Why Hiring the Right Person Starts Before You Write the Job Ad

One of the first things many business owners do once they've decided it's time to hire is open SEEK.

Or LinkedIn.

Or Facebook.

They start looking at advertisements from businesses similar to theirs, hoping to work out what they should include in their own. A few responsibilities get copied across, a couple of qualifications are added, they borrow a sentence they like about company culture, and before long they're staring at what looks like a perfectly reasonable job advertisement.

On paper, they've done exactly what they were supposed to do.

The problem is, they're starting in completely the wrong place.

A job advertisement shouldn't be where recruitment begins.

It should be where recruitment ends.

Because by the time you're writing a job advertisement, the biggest recruitment decisions should already have been made. The advertisement isn't where you decide what the role looks like. It's where you communicate the decisions you've already made.

When that thinking hasn't happened first, the advertisement becomes little more than a collection of responsibilities.

It might attract applicants.

It probably won't attract the right ones.

One of the biggest differences we see between businesses that consistently make great hiring decisions and those that continually struggle isn't luck.

It isn't budget.

It isn't the size of the business.

It's clarity.

The businesses that attract the right people have usually invested time into understanding themselves before they ask someone else to join them. They've thought about where the business is heading, how they want the team to operate and what success actually looks like before they ever start thinking about candidates.

Businesses that skip this work often find themselves making recruitment decisions while they're already overwhelmed.

The workload is piling up.

Clients are waiting.

The inbox is overflowing.

Everything feels urgent.

Recruitment becomes reactive rather than intentional.

When that happens, it's incredibly tempting to rush through the planning stage because getting another person into the business feels like the priority.

Ironically, that's usually the moment when slowing down creates the best outcome.

Because every hour you invest defining the role before recruitment begins can save you weeks or months of frustration once somebody joins the business.

One of the first conversations we have with clients has very little to do with recruitment.

Instead, we start talking about the business itself.

Not the services.

Not the revenue.

Not the organisational chart.

The culture.

That's because people don't just join a position.

They join a business.

Every workplace has a way of operating, whether it's been intentionally designed or not. Every business has expectations around communication, accountability, ownership, flexibility and decision making. Some businesses thrive in fast-paced environments where people enjoy making decisions independently. Others are more collaborative, with frequent check-ins and shared problem solving.

Neither approach is right or wrong.

But they're very different environments to work in.

The challenge is that many business owners have never consciously defined what their culture actually looks like. They know how they like people to behave. They know what frustrates them. They know what makes someone a great team member.

They've just never put it into words.

So instead, the job advertisement ends up talking about things like "must be organised", "great communication skills" and "ability to work in a fast-paced environment."

The problem is that those descriptions could apply to almost every business advertising today.

They don't tell candidates what it's actually like to work with you.

Culture is far more than a list of values on your website.

It's how people make decisions when you're not in the room.

It's how feedback is given.

It's how mistakes are handled.

It's how accountability looks inside your business.

It's the behaviours that are rewarded, encouraged and repeated every single day.

When you understand your culture, recruitment changes completely.

You're no longer asking,

You're also asking,

Those are two very different questions.

And they're often the difference between someone staying for six months and someone staying for six years.

Once you've taken the time to understand your culture, the next place to look probably isn't where you expect.

It isn't the new role.

It's your own.

This is one of the biggest mistakes we see business owners make, and it's completely understandable.

By the time most people decide it's time to recruit, they're already busy. The days are full, the to-do list keeps growing and the motivation for hiring is usually simple.

So they start making a list.

Everything they're sick of doing.

Everything they don't have time for.

Everything they wish somebody else would take over.

At first glance, that seems like a sensible approach.

But the problem is that it asks the wrong question.

Instead of asking,

The better question is,

There's an important difference.

Because recruitment shouldn't simply remove work from your plate.

It should redefine your role within the business.

Most business owners don't intentionally design their role.

They inherit it.

Every new client creates another responsibility.

Every new service creates another task.

Every challenge that pops up gets solved by the owner because, in the early days, that's exactly what has to happen. When you're starting a business, there isn't anyone else to delegate to. You become the salesperson, the administrator, the customer service team, the accounts department and the operations manager, often all before lunchtime.

Those responsibilities aren't planned.

They accumulate.

And because they accumulate gradually, it's easy to assume they all still belong to you.

The business grows.

The client base grows.

The team grows.

Yet the owner's role often looks remarkably similar to the one they had when they were working on their own.

The only difference is that now they're trying to fit leadership into a role that was never redesigned to include it.

That's where many business owners find themselves caught.

They're no longer operating like a solo business.

But they're still working like one.

Recruitment becomes the attempt to relieve that pressure.

The danger is that when we recruit from that place, we often build a role around today's frustrations rather than tomorrow's business.

We create a position filled with tasks we'd rather not do anymore.

Answer the phones.

Manage the inbox.

Book appointments.

Prepare invoices.

Follow up enquiries.

Organise files.

There's nothing wrong with any of those responsibilities.

But a collection of tasks doesn't automatically become a well-designed role.

A role should exist because it creates an outcome for the business.

Not simply because it removes work from the owner.

That's why one of the first exercises we complete with clients is mapping their current role before we even begin discussing the new one.

We want to understand:

✔️ What are you currently responsible for?

✔️ What only you can do?

✔️ What could somebody else take ownership of?

✔️ Where are you spending time because you choose to, rather than because you need to?

✔️ What responsibilities belong with you as the leader of the business?

Those conversations often uncover opportunities the business owner hadn't even considered.

Sometimes they're spending hours every week completing work that somebody else could confidently own.

Sometimes they're still involved in decisions simply because they've never consciously handed over the authority to make them.

Sometimes they've become the approval process for work that doesn't actually require their approval anymore.

And sometimes they realise they've spent so long working in the business that they've almost stopped working on it altogether.

Recruitment should create more than capacity.

It should create space for you to step into the role your business actually needs you to play.

Because if bringing another person into the business doesn't allow your own role to evolve, there's a good chance you've added another employee without creating another leader.

Only once you've stepped back and looked honestly at your own role does it make sense to start designing somebody else's.

This is the stage where many businesses rush ahead because it feels familiar. Writing a list of responsibilities is tangible. It feels productive. It feels like recruitment is finally underway.

But there's a big difference between documenting tasks and designing a role.

One is simply a list of activities.

The other is a position that exists for a purpose within the business.

That's why we encourage clients to stop thinking about what they want someone to do and start thinking about what they want someone to own.

Those aren't the same thing.

Anyone can complete a checklist of tasks.

Ownership is different.

Ownership means understanding the outcome you're responsible for and having the authority to make decisions that help achieve it.

It means solving problems instead of simply identifying them.

It means taking responsibility for results, rather than waiting for instructions.

That's the difference between hiring another pair of hands and hiring somebody who genuinely strengthens your business.

When you're designing a new role, we're far more interested in questions like:

✔️ What outcomes will this person own?

✔️ What decisions can they make without checking with you?

✔️ Where does their responsibility begin and end?

✔️ Who do they collaborate with?

✔️ How does their success contribute to the success of the wider business?

Those questions create clarity.

Not just for you.

For the person who eventually joins your team.

Because one of the biggest frustrations for new employees isn't a lack of ability.

It's a lack of clarity.

When people aren't sure what's expected of them, where their authority sits or how success will be measured, they naturally hesitate. They seek approval more often, ask more questions and become cautious about making decisions.

Not because they're incapable.

Because the business has never clearly shown them where ownership begins.

A well-designed role gives people confidence before they even start.

It tells them exactly why the role exists, what they're responsible for achieving and how they'll contribute to the bigger picture.

That's what allows capable people to step into ownership.

Not because you asked them to.

Because you've intentionally designed a role that allows them to.

Once you've defined your culture, understood your own role and intentionally designed the new one, there's one final piece that many businesses still overlook.

Success.

Not after the person has started.

Not at the end of probation.

Not during their first performance review.

Before recruitment even begins.

One of the questions we ask almost every client is,

It sounds like a straightforward question, but it's often one of the hardest for business owners to answer.

Not because they don't know what they want.

Because they've never actually stopped to define it.

When you're in the middle of a busy season, success is easy to confuse with relief. You're imagining having somebody else answer the phones, manage the inbox or prepare proposals because those are the things currently taking up your time. The work feels overwhelming, so naturally your focus goes to removing some of that pressure.

There's nothing wrong with wanting that.

But those things aren't success.

They're simply activities.

Success isn't that somebody answers the phone.

Success is that your clients consistently receive an exceptional experience because every call is answered professionally and followed through.

Success isn't that somebody manages your inbox.

It's that opportunities stop slipping through the cracks because communication is timely, organised and consistent.

Success isn't that somebody prepares proposals.

It's that more proposals convert into clients because the process is no longer delayed by an already overwhelmed business owner trying to fit everything into their day.

The task itself isn't where the value is created.

The value comes from what changes because that task is now being done well by the right person.

That's a subtle distinction, but it completely changes the way you think about recruitment.

Instead of asking yourself what you want somebody to do, you begin asking what you want your business to become because they're part of it.

Perhaps success means you've created enough capacity to take on another twenty clients.

Perhaps it means you've finally stepped out of the day-to-day operations and into the leadership role your business has needed for years.

Perhaps your team has become more confident because they're no longer waiting for you to make every decision.

Or perhaps success simply means you're finishing work at five o'clock and spending your evenings with your family instead of catching up on administration that didn't fit into the day.

Those are business outcomes.

And business outcomes should always drive recruitment decisions.

One of the unintended consequences of recruiting from a list of responsibilities is that the entire recruitment process becomes focused on tasks rather than contribution.

The conversation quickly becomes centred around technical capability.

Can they use Xero?

Have they worked with your CRM before?

Can they use Canva?

Have they worked in this industry?

Those are all reasonable questions to ask.

But on their own, they don't tell you whether somebody is going to become an exceptional member of your team.

Think about the best employee, contractor or colleague you've ever worked with.

It's unlikely that what made them memorable was their ability to use a particular software program.

What you probably remember is the way they approached their work.

They noticed problems before they became problems.

They looked for solutions instead of waiting for instructions.

They communicated proactively.

They took ownership of outcomes rather than simply completing the task they were given.

They made your job easier because they thought like part of the business, rather than somebody simply ticking boxes.

Those qualities rarely appear because somebody happened to have the right technical skills.

More often, they appear because the business has clearly defined what success looks like, where ownership sits and how that person contributes to the bigger picture.

People perform differently when they understand why their role exists.

When somebody knows they're responsible for creating an exceptional client experience, they'll naturally make decisions that support that outcome.

When they know they're responsible for keeping projects moving, they'll begin solving problems before they become bottlenecks.

When they understand how their role contributes to the success of the business, they stop thinking like somebody completing tasks and start thinking like somebody creating results.

That's the difference between recruiting somebody to do a job and recruiting somebody to strengthen your business.

Another misconception we see all the time is that recruitment finishes once somebody signs their employment contract or accepts your contractor agreement.

In reality, that's simply where the next stage begins.

Everything you've defined before recruitment now becomes the foundation for everything that follows. The culture you've articulated becomes the culture you onboard people into. The role you've intentionally designed becomes the framework for delegation, accountability and decision making. The definition of success you've created becomes the benchmark for every conversation during their first week, first month and first year.

Without that foundation, onboarding often becomes reactive.

People are shown where everything is kept.

They're taught how to use the software.

They're introduced to the team.

Then everyone quietly hopes they'll work the rest out as they go.

Sometimes they do.

More often, they don't.

Not because they weren't the right hire.

Because nobody has ever clearly explained what success actually looks like in the role.

Without that clarity, capable people naturally become cautious. They seek approval before making decisions, hesitate to take ownership and constantly second guess whether they're doing the right thing. Over time, the business owner becomes the person every question flows back to, not because the team lacks capability, but because the expectations were never clearly defined in the first place.

That's why we believe recruitment isn't a standalone process.

It's a leadership process.

The recruitment simply introduces the person.

Leadership is what helps them succeed.

Ash + Emerald HQ 💎