s very surface orientated and near sighted. Look for the longer tail reward of those lessons and people who helped bring you to them. Keep an eye on the amateur you had to let go. Let them go experience two or three career positions and follow up with them. By that time, hopefully they will be all the wiser and some of the biggest machines of production you’ve ever seen. They’ll probably thank you for giving them the chance to fail too!

Everyone is an amateur at one point in time, help give the opportunity for people to grow and learn a few things in the process. You’ll learn some valuable lessons in the process.