When you are short a person and the work is waiting, the first available applicant is hard to turn down. A written seat makes that call easier.
Hiring on availability alone is how you end up with a crew you have to babysit instead of a team you can build with. The desperate hire almost always becomes the problem employee, because you chose availability over fit.
Desperation is the real problem
The bad hire is a symptom. The disease is desperation. When you wait until you are underwater to start looking, you have already lost, because a drowning man does not interview, he grabs whatever floats by. You will overlook the warning signs because you need the help right now, and three months later you are managing a problem you hired on purpose.
Fear of the empty seat makes the call, and fear is a terrible recruiter.
Write the seat before the ad
Before you write the ad, write the seat. Get clear on what this job actually is and what it is for. What does success in it look like? What does this person need to own? Put the answers on paper, so the seat is defined before anyone applies for it.
You can teach someone to do the work. You cannot teach them to show up, to care, to be honest, to take ownership. So the seat is where you write down the character the job requires, in plain words, before you look at a single person.
Once the seat is written, check your blind spots before you go looking for the person to fill it. Built on Purpose sets them out in Part Two, People.
You hire for the wiring you don't already have. You don't clone yourself. You cover yourself.
"So you pray, and then you run the ad. You ask for the right person, and then you do the disciplined, unglamorous work that makes it possible to recognize them when they show up. Faith without the process is just wishing. The process without the faith is just mechanics. I'll take both, whatever you believe."
Built on Purpose, chapter 4
Scout before you advertise
Scout before you advertise. In plain words, you go looking for the right person before the ad goes up. You have the seat written down, so you know who you are looking for. The ad still runs. It just stops being the only thing you are counting on.
Start before you are desperate. Build a small pipeline of people even when you are not hiring, so that when you do need someone, you are choosing from options instead of grabbing the only hand in reach.
The team you deserve
You do not get the people you want. You get the people you deserve. So the fix starts with you, the owner, and that is the part you can do something about.
Write the seat before the ad. Scout before you advertise. Start early enough that you are choosing from options instead of hiring from panic. That is how you hire on purpose.