The senior executive you intend to recruit is waiting for the year-end bonus, but your business cannot afford to wait.

Recently a founder asked me: "Meiji, I've set my sights on a senior executive who is truly outstanding, but he wants to collect his year-end bonus and won't be available to join the team until March next year. What am I supposed to do with my business in the first quarter of next year?"

This question pops up almost every year-end. If you wait, the business cannot afford the delay; if you don't wait, you will be reluctant to give up the right person you finally found.

But my first reaction after hearing this is: When he officially joins the company and when he starts working with you to study the business are two completely different matters. For a truly competent senior executive, onboarding can wait, but solving problems cannot.

Many founders are still recruiting senior executives in the way of the last era. They conduct interviews first, send out offers, wait for the candidate to leave their previous job, let them officially join, and then give them three months to get familiar with the business.

But for today's startups, where can they get so much spare time?

For many growing enterprises, the window for a senior executive to prove their ability may only be three months in total. If you wait for half a year for him, and after he joins, he tells you again: "I need to do research first, get to know the team first, and pick up the business step by step."

Then what on earth have you been waiting for during these six months?

Of course, I am not suggesting that a person who is still employed should violate the non-compete agreement, disclose the trade secrets of their current employer, or work for you for free before signing the labor contract. All cooperation carried out in advance must be compliant: no conflict of interest, no access to sensitive information, clear cooperation boundaries, sign agreements when necessary, and pay for the work as you should.

But compliance does not mean that nothing can be done. He can get to know your business first, discuss the real problems with you, attend a strategy meeting, and even solve a specific problem first in the form of a consultant, mentor or project partner.

Onboarding means signing a labor contract, while joining the team means building a relationship of solving problems together. The labor relationship can start next year, but the mutual judgment and running-in should start right now.

Whether a person is really suitable for a startup depends not only on what he has done in the past, but also on how he handles uncertain situations.

If he is really interested in your company and this position, he will take the initiative to discuss with you: Over the next six months, how often should we communicate? What can I learn about right now? What problems can I research in advance? How can I avoid affecting my current job while allowing both sides to gradually confirm whether we are suitable to work together?

He may not give you the answer immediately, but he will take the initiative to design a path leading to the answer.

On the contrary, if a person pushes everything to after onboarding: "It's not convenient for me to know the situation now, we can talk about it when I officially join."

Then you need to make a careful judgment: Is it the objective compliance boundary, or does he not have the real willingness to get involved yet? Do you really want to hire a senior executive, or does he just want to change a job?

A senior executive of a startup is not someone who starts working only after all conditions are fully met. He must be able to take the initiative to explore in uncertainty, find solutions with limited resources, know when to do the work by himself, when to ask the founder for help, and when to bring in external capabilities.

What you are looking for is not someone who starts to understand your business only in March next year, but someone who is willing to look at the problems with you right now.

Therefore, what founders really need to solve now is not "whether I should wait for him", but to split the problem into parts.

First, what are the operational problems that must be solved in the first quarter of next year?

Second, must this problem be solved after the full-time senior executive joins the team, or can we find an "available expert" to get involved right now?

Third, can this senior executive you fancy verify the compatibility for both sides in advance through a diagnosis, a project or a real business campaign?

Many people always want to finish everything at one go: find a person, sign him, let him join, and then hand over all the problems to him.

But for really critical positions, the final decision should never be made only through one interview and one resume.

Solve a problem together first, and then decide whether to fight a battle together.

This person may first be your consultant, mentor or project collaborator, and later become a full-time senior executive; or you may find after cooperation that he is very good at solving a certain type of problem, but not suitable to join your organization.

Both of these results have much lower costs than waiting until March to finish the onboarding process and then spending another three months finding out that you two are not a good match.

But there is still a practical problem: where can founders find such people?

If you look for consultants in the market temporarily, it is easy to pick the wrong one. The most famous person may not fit the stage your company is in; the person who speaks best may not have really got down to practical work; the fact that he has solved other people's problems does not mean he can solve yours.

Relying only on your own personal connections is also difficult to cover the ever-changing problems of a growing enterprise. The people you know may not be good at solving this specific problem; the people who are good at this problem may not have time at the moment.

Therefore, over the years, 90li has been focusing on one thing: for growing enterprises with annual revenue ranging from 100 million to 3 billion yuan, we have long accumulated a group of real experts who have rich practical experience in actual business battles.

We not only know which company he used to work for and what results he has achieved, more importantly, we know: At what stage and what type of problems is he best at solving? What kind of founder and team are a good match for him? Whether he has spare time at the moment, in what way can he participate in the business? What things he is capable of handling, and what things you should not turn to him for.

These people may not join your company immediately, but their capabilities can be integrated into your business first. They can help you confirm the problems first, help you avoid the paths that are not worth taking, and accompany the team through a period of business campaign; you can also judge in real cooperation whether he is a good consultant, or has the potential to become your future business partner.

Do not delay the operational problems that must be solved today for the sake of the full-time candidate you plan to recruit in the future.

If you want a key senior executive to join your team next year, starting from today is not too early.

But more important than "recruiting a person as soon as possible" is: bring in the truly suitable capability first, and start solving the problem in front of you right away.

The person can join next year, but the business cannot wait until next year to start.