Look Within…

A few months ago, we offered a candidate a position on our sales team — a critical role we were eager to fill. We waited two months for the candidate to join (yes… those long notice periods can be painful, but you live with it). We even shipped the laptop and got everything ready. The person was scheduled to start, and I was excited.

Then, the night before the joining date, our HR team informed me that the candidate had declined the offer. It was disappointing. I felt this would impact our execution strategy, and honestly, I was upset.

That’s when our Head of HR, Dipthi Rajagopal, suggested something simple yet powerful: “Let’s look within the community.”

We decided to onboard someone from another team within the company for this role — and it worked out brilliantly. This person got up to speed almost immediately.

In hindsight, we could have done this from the start. The person we moved is adding far more value here than in their previous role.

This experience reminded me of another instance when we needed to hire a Senior Software Engineer for our team. We posted the position and began the hiring process. But sometimes, the right people are already in the room. There could be team members who aren’t fully utilized and can take on new challenges. Instead of hiring a new engineer, we realized we could make the best use of our existing talent — and often, that’s all it takes to solve the problem. In these instances, most of the times we have seen the person we bring onboard steps up and transforms to a leader. Sometimes it may not work. However you need to take a chance and if you don’t you are leaving talent behind.

Decisions like these do need your organization to move quickly and execute fast. The best talent you’re searching for might already be right in front of you. You just have to look within.

Thank you for reading. 

Karthik Chidambaram.