Quality v Time – is there a question here?

According to a recent Aberdeen report, quality of hire is the top metric for 63% of non-HR execs while only 49% of HR execs agree. The HR execs rate time to fill at the top of their list while a mere 17% of non-HR execs care about it.

Add to that, Aberdeen’s survey of 400 organizations worldwide which found that the ones that equate competency with behavior are 35% more likely to improve revenue per employee than those that equate it with knowledge or skill. Is there any question that hiring for the right fit – the right behaviors – is the only metric that really counts?

Our CTO said to me years ago, “you can have it cheap, fast or good – pick two.” Good was my top choice. I knew I didn’t have a prayer of getting fast (is anything you want ever fast enough?), though if I wasn’t too cheap I could outbid the competitor for time and attention and probably get things a little faster. So I went for the only kind of competency that counts in the end: delivering high quality when it’s ready. Best of all, it wasn’t only a good bottom line decision, it was a good lesson for me in the virtue of patience!