By Sarah Fulton, The Lee Group
If you talk with enough business leaders, you’ll hear some version of this: “We just can’t find the right people.” I get it. It feels like a hiring problem. Most of the time, it’s not.
What I see more often is this: companies aren’t struggling to find people, they’re struggling to be clear and intentional about how they make people decisions. And in today’s market, that matters more than ever. Good people are working. Great people have options. So if you’re trying to strengthen your organization through hiring, retention or development, you can’t afford to be casual about it. You have to be thoughtful all the way through.
Over the years, I’ve started to look at this through a simple lens. Before you say “we need to hire,” there are three questions you need to be able to clearly answer:
1. What problem are we actually trying to solve?
This is where things go off track first. Growth creates pressure. Teams get stretched. Something feels off, so the default answer becomes: “We need another person.” But adding a person doesn’t fix a vague problem. It usually just spreads the confusion around.
Is the issue workload? Process? Accountability? A gap in skill? A gap in leadership?
And just as important, is this something that actually requires a new hire?
Sometimes the better answer is already inside your organization. It might look like promoting someone who’s ready for more responsibility. It might mean redistributing tasks across your team in a way that better aligns with people’s strengths. It might be fixing a process that’s creating unnecessary work in the first place.
These options don’t just solve the immediate problem, they also strengthen your team in a way hiring alone can’t.
If you can’t clearly define the problem, you can’t choose the right solution. And that’s when you end up with someone who looked right on paper but never quite fits in real life.
2. What does success actually look like in this role?
Most job descriptions try to cover everything. In doing that, they usually miss the most important thing: clarity. Instead of asking, “What could this person do?” a better question is: What is needed by this person to be successful here? What should be accomplished in the first 90 days? What kind of environment is this person walking into? What does a win look like for you? When you can answer those questions clearly, everything gets easier. Your interviews improve. Your decisions get sharper. And candidates know what they’re signing up for, which matters more than people think.
3. Do we have a process that actually supports a good decision?
This is the part that gets overlooked the most. Interviewing is one of the highest-impact decisions a business makes, but a lot of companies treat it like a series of conversations instead of a process. Different people ask different questions. Feedback is all over the place. Decisions get made on gut feel. There’s nothing wrong with instinct, but it works a lot better when it’s supported by structure. A consistent process doesn’t make hiring rigid. It makes it repeatable. It gives your team a shared way to evaluate candidates and reduces the risk of making a quick decision you have to unwind later.
When you can answer these three questions clearly, hiring gets a lot less frustrating and a lot more effective. That’s really the difference. It’s not just about finding people. It’s about how intentional you are with the decisions that lead up to them.
Because the people you want to hire don’t need you. They’re already working somewhere else. They’re choosing where to go next. And the companies that consistently win aren’t the ones posting the most jobs. They’re the ones who are the most clear, the most consistent and the most thoughtful about what they’re building and who they’re asking to help build it.
Sarah Fulton is president of staffing operations at The Lee Group, a leading staffing and workforce solutions firm serving Hampton Roads and Richmond. With 17 years of experience helping businesses hire better and grow stronger, Fulton is passionate about solving workforce challenges with practical, people-first strategies. She writes to share insights from the front lines of hiring and to help local employers navigate what’s next. Reach her at sarah.fulton@theleegroup.com or visit www.theleegroup.com to learn more.
