One of the most important things I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is that who you hire can truly make or break your company. It is important to hire folks who not only have the right skills, but also who fit well into your company’s culture. With that said, I recently learned about a great new hiring tool that can help any hiring manager more fully assess the type of person they need to hire — no matter what kind of job they are hiring for. This awesome tool is called a Job Scorecard. The Job Scorecard goes much deeper than a job description because it forces you to figure out your desired outcomes for the position, as well as core skills and competencies. It also gives you a better way to evaluate candidates during the interview process because you can clearly assess whether their background and skills truly fit your desired outcomes and competencies. I have included a sample Job Scorecard of a fictional job I would like to hire someone for in the near future for my side project JabberCity.
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Digital Marketing Manager
JabberCity
Mission:
JabberCity is Orange County’s newest resource for helping busy parents efficiently, safely, and quickly plan birthday parties for their littles. The Digital Marketing Manager’s mission is to lead JabberCity’s digital marketing efforts by defining, evaluating, and refining our digital marketing strategies, driving traffic to jabbercity.com, and increasing followers on all of JabberCity’s social media platforms.
Outcomes:
- Create a comprehensive digital marketing plan that includes SEO, SME, and SMO strategies and analytics, and outlines key metrics, promotions, potential partnerships, with projected outcomes within the first month on the job
- Increase the number of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest followers from 5 to 2,500 within the first 6 months
- Revamp our MailChimp newsletters to ensure they are more tailored to our target audience
- Increase the number of sign ups on our email list from 0 to 1,000 within the first 6 months
- Increase traffic (views) to website from 0 to 10,000 monthly views within the first 12 months
Job Competencies:
- Flexible. Able to work in a fast paced, scrappy, startup environment and be able to go with the flow when things inevitably change at the last minute.
- Great Communicator. Able to effectively and clearly communicate all goals, inefficiencies, problems, and potential solutions to all team members, including developers, designers, and external partners/vendors. Updates people frequently.
- Organized & Analytical. Able to handle multiple streams of information and complex data and be able to make sense of it. Report data in an organized, clear way to help make recommendations on JabberCity’s strategic direction.
- Inspiring Leadership. Be able to lead others by example. Can perform duties as well as lead others without constant direct oversight. Able to inspire direct reports and other team members to do their best work.
Cultural Competencies:
- Wants to do a kick-ass job. Constantly pushes at the status quo to make things operate and function at their top performance.
- Uses data to make informed decisions and recommendations. Extremely results-oriented and strongly believes in using data to improve and change services and products as needed.
- Has our user’s best interests at heart. Understands that users are the most integral part of our business and goes out of the way to ensure that they are getting the best experience and service.
- Team player. Works well with others, listens to others, and deals with conflict head-on in a calm and collected manner.