John Jonas hired a Philippines-based copywriter who wasn't the objectively best candidate available. He argues that hiring the best available person beats chasing the perfect fit: availability and fit matter more than marginal skill differences, and the cost of finding someone slightly better rarely justifies the delay.
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Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at outsourcing to the Philippines. This is episode 279. I just hired the not best ofs. So over the past few months, my. The copywriter that I have who's in the Philippines, who is really, really amazing, started getting really slow and he just couldn't keep up. He couldn't keep doing the work. And finally I said to the gentleman, said, hey, are you able to do this or not? Like, do I need to find someone else? And he responded and said, I'm so sorry. I'm dealing with some really serious health issues. I can't do this. And I said, okay, well, I'll wait if you're gonna get over these health issues, because I really like the guy. And he said, no, I can't do it. I can't continue with this. Here are a couple references to other people. And I was like, oh, that's really crappy. But okay, let me. I mean, I'm gonna try and find another copywriter. So I posted a job on onlinejobs Ph. I contacted his couple of references. I ended up finding someone really, really great. I found him from online jobs, not from his referen. And she's really great. Like, she's done a couple different projects for me, but then she insisted on getting paid a certain way and was like, yeah, we don't pay like that. That's not what we do. And she insisted on it and was like, not flexible and not willing to be paid another way. And we were like, yeah, sorry. Like, we can't. We can't do that. That's not. This is just not going to work for us. And she was like, okay, see ya. Which I thought was super weird, but okay. So I went back to my second choice. My second choice copyright. He hasn't started yet, but that's who I went back to. And the point of this whole story is that I just hired the not best person, and I hope he's just as good. But I don't know. People often come into this hiring an OFS and they think, I just want to hire the best person. And the best person isn't realistic because first of all, there's always someone better. Second, sometimes hiring the best person just isn't in the cards. Like, the amount of effort it takes to find a better person than the one you found is really, really high. Or the amount of mental effort to do that is just not worth it. Or sometimes the best person isn't the best fit for your company. So what I like to say is hire the best available person. And the best available means they're available work. Because the first two, my previous one and the first one that I hired after the previous copywriter, those aren't. They're not available. And then the best available fit for your company, that second person that, the one who I hired was really great, wasn't a good fit for the company. I guess we didn't know that when we hired her. It was just how she insisted on getting paid. So sometimes the best person isn't the right person. Sometimes the best available fit is the right person. Now, a little bit of advice on finding that best person, that best available person. So for a lot of jobs, you can post a job on onlinejobs ph and it works out well. For this copywriter position, that's not the case. It wasn't the case for me. Posting a job worked, but I ended up having to contact multiple copywriters from their profiles. And what I have found over the years is the more specific the job is, the less I can rely on posting a job because specific skills are. Are fewer and fewer. And that means there are fewer and fewer people with those skills who are actively looking for a job when I post my job. So that means I have to go out to onlinejobs ph and search profiles and start contacting people. Now, this is very simple and frankly, it takes me probably the same amount of time as it does to post a job. And then I'm only getting responses back from people who I know are pretty qualified rather than just a bunch of dumb responses from random people. So the more technical the position or the more specific the skill is, I find you need to go out and actively contact people and then not, not all of them are going to respond. Most of them aren't going to respond. Then you hire the best available person who has responded to you. Oh, last thing. Getting work done is more important than getting work done perfectly. And that's something that I've always pushed in my business. Just get the work done. It doesn't have to be perfect. And getting it done right now and getting it pushed live will tell us if it's perfect or not, and then we can modify it later. Sam.
