In the rush to fill positions, many hiring managers often overlook critical steps when scaling their teams. Without conducting a thorough team assessment before creating job descriptions, they risk ending up with skill gaps, which can result in a lack of agility. Rather than simply adding headcount, it’s essential to take a more strategic approach, understanding which additional skill sets and capabilities will truly add value to the team and organization — both now and in the future.

Here’s how to conduct a comprehensive assessment before creating that job description.

Step 1: Strategically align goals

Begin by aligning your team’s goals with organizational objectives. While this may seem obvious, it helps you anticipate evolving skill requirements, ensuring you hire talent who not only meets current demands but also fuels future agility and growth.

For example, imagine your company is moving toward data-driven marketing but isn’t quite there yet. That strategic direction will likely require employees to have skills like data analysis and strategic thinking, as well as technical proficiency in digital marketing platforms, social media analytics, and marketing automation tools. Therefore, a marketing leader will want to seek candidates who can demonstrate deep technical skills.

Communicate transparently with candidates about future skill needs to ensure they won’t feel underutilized if all their skills can’t be leveraged immediately upon hire.

Step 2: Conduct talent planning

Conduct a thorough talent assessment to identify both your whole team’s and individual members’ existing skills and potential gaps.

Individual skills inventories and tools — for example, the 9Box performance assessment, 360-degree assessments, individual development plans, and talent performance reviews — can help you evaluate each team member’s hard and soft skills. This can provide deep insight into which skills and capabilities are missing on your team. Without these insights, you may default to repurposing positions held by long-term employees who lack the skillsets needed for the future but have historical knowledge critical for business continuity.

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) can help you identify where your team has excelled and where it has faced challenges while working on previous projects, cross-functional engagements, or organizational changes. Ask cross-functional stakeholders to weigh in on your assessment to ensure a new hire will fill team gaps in alignment with stakeholders’ needs.

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