Hiring — Candidate Personas

What candidate persona would add the most value to a team?

Borrowing from the game of football, a strategy of hiring squad members and a playmaker is ideal for setting up and growing a team.
The two roles become critical in a team that is looking to balance sustenance activities along with innovation.

So, how does one identify these qualities in candidates and build them in team members?
First, let’s look at these two personas individually.

Squad member
Squad members perform in an individual capacity to deliver outputs on clearly defined requirements.

Their responsibilities mostly include

• Effectively delivering on individual tasks
• Implementation of small projects

Look for hiring indicators and values like Efficient delivery, Well rounded execution of tasks, Communication, Collaboration, Code fluency and Empathy

A squad member has

• The abilities to perform day to day individual tasks well (effectiveness is experience dependent)
• Clear and effective communication
• Dedication to continuously learn and improve
• Problem solving abilities (Nice to have)
• Good time management (Nice to have)
• Self Management (comes with experience)

Playmaker (Expert member)
These members are the creative force behind a team, they architect solutions and build them by engaging other squad members.

They can deliver on a diverse set of responsibilities like

• Building solutions that are modular, scalable and forward looking
• Effectively delivering projects through a large team with significant complexity
• Training/coaching/mentoring team members to deliver on smaller tasks that come together as a larger solution

Look for hiring indicators and values like Forward looking, Strategic thinking, Critical thinking, Strong sense of ownership, Decision making, Passion for knowledge sharing, Creative problem solving, Team health, System Design, Empathy(very important)

A playmaker has

• The ability to work with nebulous asks and translate them into well defined smaller tasks
• Proven track record in architecting solutions that solve problems and address shortcomings in the near, mid and long term
• Understands the importance of coaching/mentoring squad members and facilitates knowledge distribution

In the long term, they raise the bar for the entire team.

Finally, the distribution of squad and expert members is dictated by the nature and scope of the work in a team, more specifically the ratio of sustenance to new and innovative work.

In most situations, I have found this is to be an effective hiring strategy, with case-specific tweaks.

What is yours? Please comment and share!