5 Mistakes Church Leaders Make When Hiring

Every time you hire a new staff member your staff culture is momentarily disrupted and will soon change for the better or worse. The outcome is determined by the strength of the culture and the quality of the staff you select.

There is often an unintentional tendency to conduct what seems more like a parade of friends than a process to hire the best candidate. 

The position doesn’t matter, and it can be the pastor, technical personnel, someone on the children’s ministry team, a worship leader, or support staff, etc. There is always the danger of parading pedigrees and picking who’s popular rather than digging deep and remaining diligent through the process.

Whether your church is large or small, every person you select to serve on staff matters in a big way. Each one carries the culture, vision, and heart of your church. One misaligned staff person can truly hurt the team. 

Releasing a staff member is much more complicated than hiring one.

And because this is true, there is an inherent temptation to think about hiring as relatively easy and therefore lighten up in the process. Big mistake. Dig in, do your homework, and make wise choices.

1) Lowering standards

When you are short a staff member, either someone else carries those additional responsibilities, or the job doesn’t get done. That creates pressure. Time passes, someone becomes overloaded, balls are dropped, and the cracks start to show and reveal themselves in your ministry.

Your pressure increases. 

Soon, if a candidate says they love Jesus and likes coffee, they start looking pretty good. Yes, that’s exaggerated, but if you’ve been hiring for a while, you know what I mean.

Set your hiring criteria and hold firmly to it. Never lower your standards.

It’s far better to wait than to settle and make the wrong hire. You are not looking for a perfect person, but you do want the right person.

If you hire a part time temporary staff member to help keep things moving forward, always remember there’s a reason you asked for a temporary commitment. It’s easy for that person to start looking really good, but that doesn’t mean you should make them a permanent hire.

Hold to your standards.

2) Surrendering to politics

A leader’s personality matters, of course it does. In John Maxwell’s book, The 5 Levels of Leadership, Level 2 reminds us that people follow you because they like you. But if personality and likeability are the primary reasons you are hiring someone, you are making a mistake.

Hiring someone you know can be a great advantage. It’s smart to hire people from within your church when you can. But hiring buddies, good friends or an influential person’s son or daughter primarily because of the relationship rather than competency needs to be avoided at all costs.

Don’t give in to political pressure when hiring.  Hold strong. Each candidate must be able to stand on their own merit and capable of doing the job.

Making good hiring decisions requires courage to hold fast to your values. Never surrender your convictions for the sake of making people happy.

Making progress is always better than manufacturing peace.

3) Rushing the process

If the person is worth hiring, and God is in the process, there is no need to panic and hire fast. You won’t lose them if they are the right person and called by God to serve on your team. Take your time.

Taking your time doesn’t mean to go slow. Keep moving. You should be doing something nearly every day in a hiring process. It may take months to find the right person, that’s OK. The principal idea is to cover all your bases and don’t cheat the process. 

One good rule of thumb is to have three good candidates that you would hire before you select one. This isn’t always possible, but the closer you adhere to that practice the better your hires will be.

*Take your time when hiring. You won’t lose the right person if they are called by God to serve on your team.

If you’ve made a good hire the team will not remain the same, healthy changes will come and the outcomes will be noticeably better.

4) Unwilling to ask the hard questions

It’s easy to see how this happens. You like the person, they like you, and you share good chemistry. You have a relational approach, and so before you know it, it feels like you are good friends. But you don’t really know the person yet, not like you need to.

This sets you up to skip the more difficult questions. Most of us have done this. For example, I’ve skipped asking about theological issues, temptations they face, or fears they battle. That’s a mistake. Or specific things such as belief about tithing, their personal prayer life, or recent mistakes they’ve made.

Asking the hard questions isn’t done with a harsh spirit, or in a way that makes the hiring interview uncomfortable. It’s about expressing appropriate maturity between you and the candidate to genuinely get to know each other.

This includes calling references. A practical tip here is to always ask for at least one or two more references than are listed on the resume.

Asking the hard questions in the interview process is much better than making the hard decisions when you must release someone from the team.

5) Failing to involve a group

No matter how smart you are, or how much experience you have, hiring someone by yourself is a mistake. Your personal perspective is good, but it’s too narrow. You need input from others to make the best choice.

If you are the pastor of a small church, ask two or three business leaders in your church to help you. If you are a staff person in a large church, it’s important to form a well-selected team of at least three people from your staff.

Even five interviewers are not too many. This doesn’t mean you surrender the decision to a group vote, and there is usually a final decision-maker, typically the new hire’s direct report. However, if that decision-maker is wise, they will listen carefully to the input and opinions of the team.

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Avoid these five mistakes, and you’ll make better hires!