By Ron Dermady, Chief Operating Officer at Hunter Crown, LLC.
When an employee resigns, most organizations react the same way.
Someone pulls up the old job description, makes a few minor edits, posts the opening, and begins looking for a replacement.
It seems logical. After all, if your Regional Sales Manager leaves, you hire another Regional Sales Manager. If your Operations Manager retires, you look for another Operations Manager.
But what if that is the wrong question?
Instead of asking, "Who did we lose?" Perhaps the better question is, "What problem are we trying to solve?"
Those are two very different conversations.
The first assumes the business has not changed. The second recognizes that businesses are constantly evolving. Markets shift. Customer expectations change. Technology advances. AI is reshaping how work gets done. Teams grow, merge, and reorganize. The role that made perfect sense three years ago may no longer be the role your organization needs today.
Yet many companies continue hiring from outdated job descriptions that were written for a different business at a different point in time.
I have seen organizations spend months searching for the perfect replacement, only to realize after the position is filled that they hired for yesterday's needs instead of tomorrow's opportunities.
A search should begin by understanding the business, not by recycling the last job description.
What challenges are preventing growth?
Where are customers asking for more support?
What skills are missing from the current leadership team?
How has technology changed the way this work should be performed?
Could this position create more value if its responsibilities were expanded, narrowed, or combined with another function?
These are not recruiting questions. They are business questions. The answers often lead to a very different hiring strategy.
Perhaps the next hire needs stronger commercial experience than technical expertise. Perhaps the role should focus on strategic account development instead of territory management. Perhaps automation has eliminated administrative responsibilities, allowing the position to become more customer facing. In some cases, the title itself may no longer reflect the work that truly needs to be done.
The organizations that consistently make exceptional hires rarely begin with a job description. They begin with a conversation about where the business is headed and what kind of leader will help them get there.
That is one of the reasons we spend so much time with our clients before a search officially begins. We are not simply gathering requirements. We are trying to understand the business problem behind the opening. Sometimes that conversation validates the original position. Other times it uncovers an opportunity to rethink the role entirely.
The best hire is not always the person who looks most like the individual who left.
More often, it is the person who is best equipped to help the organization succeed in the future.
Before posting your next opening, resist the temptation to dust off an old job description and begin searching for a replacement.
Instead, pause and ask one simple question.
"What does our business need now?"
The answer may change the search, and ultimately, the future of your organization.