(Extracted from a smart bear by Jason Cohen)
The rule of thumb is that it takes 3-6 months to hire a really good person. Why so long?
- Good people are rare, so it takes a while to dig them up. Like truffles. Or weeds.
- Good people won’t change jobs more often than once a year — probably more like every 3-4 years, especially if their employer appreciates their abilities and compensates them accordingly. So you have to find this person in their “once every three years” window.
- Good people gets lots of good job offers (yes, even in this economy) so when you do find one and give them the writing test and then the phone interview and then the in-person interview and then discuss compensation and then provide a formal written offer… there’s a good chance they just accepted an awesome offer somewhere else. (This happened to me all the time at Smart Bear. It’s happening now at WP Engine.)
This means if you start hiring when you really need someone, that’s too late. You’ll be “in need” for months.This means you need to be hiring constantly.