Hiring the Right Employees to Build Your Agency

We take all our candidates out to lunch before their interview, they arrive at the post-lunch interview relaxed, hopeful, and eager to chat. Now, free food wasn’t the answer to all our hiring problems, but it was the first step-- and a step that suggested we think differently about talent.

Currently in our market, the technological space has less than 1% unemployment rate. This is great for a digital agency because it means clients need us--but it also means that snagging an incredible employee before the competition does takes innovation. It means that growing your team will require more than a glance at a resume; you will have to dig deeper into a candidate's experience. They may not be exactly what you’re looking for now, but do they have the potential to become even more?

At Elevated Third, our hiring process is based in a larger theory that the right environment can foster incredible talent. We don’t hire people who fit a job description, instead we hire people who are smart enough to grow into their own description. We choose employees based on their aptitude to overachieve. Then, we observe. We figure out what each employee is particularly good at and and we create a job description around their strengths.

This practice is easier said than done. It requires a scaffolding of exceptional hires who allow their peers to be vulnerable. Because, of course, learning means making mistakes. Ultimately, it is an environment of support, vulnerability, and observation that allows us to foster talent instead of hire it based on a list of requirements and a resume. The results: employees who feel important, who produce great work, and who are happy to work hard.

Attendess will learn the following:

• How to build the right environment through improved hiring 
• How to adapt your hiring process to support better evaluation of candidates