The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Hiring for Potential, Not Perfection
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What if your church is passing over the best future staff members because maybe you're focused on the wrong things? Today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're going to break down why hiring for potential, not perfection, might be the best staffing move you'll make this year. We explore why the mindset shift matters and the red flags you still need to look out for, and how to practically assess a candidate's long-term fit. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Also, in my other life, I am one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, we're doing a little mini-series on staff hiring and Healthy Church Staff hiring this week here on the podcast. So what if the candidate you just passed on was actually your best long-term hire but you said, no, you're not what we're looking for.
Speaker 1:Churches often reject candidates because they don't have enough experience, or maybe they don't have the perfect resume. But guess what? The best leaders aren't always fully baked. Let me repeat that. That might be the takeaway line for today for you as you hire. The best leaders aren't always fully baked. Sometimes they just need a place to grow, and that's what we're talking about today. We're going to talk about why it's time to stop hiring for perfection and start hiring, maybe, for potential. Let's frame this okay.
Speaker 1:I want to talk just briefly today about the myth of the perfect candidate, because whenever a church starts a search, they come up with a long list of everything they're looking for in that candidate and when you start, a lot of times you're looking for somebody that checks everything on that list. Everybody wants the unicorn, somebody that checks everything on that list. Everybody wants the unicorn. 15 years of experience, perfect theology, cultural fit, absolutely Charisma. You want somebody that's charismatic to boot. On top of that, the problem is that person, at least in that idealistic form, probably doesn't exist, or if they do, they're likely not available. They're happy where they are or they don't want to move to where your church is. And churches chase that ideal a lot of times and miss out on someone who's really teachable and adaptable and mission aligned and could be a really great fit at your church. So you need to ask yourself are you hiring based on fear or based on vision? Okay, because those are two totally different things.
Speaker 1:So how do you spot Todd, how do you spot potential without getting burned? Because maybe you've hired somebody based on potential in the past and you just absolutely get burned. You thought they had potential. They got there and you found out, eh, probably not. Here are some ways to spot potential without getting burned.
Speaker 1:Okay, look for patterns of growth over time. Where have they been? How have they grown? Look for a teachable spirit, look for healthy self-awareness, look for ownership of past mistakes and look for a clear hunger to learn and to serve. All of those kinds of patterns you can tell if you ask the right questions during the interview.
Speaker 1:But also, you don't want to ignore the yellow flags, like a lack of initiative or blame shifting or overconfidence, without any results. Again, doing a proper interview, doing proper interview structure, you should be able to spot not only the good things, the teachable things, the things that could actually work in your environment, but you're also able to spot those yellow flags or even the red flags, like initiative and how they may be a little overconfident and they've not really ever done it. You're not hiring a finished product. You have to remember that, but you should still be wise about their trajectory. That's the whole thing about spotting potential. You want to ask the right questions, spot the potential so you don't get burned, okay. And then, once you find somebody that you think half-baked doesn't sound like a compliment, does it? But it really is true. Maybe they don't check everything on your box, but, man, they're in the oven and they're going to be ready soon. They just need a little bit of extra help.
Speaker 1:So how do you structure a role or a position for growth? Because if you hire for potential, you have to support that development. If you hire for potential and you provide no development opportunities whatsoever, you're going to have to support that development. You will get burned. I'm just telling you and you'll be calling Todd and saying, todd, help me, help me, help me. So here's how to structure your role for growth.
Speaker 1:Okay, create a 90 day onboarding plan. This is something I do for churches. I would love to be able to help you to do this. If you need help with an onboarding plan, once you hire a new person, create a simple 90 day or onboarding plan where you're going to set some short-term wins. That's going to help them to build confidence and then, throughout that 90 days and continuing on for the length of their employment, you're going to want to give frequent feedback. That means encouragement, that means challenging them. Okay, and pair them with a mentor or a coach.
Speaker 1:If you don't have someone on your team that is a mentor or a coach, reach out to me. We've got people that I can connect you with that will serve you well. They won't be on site, but people that have been there, done that and have great experience. They can serve as a mentor or a coach. And I always recommend churches. If you have somebody internally, that's best. If you don't reach out, we'll connect you with a mentor or a coach, at least for that first 90 days, to help provide that encouragement and challenge if you don't have somebody on your team that can do that.
Speaker 1:And then you do need to build in some margin for both learning and failure. You want to give them enough latitude to be able to do the job. You can't micromanage them, but you do need to build in that margin for learning and to allow them to fail, because they're going to be brand new, particularly in your setting. So if you do this right, this is going to lead to some really cool things from your brand new staff member. It's going to lead to loyalty. It's going to lead to some long-term fruit and they're going to turn into a staff member. It's going to lead to loyalty. It's going to lead to some long-term fruit and it's going to be. They're going to turn into a staff member who's deeply aligned with your church and you won't get burned.
Speaker 1:So here's my final thought Great churches the bottom line for today. Great churches aren't built for perfect people. They're built by faithful ones who grow. So, as you're hiring new staff, if they don't tick off every box, maybe they're a little half-baked but, man, you see the potential. They could absolutely be the best staff member, the best hire that you could make in this season for your church. Agree, disagree I'd love to hear Send an email to me anytime.
Speaker 1:Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom and here at Chemistry Staffing, we're all about building healthy church staff teams and if you're a staff member, I would love for you to head over to chemistrystaffingcom, slash 2025 and take our free church staff health assessment. We've done this the last two years. This is our third year and we always have a great response and at the end of it, you're going to find out exactly where you fall on that church health spectrum that we've set up. So again, chemistrystaffingcom, slash 2025 to take the assessment. All right, thanks so much. Hope you have a great day and I'll be right back here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
