four sets of questions to help you hire better - solace’s Role Validation / Specification Methodology

A common theme around successful hires and fractional placements that we’ve witnessed since launching solace is that there’s clear alignment and understanding across the hiring manager, their direct reports, and leadership team regarding the new hire’s priorities, reporting relationships, skill requirements, and more.

To help every hiring manager achieve this level of clarity and set their future hire up for success from Day 1 we leverage our Role Validation / Specification Methodology that summarizes all the key information requirements into four buckets:
🔷 organizational context;
🔶 desired outcomes to be driven by role;
🔷 specific skills / capabilities requires; and,
🔶 logistical, cultural, and monetary attributes.

Organizational context

• What is the organization’s mission or mandate? What’s the hiring team’s role in its achievement?

• What is the organization and/or team working on or struggling with that prompts the need for the role?

• Who within the team is currently working on this opportunity or problem? What’s the progress to-date? Where is help most needed?

desired outcomes to be driven by role

• What are the key milestones or outcomes that need to be achieved in the short-term? Long-term?

• What are the critical success factors that have been identified to-date?

specific skills / capabilities required

• Based on the organizational context and desired outcomes, what are the key capabilities (i.e. skills or abilities) that the successful candidate should be bringing to the team?

• What previous successes / projects should the successful candidate highlight / prove to be highly valuable?

• Note: proven success trumps years of experience

logistical, cultural, and monetary attributes

• Budget? Compensation structure? Hiring timeline? Remote / hybrid / in-person?

• What specific working styles / cultural dynamics would be appreciated or would be red flags?

I suggest that hiring managers engage with their direct team and/or executive leadership (as required) to align on these four pieces of information prior to working with their HR team / recruitment partners / initiating the search themselves. This methodology has helped solace achieve 100% success rate for fractional roles placed with clients (i.e. clients very happy with the talent they hired) and is one we'll train future team members on.

If you end up leveraging this methodology, let me know as I’d love to hear about the outcomes it helped you achieve.