Hiring young and hiring smart
This post is part of a series celebrating SmartSign’s 15th Anniversary. In 15 posts, we reflect on lessons learned, good experiences, and company-wide changes that brought us to this milestone of success.
Hiring is a meticulous process. Even if potential candidates have appropriate work experience, not everyone is the right fit in the organizational puzzle. To that end, SmartSign’s founders employ a valuable lesson that they’ve learned over the course of their hiring experience: hire young, hire smart, and trust in youth.
As CEO Blair Brewster puts it, “Young people are funnier, smarter, more creative, and more connected.”
And saving on salary doesn’t have to come at the expense of desire and motivation. Because young professionals tend to have less job experience than their older counterparts, Bryan Bowers, SmartSign’s CFO, adds that “Young people are cheaper.”
From Victor1558.
Although this dogma is highly revered by SmartSign’s founders, it’s crucial to be flexible in situations when recruiting younger candidates doesn’t add the most value to the company. Tahyna Colon, SmartSign’s Call Center Manager, remarked:
“In the call center we do hire young. Most people are out of college and this is their first job. For many of them, once a year or two has passed, they leave us for other opportunities. But with the significant amount of training on all the products, we need team members that will remain with SmartSign at least a few years. Since I have been in charge of the call center, we haven’t just brought in younger individuals, but we’ve hired people who have more responsibilities and stability in their life, such as older people and young men and women with children, so I know they can be on-board for more than just a year or two of their time.”
One of SmartSign’s greatest advantages has been its ability to adapt quickly and deftly since its inception 15 years ago. This is certainly the case when it comes to Blair and Bryan’s talent for adding new members to the company.