Beware Greeks bearing gift horses in the mouth!
Ever hired a friend of a friend for an interim role and regretted it? Below is an extract from an article written by Gavan Burden, MD of interim provider Burden Dare, warning clients to think carefully before going down the route of hiring an interim on familiar terms without taking the trouble of assessing the skills available to them on the open market. Such errors can be costly, Gavan writes:
"Hiring people you have worked with before is known, but what about 'friends of friends'? In 2008 we released an article called Why you should not hire a friend of a friend based on our experience of clients coming to us for help in rescuing situations that should never have arisen and all caused by hiring without going to the market. Just think of the list of people who would have been well advised to read it before they made career threatening choices: The Labour Party elected Gordon Brown, David Cameron hired Andy Coulson and Ed Milliband took on Tom Baldwin to name just three recent high-profile examples – each reputation tarnished because of the totally avoidable mess they have had to mop up.
It seems really easy though doesn’t it. The Financial Controller leaves, someone has a friend who is available now and who was in the finance department of a local firm; one meeting, a cheap and quick hire of someone who can start on Monday! Job done. But why is he available now? What did his former colleagues think of him? Well it doesn’t really matter does it; he was a victim and, anyway, Joe knows him and Joe’s a great bloke!
2008 was, really, the beginning of this recession when there were some quite savage cuts; labour was in abundance and jobs were at a premium. The cheapest way to save money on any transaction is to cut out the middleman and go direct, recruitment is always hit. But if ever there is a false economy it is "going cheap" on hiring. Picking up the pieces of a poor hire that is avoidable by looking at what skills are available in the market and referencing people properly is far more expensive."
Read the full article at Burdendare.wordpress.com