Why Reactionary Growth Hiring Is Bad For Culture

There are very few instances where “reactionary” anything returns a positive result–hiring is definitely not one of them. The best businesses are proactive. Any time a business is waiting to react, they are already behind.

Ryan Chacon

 There are very few instances where “reactionary” anything returns a positive result–hiring is definitely not one of them. The best businesses are proactive. Any time a business is waiting to react,  they are  already behind.

When it comes to the human capital and thus the culture of a company the risk is too high to be reactionary.

The basic way to describe “reactionary hiring” is when a company waits until a job is vacant and then simply picks any potential candidate to fill the slot as quickly as possible. This results in a lack of proper due diligence to evaluate the candidate for the most important attribute. An attribute you can’t assess when reading a resume or even meeting them one time–cultural fit.

Cultural fit means something different at every company. At Leverege, we want intelligent, inquisitive, and collaborative people. Our employees should genuinely love coming into the office everyday. The environment we strive to create is built on humility, curiosity, and dedication. Our ideal candidates are self-starters with unbridled enthusiasm for building new products and solving hard problems.  

Simply picking anyone to fill a slot puts the culture of a company at risk. At a small startup, one employee can have a drastic impact on the culture around them.There are many factors to consider that can completely derail a team with one improper hire, shifting what was a great work environment in to a hostile or self-serving one. If you’re willing to risk the company culture for any single hire, then you simply don’t care about culture. Meaning you don’t care about your employees and failure is only a matter of time.

The culture of your company drives success–production is great, but without the proper culture you will never get the production you need to succeed.

Every culture is different. There is no “right” culture, only wrong culture fits. At Leverege, cultural fit is the most important hiring factor when it comes to bringing on a new team member. Don’t get me wrong, we want you to have the right background or technical skills, but even the most skilled person put in the wrong culture can yield catastrophic results for the company and individual alike. If the person we hire does not fit the culture it affects everyone negatively, slowing the company growth and we can’t afford that

One of the most cliche sayings applies here. ”Great things take time”. With hiring it is more true than ever.

Simply hiring because someone’s resume looks good is insane. A resume only tells part of the story and one hire can drastically shift the culture.

We try to think about it this way; Imagine what type of environment you thrive in. Now consider what type of environment makes you uncomfortable and unproductive. Can you be productive in the latter? If not, why would you want anyone to be put in that position? Reactionary hiring leads to this situation more often than not.

The best thing a company can do is always be hiring. Always assess talent and take the time to predict future human capital needs. This will ensure that you’re never put in a reactionary situation or state of mind where you may be forced to sacrifice one of, if not the most important attribute when it comes to hiring a new team member, cultural fit.

We don’t take it lightly, the greatest companies in the world know what their culture is and know how to hire for it. We took the time to establish our culture, believe it in and promised to never be willing to sacrifice it for any hire.


Ryan Chacon

Chief Marketing Officer

Ryan is an experienced tech entrepreneur with a passion for building businesses, digital marketing, and company culture. In his free time he enjoys playing golf, doing Crossfit, and experiencing live music.

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