Varieties : Tactical vs. Strategic Hires

 When organisations hire people, we should each be judging if they meet one of two criteria :

1. Tactical : they can be productive within a few days on the job, and they will endure for at least 3 months; for example : 

• "compliance officer's day to day work"
• "help managers chase people"

2. Strategic : they may take a few weeks to be productive, but before hiring we have already determined that we would want to work with them for 2-5 years ( personally, I tend to think in-terms of 5-10 years) ; for example : 

• "design and ensure that all regulatory risk is P&L-efficient"
• "ensure that the talent supply of the company is unbreakable"

Broadly organisations have short-term needs (tactical : predictable) and long-term needs (strategic : unpredictable).

TACTICAL

• we know WHAT we want people to do NOW
• candidate must be aligned with the WHAT-NOW
• time-frames usually less than 1 year : 

3 months is a productive stay for a waiter (good "enough") 

9 months is a productive stay for a finance clerk (2 years is pushing it ... )

• basically you expect these people to be misaligned from their role very quickly

STRATEGIC

• we don't know WHAT IF XYZ will happen LATER
• candidate must be aligned with the WHAT-IF
• time-frames usually more than 2 years : 

"I need you to find X-type of problems, and when you find them, fix them"

Photo credit : CC0 license, Akshay Gupta