I know what it’s like when someone leaves…there’s that strange feeling that someone’s missing. That glaringly empty desk mocks you as you pass by it for weeks. Everyone in the office is a bit sad and tense waiting to see what kind of new person will show up and what it will mean for them.

If it’s a loan officer who left, the support staff is probably hoping like little kids on Christmas Eve that you don’t hire someone with a chip on their shoulder and an ego the size of Texas. If it’s a support person you’re hoping you can find someone quickly, and someone who won’t need a lot of training, since you’re probably the one picking up the slack - answering the phones, wrangling with lenders, or getting the marketing out the door.

In truth everyone’s hopes and needs are riding on just one thing. Want to guess what it is?

How many quality candidates you can find, and how fast you can find them. Face it - you could start interviews tomorrow if you were interested in interviewing “B” or “C” candidates. But before you react and do something dumb, let me warn you. If you’re going to thrive as a business, have marketing and sales strategies that work, and have customers who want to do or refer more business to you, the number one way to screw it up is to hire “B” or “C” players consistently.

The biggest problem facing small business employers today is hiring the wrong people, and the biggest reason they HIRE the wrong people is that they START with the wrong candidates. You know that’s true – just think about your sales pipeline: if you start with prospects with no credit or income, you’re not going to make a lot of money originating home loans!

The man I learned the mortgage business from used to say, “Good loans never get any better, bad loans only get worse.” Same thing with employees.

But time and again you're at hiring decision time and your choice is the lesser of two evils. That may be an interviewing or decision issue, but more likely it's a pipeline issue.

If you fill up your candidate pipeline with the right people, your chances of making an “A” hire improve dramatically. Still, time after time employers turn to the worst, most expensive places to find new blood - the same old tired ads in the same places. Stop wasting money and time generating job applicants who can’t or won’t do the work.

Click on the link below to get straightforward talk about making better choices through better thinking: