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OPPORTUNISTIC HIRING AND EMPLOYEE FIT

Laurie L. Levesque

Most research on selection processes and organizational fit deals with existing, unfilled positions where expectations and tasks are known and measurable. This article instead evaluates the rea- sons, processes, and implications of opportunistic hiring—hiring employees before their johs exist. Examples fiom an exploratory study show how "fit"factors into selection decisions. A typol- ogy is offered along the dimensions of whether opportunistic hiring is used to meet immediate or anticipated needs and the extent to which these needs are articulated prior to selection. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

When firms fill vacated positions or add redundant jobs, traditional routines may be triggered to help clarify the positions (e.g., job analysis, writing or updating job descrip- tions, determining selection criteria). The best entry conditions for new workers are believed to be when joh expectations are well articulated, since this clarity is associated with successful assimilation, strong organi- zational commitment, and lowered intent to quit (Ostroff & Kozlowski, 1992).

The organizational fit of the new employee is another aspect of the entry experience linked to these positive out- comes. New employee fit can be conceptu- alized in multiple ways, including fit with organizational values or with the demands and offerings of the job (Edwards, 1991). Fit

can be improved post-hire if either the employee or the job is altered to enhance congruence. Workers with flexihie johs may adapt them to better match their personal interests or abihties (Bell & Staw, 1989; Jones, 1986), particularly if they learned during socialization that it is acceptahle to do so (Ashforth & Saks, 1996; Black & Ash- ford, 1995). Conversely, workers may decide to change themselves or their personal val- ues to enhance alignment with the new joh or employer (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979).

Most research on person-organization fit deals with documented vacancies, or exist- ing positions where expectations, tasks, and the culture of the firm are known and meas- urahle. This research instead examines the hiring process in situations where the jobs

Correspondence to: Laurie L. Levesque, Suffolk University, Frank Sawyer School of Management, Manage- ment Department, 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108, (617) 573-8389, [email protected]

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Despite its presence being noted decades ago in large, bureaucratic organizations and in smaller, younger firms OH rarely is discussed in the human resource literature.

have not yet been created. Few studies have explored the reasons, processes, and implica- tions of this practice, especially extreme cases where only the harest sketch of a job is outlined in advance. The goal is to begin to understand how "fit" factors into selection decisions and job creation for employees hired in an opportunistic manner, and to fos- ter academic interest in this understudied human resource practice.

Opportunistic Hiring

Opportunistic hiring (OH) is the creation of a job or the amalgamation of previously distrib- uted tasks into one position for an employee who is new to the firm (Granovetter, 1974; Miner, 1985). The result is an idiosyncratic job, rather than the filling of a vacancy or replication of an existing position (Miner, 1987). A survey of 272 professional, techni- cal, and managerial workers found that 35% reported being brought into newly created positions (Granovetter, 1974, 1995). How- ever, this staffing strategy goes unmentioned in traditional personnel texts and in most research on human resource practices, which instead describe hiring for well-defined jobs. Idiosyncratic hiring decisions are actually dis- couraged by some academics for fear these decisions may jeopardize organizational effec- tiveness (Graves & Karren, 1996).

It is plausible that contrarian staffing strategies lead to opportunistic hiring. Dur- ing economic downturns, larger firms use contrarian staffing techniques to seek out additional employees, depending on their forecasted HR needs and goals, such as man- aging their workforce age distribution or fos- tering career and employee development (Greer & Ireland, 1992). This counter-cycli- cal hiring of key managerial and professional employees focuses on firm strategy (Greer, 1984; Greer & Ireland, 1992), with aspira- tions of improving future firm performance via increased workforce diversity and avoid- ance of personnel shortages (Greer, Ireland, & Wingender, 2001). Gounter-cyclical hiring also is associated with the underutihzation of employees, but existing work in this area does not clarify if new hires begin work before jobs exist for them. It is therefore

unclear if opportunistic hiring is the cause for their theorized underutilization, or if the employees have defined jobs but a temporary shortage of tasks or work. Greer and col- leagues do not report data that could help discern whether employees hired counter- cyclically took on newly created jobs or were instead replacements for jobs vacated during an economic decline.

Despite its presence being noted decades ago in large, bureaucratic organizations (Miner, 1987) and in smaller, younger firms (Granovetter, 1974), OH rarely is discussed in the human resource literature. Scholars have yet to devote significant attention to the formation of new jobs and associated out- comes at the individual, group, or organiza- tional levels (Aldrich, 1999). Few field stud- ies have been conducted in new ventures where jobs routinely are created during firm evolution (Aldrich, 1999) and where founders grow their firms by hiring talented people whom they happen to meet (Aldrich & Baker, 1994; Granovetter, 1974). With few exceptions (Gogswell, 1972; Rollag, 2004), organizational newcomers are conceptual- ized as fiUing established vacancies; thus, we know little about jobs formed specifically/or, with, or hy them. This omission is significant, since opportunistically hired employees are unlikely to have the same selection, assimila- tion, and early on-the-job experiences as coworkers who fill vacated but established positions. One area of organization study that could benefit from the investigation of OH and simultaneously help inform it is that of newcomer fit. Gurrent conceptualizations and methods to assess fit and entry exĵ eri- ences do not account for undefined or evolv- ing jobs, yet the latter are heavily influenced by fit.

Fit and Opportunistic Hiring

Prior research on idiosyncratic jobs focuses on firm-level predictors such as how jobs are shaped around individuals or how these jobs affect workgroups. Yet, the emergence of new jobs for opportunistically hired employees must take into account how they and their jobs are part of the larger organization. Extant research approaches employee fit

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit 303

from multiple angles, such as a person's fit with his or her job (P-J fit), workgroup (P-G fit), and organization (P-0 fit). In the sec- tions that follow, these types of fit are dis- cussed in conjunction with OH.

Person-joh fit. Maximizing the fit hetween person and job is the primary goal of the tra- ditional hiring process (Bowen, Ledford, & Nathan, 1991). Person-job fit is defined as either the match between employee desires and what the job actually supplies, or as the match between employee abilities and job demands (Edwards, 1991). P-J fit is used to improve selection decisions because it is cor- related with higher job satisfaction and lower intentions to quit (Cable & DeRue, 2002; Saks & Ashforth, 2002). Current methods for conceptualizing P-J fit include comparing perceptions of skills and abilities to per- ceived requirements of the job (Cable & Judge, 1996; Lauver & Kristof-Brown, 2001) or comparing the worker's preferences to what the job actually offers (Edwards, 1991). Person-job fit has rarely compared the docu- mented requirements of a job to a worker's measured competencies (Edwards, 1991). Although a newcomer's skills and prefer- ences can be measured, it is unclear how the job's requirements or offerings would be assessed for P-J fit if hiring was done -prior to the creation or full specification of that job.

Person-group fit. P-G fit is the compatibility between employees and their workgroup (Kristof, 1996). Selecting applicants on the basis of P-G fit is believed to increase team cohesiveness and effectiveness when new- comers are chosen for complementary skills or qualities that increase the heterogeneity of the team's repertoire of skills (Werbel & Johnson, 2001). Alternatively, selection can maximize supplementary fit with the work- group (Muchinsky & Monahan, 1987) by seeking similar values, goals, personality, or skills (Kristof, 1996). Thus, in the case of OH, firms might identify complementary skills that would be useful to the existing workgroup and later create a job around that new worker. OH could be useful in firms hir- ing for jobs partially modeled after current positions, but where the workers selected

must have personalities and skills that are compatible with the work team.

Person-organization fit. Employees who per- ceive a greater fit with their employer are less likely to leave the firm (Cable & Parsons, 1999; Chatman, 1991), are more committed to it (Saks & Ashforth, 2002), and have higher work satisfaction (Kristof-Brown, Jansen, & Colbert, 2002). Employees are drawn to firms with which they believe them- selves to be compatible (Schneider, 1987). For example, job candidates who want deci- sion-making responsibilities, creative envi- ronments, and control over their jobs will self-select into start-ups (Brookler, 1992). Conversely, founders hire based on skills, long-term potential, and fit with the organi- zation (Baron, Hannan, & Burton, 1999). As hiring decisions associated with P-O fit focus on global assessments rather than on task requirements of the job, this theory should provide useful selection criteria for staffing jobs yet to be created.

There is a paucity of information about opportunistic hiring, given its documented existence (Aldrich, 1999; Granovetter, 1974; Miner, 1987). This article aims to renew serious interest in opportunistic hiring by contextually and theoretically exploring the practice and its relationship to employee fit, using exploratory data to do so. In the study reported here, CEOs, founders, and human resource professionals were asked about OH under the auspices of a larger project looking at influences on role creation in small and medium-sized high-tech firms. This explor- atory evidence was analyzed to determine how P-J fit, P-G fit, and P-O fit relate to opportunistic hiring and to the subsequent job that gets created. These findings will be used to direct further research on the impli- cations of opportunistic hiring and its link to person-job, person-group, and person-organ- ization fit.

Methods

In the study reported here, CEOs, founders, and human resource professionals were asked about OH under the auspices of a larger project looking at infiuences on role creation in small and medium-sized high-tech firms.

Sample

A convenience sample of 48 software devel- opment firms. Web development firms, and

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The majority of sampled firms (62.5%) hired opportunistically for both technical and nontechnical positions.

e-commerce solution providers from one medium-sized and two small northern U.S. cities were used. Eight firms were used to test interview questions. The remaining 40 firms were the primary data sources: 19 start-up companies and 21 estahlished com- panies. All companies were involved in a larger study in 2000-2001. Theoretical strat- ified sampling was used to distrihute firms across age (new/established) and staff-size categories. Firms less than three years old were considered start-ups; older firms were labeled as established. Seventeen firms had 24 or fewer employees (eight start-ups), twelve firms had 25-49 employees (six start- ups), and 11 firms had 50 or more employees (five start-ups).

Data Collection and Coding

Face-to-face interviews of approximately 45—60 minutes were conducted with founders and CEOs, with a few exceptions. One CEO invited the HR director to join him, four others requested that the HR director be the primary interviewee, and two CEOs asked that the HR director and the director of operations be interviewed together instead. Although all interviewees who stated their firms had not used oppor- tunistic hiring were CEOs, no other differ- ences were found in the responses of CEOs and HR directors on this topic'

Interviewees were questioned about opportunistic hiring using an amalgamated definition based on Granovetter's (1974) use of the term and lay descriptions collected during a pilot project. They were told it referred to bringing on a new employee who had desired skills even though the job was not yet created. If their firms had engaged in such a practice, they were prompted about the types of jobs these employees held, and the successes and difficulties associated with hiring in this manner. Information about opportunistic hiring also was obtained indi- rectly from responses to prior questions asked during the interviews, such as queries about employees who were the first to per- form their jobs in that firm.

Interviews were tape-recorded with per- mission and fully transcribed. To explore the

domain of opportunistic hiring and identify why and how it was used in these firms, an open-ended, iterative coding process was used (Strauss, 1987). All references to or dis- cussions of opportunistic hiring in the tran- scripts were identified. Then, two coders marked text segments as pertaining to per- son-job fit, person-group fit, or person- organization fit. The coders had a 68% initial agreement, low for some studies but expected due to the difficulty of double-cod- ing some text segments (i.e., segments of text that dealt with more than one type of fit). Each discrepancy was discussed and resolved for complete agreement. Next, OH issues were identified for each fit category, being allocated to subcategories as necessary.

Findings

The interviewees in this study spoke of a range of needs, expectations, and successes associated with hiring new employees before their jobs were created. The findings provide an overview of the reasons and issues that arose with the use of OH, along with a dis- cussion of how fit was relevant to the selec- tion of employees and creation of jobs for and by them.

When asked about OH, interviewees were neither surprised by nor unfamiliar with the concept. Though 35% of respon- dents said their firms had not used oppor- tunistic hiring, a third of those said they would if finances allowed. The majority of sampled firms (62.5%) hired opportunisti- cally for both technical and nontechnical positions: engineer, lead engineer, technical or customer support, quality assurance, net- work engineer, competency manager, sales- person, VP of corporate development, mar- keting, executive-level presentations, and office assistant.

Managers and founders reported that using OH as a staffing strategy had benefits as well as potential negative outcomes, as forces within and external to firms both encouraged and discouraged this hiring tech- nique and its repeated use. Firms used opportunistic hiring strategically, to achieve diverse goals, including growth, new product development, start-up launch, and unbur-

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit • 305

dening current workers. OH also allowed firms to exploit technologies and markets, avoid production and service delays by hav- ing the right persons on staff at the time they were needed, optimize the mix of employee skills, and expand hy bringing in people with hroadly useful skills.

The interviewees noted that OH was used to meet current and anticipated needs. Sometimes those needs were well articu- lated, other times interviewees described ' opportunistic hires as actually assisting in the identification and definition of the firm's needs and, thus, their own jobs. Also reported were individual-level and manage- ment issues that discouraged the repeated use of OH, or acted to prevent it in the first place. Examples included employees who had been unable to successfully create jobs in line with firm expectations or needs, who did not fit the firm, or who were unable to handle the ambiguity associated with initially undefined jobs. Founders and CEOs indi- cated their reluctance to use this hiring prac- tice a second time if an opportunistically hired employee later seemed deficient in some aspect of his or her new job. Addition- ally, the financial burden incurred by OH was assessed in terms of how quickly those employees were expected or able to con- tribute to the firm's bottom line.

The findings are organized around two key themes that emerged across interviewees' comments: (a) current versus future needs and (b) the extent to which these johs were defined in advance. Though related, each was an important factor and often discussed in terms of fit. And although the definition of OH that was offered during the research interviews was narrow and focused on bring- ing in people for their skills before the jobs were created, interviewees additionally described OH through the lens of person- organization fit and person-group fit.

Current vs. Future Need

Some opportunistic hiring was done to fill immediate or exigent needs. That is, firms identified particular skills or work experi- ences that were needed on staff to accom- plish short- or near-term goals. Comments

centered around hiring for skill sets that cur- rent employees lacked, since firms were looking to compensate for weaknesses and fill existing gaps or voids. In the former cases, when it was identified that employees were unable to perform certain tasks or did them poorly, OH meant bringing someone in whose job would be built around that need. Firms of various ages addressed this need in a relatively similar manner, and their com- ments centered on complementary fit. They gave examples where the need was identified first and a candidate with the necessary abil- ities was then sought. Other examples were cited where the idea for the job developed only after meeting individuals who had desired ahilities.

To fulfill identified future needs meant anticipatory hiring: planning for a specific job that was not immediately necessary and bringing someone in early. Temporary tasks or projects were typically provided if the work was to be unavailable for an extended period or if the new hire needed an interim project to become familiar with the industry or the firm's particular application of techni- cal knowledge. For small firms in particular, the decision to hire early came down to finances. Hiring to fill a future need meant weighing the financial ramifications of immediately paying a salary to a worker whose permanent job was to be created later and whose full capacity to generate revenues would be subsequently delayed.

Not all interviewees hired opportunisti- cally fill future needs. As one CEO explained, small firms generally do not have the luxury of hiring someone solely because they like the person's skills, experience, and what he or she m-ight do for the firm. Con- versely, several founders thought it to be less of a financial risk to outlay a few months of salary earlier than budgeted if doing so ensured that a highly skilled employee deemed necessary for the core work would be on staff and up to speed by the time he or she was needed. This readiness was seen as helping expedite products or services to con- sumers quickly enough to capture a prof- itable market share. The cost of not hiring that person prior to needing his or her skill set and knowledge could engender negative

Some oppor- tunistic hiring was clone to fill immediate or exigent needs.

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The link between current and future staffing needs was that fit would evolve as the jobs themselves emerged.

repercussions such as a backlog of work or the firm heing unable to meet development and sales schedules. These problems ulti- mately could affect the stahility and growth potential of a new and fragile firm (Magnus, 2002). Therefore, once aware of the avail- ability of a highly qualified job seeker, firms paid attention and attempted to hire quickly. Firms with venture capital backing had a financial buffer that allowed greater flexibil- ity to ensure that the right talent was on the payroll. In larger firms, or those with more formalized budgeting, spontaneous hiring was described as being restricted by cycles of financial allocation and expenditure, where deviations from staffing plans necessitated the approval of investors or a board of direc- tors. One strategy to circumvent these finan- cial or procedural limitations was to keep potential hires in mind until funding was available and the positions or needs were outlined, and then entice them away from their current employers.

Indicative of hoth the fast-growth nature of some of these firms and of the technology boom of 2000-2001 during which time these data were collected was how growing firms indicated their desire to "fill this place." They described seeking talented peo- ple who could adapt and figure out how to identify and accomplish the firm's basic functional needs and also pick up slack both within and outside hroad areas of responsi- bility. In the firm's early years, these employ- ees "wore many hats" to cover multiple jobs that required skills spanning multiple func- tional areas. Though some firms expressed an expectation that opportunistically hired employees would find ways to he useful prior to settling into permanent positions, a couple of estahlished firms said they had not staffed this way hecause there were no "loose ends." That is, all the work that needed to he done was already assigned to current employees.

The quotes in Table I exemplify how fit issues figured into interviewees' discussion of the timing of opportunistic hires.^ Interview- ees considered P-J fit, P-G fit, and P-O fit in addressing current needs through oppor- tunistic hiring. An example related to P-O fit was provided by the HR director of a three- year-old tech firm with about 300 employees.

He suggested that the uncertainty and unplanned nature of his firm's internal envi- ronment meant that opportunistic hires needed to "act and react and immediately add value no matter what the situation is, given the forecast changed almost weekly here as a start-up . . . [We needed people] who could actually emhrace that type of environment."

Interviewees also framed future oppor- tunistic hiring with these same categories of fit, as seen in the representative quotes dis- played in the last column of Tahle I. Firms indicated that anticipatory OH was done with the various types of fit in mind. The link hetween current and future staffing needs was that fit would evolve as the jobs them- selves emerged. Staffing in this manner was at times described using the sports metaphor of hiring "the best athlete," suggesting that general skills were useful and could later be focused in one particular area. If the employee knew the business fundamentals, poor person-job fit could later be compen- sated for by training to improve specific skills or by altering the joh itself. The founder of an older, small firm descrihed OH and P-J fit hy saying, "[That employee] was the last one hired and we are still evaluating what he's going to excel at or be good at. When the time comes and we can point him toward advanced stuff, that's what we're going to do." Some start-ups and self-identified fast- growth firms described the cognitive equiva- lent hy saying they were guided by the "smart-person principle"—hiring bright, hard-working, and motivated people without a specific job in mind for them. In these instances, the immediate concerns ahout fit were glohal, with specific P-J fit left for later consideration as the job took shape.

Range of Joh Definition

In addition to the issue of future or current need, opportunistically created johs varied in the extent to which they were outlined for the new hires a priori. Interviewees described these employees as taking on jobs that ranged from being more or less specified (but new) positions to those not outlined at all. While discussing the delineation of these johs, they referenced various fit issues.

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit 307

Sample Interviewee Statements Categorized by Type of Fit and Timing of Need

Current Need Future Need

P-J Fit Needs/ Supplies

P-J Fit Abilities/ Demands

P-G Fit Complementary

P-G Fit Stipflementary

P-O Fit

We took this person and basieally had the diseussion of, "This is what we need. Does that work with you?" We had diseussed it briefly or vaguely in the past. And so, if there was input from him, as well as my own input, that was used to really craft his role, (young firm; < 25 empi)*

The company is at a growth point . . . there is a need for certain individuals. We will continue the interview process hoping that we bump into tbe person on tbe street, no matter for wbat position and whether it is already filled. . . . If we see the person that is very qualified, an expert, we will get them in and then find a spot for them, (young firm; 25—49 empl)

We are discovering weaknesses that we have, which means we need to bring someone on to fill the void. All of these positions I have described . . . are new positions per se, but tbey grow out of weaknesses tbat we perceive inside, (older firm; < 25 empl)

We . . . needed somebody at a basic level to do some of tbe grunt work, wbicb freed [tbe programmers] up to bandle tbe bigber-level stuff, (older firm; 2 5 - 4 9 empl)

We were biring an executive, and we found somebody wbo was a tremendous cultural fit, [bad] terrific leadersbip capabilities, but on tbe tecbnical or experiential side wasn't quite where we wanted somebody to be. We bired him and we are putting a development plan in place to get him there, (young firm; 100+ empl)

When you start a company, basically you bave no structure. So you put some structure in it. So it is an evolutionary process really because tbings evolve based on tbe person tbat we bire. So it would be very flexible in terms of tbe job description, in terms of all sorts of responsibilities, and just maximize and let people define wbat areas tbey are comfortable, (young firm; < 25 empl)

We bave bired people wbo bad a great skill set, wbom we really liked and tbougbt tbey would fit in, even tbougb we did not bave a current job open for tbem. We knew we would need tbem down the road, so we brought them on . . . We will slot an individual for a certain set of responsibilities knowing that three years from now tbey will be doing sometbing vastly different. They fill other holes—in doing so they also learn the business, ratber tban baving tbem assume a temporar}' assignment, (older firm; 50+ empl)

From a staffing point of view, you wouldn't bire tbe guy, because we are full, but we anticipate some tbings coming and a target of opportunity. He came along and came to our attention, and we said, "We ougbt to [bire bim]," so we did. (older firm; 25—49 empl)

It basn't happened but it will happen. We are actively recruiting that individual. . . . What we feel is that that person has some strengths. So what is being done by one individual migbt basically separate it out and say tbat one person bas been burdened witb too mucb of tbe work, (young firm; < 25 empl)

Even if we were in sometbing approximating a steady state, we would still try to bire tbose people tbat really fit witb tbe company and with the other people, (young; < 25 empl)

* Indicates category of firm based on number of employees and whether the firm was founded more than (older) or less than (young) three years prior.

Person-job fit. In describing the extent that opportunistically created jobs were articu- lated, interviewees referenced both the needs/supplies and abilities/demands forms of person-job fit. When making an oppor- tunistic hiring decision with needs/supplies P-J fit, firms compared the desires of the potential employee to what the job could offer. Prehire discussions focused on the

tasks or responsibilities job prospects were seeking and other preferences they might have. The purpose of these discussions was to explore how the job might be tailored to potential employees. For example, the founder of a small, new firm said, "What we intend is to let people define what their com- fort level is, and the focus." In other cases, employers recognized these preferences

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Though it seems counterintuitive to use P-J fit as the main hiring criterion for a job not yet created, these firms simply focused on expected demands. At best, that meant detailing what the joh might entail, and other times it meant only having a hunch as to which particular expertise or skill set would become the core of the job and using that as the selection guideline.

could not be known completely in advance. Thus, they focused on how the job could evolve as the incumbent's preferences sur- faced, concurrent with the evolution and identification of the firm's needs. As noted earlier, several newer firms reported seeking employees with wide-ranging skills who could perform a variety of tasks and/or cover multiple functional areas. Eventually, those broad jobs were carved into several positions, some of which came about opportunistically if the employer happened to meet and hire someone capable of taking an offloaded seg- ment of that work. This type of hiring was considered easier than creating and articu- lating jobs completely from scratch, since incumbents who gave away some of their work had personal knowledge of the skills or abilities needed and could therefore provide direction for the development of these new and narrower jobs. Similarly, in a few young firms, current employees were given the flex- ibility to craft new or altered jobs that better met their interests, but not until new hires were brought in to help fill the voids about to be created by these vacancies.

Person-job fit based on abilities/demands was mentioned when specific tasks and responsibilities were already slated for a job. As an example, one founder desired to replicate himself. That is, he hoped to hire someone who could, like himself, work alongside a sales representative to present their technology to potential clients and then be able to "close the deal." The job was to be created around that skill and the founder's need to reduce the number of sales calls he made. Generally, when existing employees were unable to man- age their current workload or if they lacked the skills to handle new tasks, managers kept an eye out for people they could hire to help meet those needs. OH made this carving-up possi- ble, since portions of work were shed for peo- ple recently met and hired. Additionally, when a firm needed to fill the voids mentioned ear- lier (i.e., tasks not being done by other employ- ees), new hires had to help define their own jobs, particularly if the tasks were unfamiliar to existing employees or not enough work had been slated for their positions.

An abbreviated opportunistic hiring process meant offering jobs to candidates, at

times due to the combination of a candidate's immediate availability and a firm's desire to remain competitive by adapting quickly. Though it seems counterintuitive to use P-J fit as the main hiring criterion for a job not yet created, these firms simply focused on expected demands. At best, that meant detail- ing what the job might entail, and other times it meant only having a hunch as to which par- ticular expertise or skill set would become the core of the job and using that as the selection guideline. Minimal articulation was enough to spur hiring; with incomplete information, the jobs were created after or around the new employees. As outlined above, OH with an eye to abilities/demands P-J fit was done to "grab the particular skill set" that a firm believed might be needed, regardless of whether the skills targeted were managerial, technical, marketing, strategy, or a combination.

Though mentioned less often than P-J fit, both types of person-group fit were important in the opportunistic hiring process. On average, interviewees made two times as many statements about complemen- tary P-G fit than supplementary P-G fit. For the former, interviewees described how OH allowed them to strategically employ people whose skills were not represented in the firm, but would be of use in the future. In describing OH and complementary fit, the founder of an established small firm stated, "Perhaps dotting i's and crossing t's is not his strong point, so we felt the need to bring in someone to compensate for that . . . more detail-oriented. They work very well together, marching in step." The CEO of an older firm with more than 100 employees indicated that opportunistic hires were those people who "have already done the job and can teach us how to do it or what is needed." In such a case, a sense exists that the newcomer is importing knowledge to replicate a posi- tion held in a previous firm and will adapt it to current circumstances and needs.

When using supplementary fit as a selec- tion criterion, older firms focused on redis- tributing workloads by carving portions off existing jobs to create new ones or by repli- cating current skills, as in the sales example given earlier. There were a few comments directed toward providing training, when the

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit • 309

firms had a strong sense of what tasks new- comers would be doing and how they should be completed. Newer firms also reported needing to take broad jobs and divide them into several discrete positions, though the latter were more ambiguous. The founder of a small, new firm put it this way: "[The new hires'] attitudes were really positive, and they were sponges. They wanted to absorb every- thing and they were willing to work the extra hours . . . and that's the kind of personality I've been looking for, especially when you do an opportunistic hire." His firm was identify- ing potential employees who were similar to existing employees (supplementary P-G fit) and who would fit into the culture (P-O fit).

P-O fit was also the basis for creating opportunistic jobs. The founder of an estab- lished small firm said he tried to screen out people looking for a career track or a spe- cific job, but if "they just want to work and learn some things and have a good time . . . that's more in tune with what I do." The most extreme was using P-O fit as the sole hiring criterion, banking on their future use or simply to increase staff size and signal the firm's growth (i.e., success). A few firms that hired opportunistically solely based on P-O fit said they later observed person-job mismatches far greater than that which could be overcome by tinkering with the jobs to better tailor them to the employees. A COO of an Internet access and Web-site development firm gave another reason for not hiring opportunistically based solely on P-O fit. He stated that aside from working within the budget, bringing someone on without a clear job only because he or she really fit well with the firm's culture would be unproductive. A related problem blamed on the Internet boom was the P-O misfit of executives who vacated corporate positions, excited by the prospect of finding their for- tunes in start-ups, assuming they would be able to fit right in. They arrived at start-ups expecting to have a personal staff, defined operating procedures, and frequent deci- sion-making meetings. The founder of an established firm with fewer than 50 employ- ees noted that there was not always a good match between an executive and the small- firm environment:

If you come out of a corporate industry, [small firms] will chew you up and spit you out very quickly. You can't expect that your role will be defined in this small way and that you will have to have this many people working for you. Instead, you have to stay until 10 tonight because this has to be pho- tocopied so that it can go out tomorrow.

P-O fit also was used in combination with the other types of fit. An example of a com- bined P-J and P-O fit problem came from an established firm with a staff of 15 employees. They hired a programmer who showed initia- tive during the recruitment and interviewing process. The founder said, "But it didn't work out. I don't think it was personality—she got along with everybody. It was skill set. Some people actually prove incredibly fast that they have the backing or education. She didn't quite have the education that she needed to have." He elaborated that, once on board, she could not adapt fast enough to the.changing technological environment and was unable to learn at the pace needed by his company. Since there was no way the job could be altered to allow her to keep up, she left the firm. Other examples were given where hiring for cultural fit with the firm was expected to work out, since the development of that per- son's job was seen as a process evolving over time. The founder of a new firm with fewer than 100 employees said:

If somebody would come iñ, and they do seem like they have a good skill set, there are things they have done in their back- ground that would fit. We are looking at a person right now—I can't say how success- ful she will be because she is not here yet, but we are thinking we will make a place for her, whether it is in marketing or whatever.

Discussion

The findings from this exploratory study raise interesting and important human resource issues for opportunistic hiring and for per- son-job fit, person-group fit, and person- organization fit. All three types of fit were used as criteria for opportunistic hiring, though the type and the degree to which any

A few firms that hired opportu- nistically solely based on P-O fit said they later observed person-job mismatches far greater than that which could be overcome h)' tinkering with the jobs to better tailor them to the employees.

310 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

one was emphasized over another varied. These criteria were applied to jobs that were well articulated as well as to those that were nonexistent or vaguely described, whether the jobs were to be created immediately or were slated for future development. The typology of opportunistic hires presented in Figure 1 depicts one perspective on oppor- tunistic hiring. The vertical axis represents the extent to which tasks, work processes, and responsibilities are delineated prior to a job's creation. The horizontal axis represents the timing of the need for that position. These subsequent four categories of oppor- tunistically created jobs (Implementer, Builder, Expediter, and Explorer) are described in the next few sections, followed by a more general discussion of measures of fit as they relate to the two axes.

Implementer

Implementers are opportunistic hires who are brought into a firm to take on relatively well- defined, but new, positions that satisfy a

firm's current needs. Since much of what they will do is laid out for them in advance, firms may rely most heavily on abilities/demands P-J fit as a selection crite- rion. Examples of Implementers are those people specifically hired to take a segment of work off of a current employee's shoulders or to perform a job that managers were able to outline in some detail based on the firm's needs. OH was encouraged by current employees who wished either to move into wholly new positions or to alter their existing jobs by shedding tasks to a newcomer. Such a redistribution of tasks with a newly hired Implementer would require coordination, including horizontal and informal communi- cation (Argote, 1982; Van de Ven, Delbecq, & Koenig, 1976), as incumbents or their man- agers outline specific tasks and responsibili- ties. Job development in these cases would seem strongly influenced by the needs of the workgroup. As such, hiring decisions could be optimized via P-G fit if commonly agreed- upon expectations are noted prior to selecting a new employee (Werbel & Cilliland, 1999).

Jo b

IO I

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Pos

Expediter

Implementer

Prt

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Explorer

Builder

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Timing of Need

Figure 1 . Four Categories of Opportunistic Hires.

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit • 311

By using P-G fit as an additional hiring crite- rion for this well-defined position, the firm is better able to determine how the tasks for that single job integrate with other employ- ees' jobs. Implementers are likely to experi- ence the least role amhiguity compared to the other OH categories, because their johs are better defined and urgently needed—the lat- ter being relevant because they are able to focus and contribute quickly.

Builder

Firms that delineate johs needed for the future will seek Builders. These individuals are hired into fairly well-defined positions, although the jobs will not be needed for some time. The motivation for hiring early is heightened in firms that have rapidly chang- ing and competitive environments, such that delays in acquiring specific talent or getting those individuals up to speed can create missed deadlines—for instance, hy delaying a product launch. Builders can he selected hased on P-J fit by considering their skills given the known demands of the joh, as well as their preferences and needs. The situation allows some flexibility, and it is expected that builders may experience low to moderate role ambiguity depending on whether or not they are given specific tasks as interim work (or have to do prework to get their jobs off tbe ground). These new hires may face signifi- cant downtime until they are called on to perform the specific tasks for which they were hired. Like any newcomer, a desire to be productive combined with a naive under- standing of the firm may cause Builders to unintentionally interfere with others' work.

Expediter

The examples of Expediters given earlier were for johs not known a priori. Even if some tasks are outlined in advance, these johs are defined as needs are identified. When managers or founders lack the expert- ise to create certain positions or are unahle to anticipate the firm's needs in a particular area, they hire people who can do so. These Expediters are hired at that moment hecause there is a sense that they can help the firm

meet the existing crush of work, something common for start-ups that are expanding. In some instances, it may be outlined exactly how they will do that; in others, a job title may be used as a place marker for what is helieved to be needed although the specifics may not be known (the latter being easier to do with venture capital hacking). Expediters are very much involved in creating and exe- cuting their own johs and making themselves immediately useful. New firms in particular descrihed having many needs and not enough hodies to cover the work. These indi- viduals are therefore brought in to meet immediate needs, with an assumption that their jobs will naturally form as they assist others and identify the best ways in which they can help the firm reach its goals.

Explorer

Firms that hire individuals simply hecause they seem to fit into the culture, but with no spe- cific jobs in mind or pressing needs for them to assist with, are bringing in Explorers. Firms may hire Explorers if there is a professed need to "fill this place" with bodies to spur, or at least signal, growth. These opportunistic hires are characterized as having strong P-O fit and supplementary P-G fit. The earlier examples of hiring the "best athletes" may fall in this cate- gory as all-around skilled people who can fig- ure out how to he useful. They will likely need to have a high tolerance for ambiguity if no job is outlined for them or if they must find their own place in the organization.

Although all opportunistic hires are hrought in before their jobs are created, the last two categories are those johs that are largely defined or identified only after the newcomer is hired. Further, the difference hetween Expediter and Explorer is simply the urgency of the need for that individual. If the reason for an undefined job is that no one in the firm has expertise to create particular johs, candidates may be sougbt who are per- ceived as heing capable of taking that lead. For that reason, P-J fit was less useful when incumbents themselves were expected to take the lead in developing the johs (e.g.. Expediters and Explorers). More reliance was placed on P-O fit than P-J fit if the job

The motivation for hiring early is heightened in firms that have rapidly changing and competitive environments, such that delays in acquiring specific talent or getting those individtials tip to speed can create missed deadlines—for instance, by delaying a product launch.

3 i 2 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

Assessing performance is harder when the means and the outcomes of the job are ambiguous...

requirements were not, or could not, be detailed prior to hiring. Allowing this degree of discretion requires coworkers and supervi- sors to make adjustments and develop coor- dination mechanisms with the newly evolv- ing job. New hires were chosen because firms believed they would be "good addi- tions," and once a place was found for or by each of them, they could contribute. This use of P-O fit as the selection criterion focused on generally desirable abilities or traits, referencing the need for employees to fit into the firm's culture and pace of work.

Additional Implications for Managers

An interesting nonfinding in this study was that no interviewee cited concerns about the legal implications of OH. This fact can be accounted for in several ways. First, during the data collection period, there was a boom in technology and Internet firms, and the business press hyped the labor shortage and the need to hire quickly. Magazine articles featured techniques to outsmart and outhire competitors, not legal guidelines. Second, founders in smaller firms typically shared basic HR duties and were responsible for much of the hiring. Third, many government regulations prohibiting employment discrimi- nation apply only to firms with 15 or more employees (Clardy, 2003), although we note that even larger firms can find ways to hire preferred candidates through internal waivers that describe new positions and provide justi- fication for specific new hires (Miner, 1987).

In our litigious society, a related HR issue of importance to managers is the con- sistent and fair use of performance appraisals—a process inherently difficult to apply to opportunistic hires. Whereas man- agers are able to train and socialize new hires for jobs they themselves may once have held or created, managers know less about oppor- tunistic positions, particularly Expediters and Explorers. Assessing performance is harder when the means and the outcomes of the job are ambiguous, and more so when using a standardized form developed for eval- uating fully specified jobs. Further, for those jobs that emerge over a period of months, the timing of the first performance appraisal is

an issue—how soon after hiring should the individual be assessed? Although reasonable to time an appraisal to coincide with the end of a new employee's probationary period, one could argue that until the job has taken shape, standardized assessments will not capture the nature of the work that was done, needs that were met, and the ambigu- ity inherent in creating a job. Interviewees in this study talked about ramp-up times and settling-in periods while Expediters and Explorers learned about the firm and created jobs based on their own preferences and firm needs. The situation may require either delaying the appraisal if the job does not take shape for several months or having an inter- mediate performance appraisal that focuses on efforts and plans rather than outcomes. For instance, a Builder may have temporary tasks for several months and be relatively new to the planned job at the time of the first scheduled appraisal. Similarly, an Explorer may need time to diagnose firm needs and personal skills in order to forge a job. Con- cerns then turn to the fairness of separate- but-equal assessment plans, and possible bias if opportunistic hires are perceived to be producing less than colleagues during the job development phase.

A job tailored to the employee is likely to evolve into a close match for his or her pref- erences and skills. It follows that neither supervisors nor coworkers will ever have held that specific job because it is both newly cre- ated and suited to the individual. With a par- tial or superficial understanding of these idiosyncratic jobs, supervisor assessments of fit may be susceptible to biases. They may focus too heavily on visible outcomes and known successes, or they may improperly attribute the reasons for the new hire's initial underutilization, any unintentional interfer- ence with coworkers' jobs, or delays and problems arising from struggles to create a new job. Awareness and acknowledgment of potential problems that Implementers, Builders, Expediters, and Explorers encounter can help managers understand the job creation process and encourage two- way communication to improve it. The man- ager can do this too by carefully signaling the extent to which opportunistic hires will

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit • 313

receive assistance in creating their jobs, the timing of any transitions from temporary work to more specific jobs, the trajectory or goals of the job, if known, and the perform- ance appraisal process and realistic expecta- tions for an evolving and new job.

Limitations and Future Research

This exploratory study has demonstrated that opportunistic hiring exists and firms use it as a flexible selection criterion to meet various needs. The data report on the actions of small to medium high-tech firms during 2001, a period known for economic munifi- cence and a short supply of labor caused by the technology boom. Although generaliz- ability of these findings may be limited to similar economic conditions, the findings also may be correlated with a firm's growth and a proactive staffing agenda.

A related limitation of this exploratory study is the size of the sampled firms. It is possible that firm growth played a significant role in the use of OH, such as the heavier focus on complementary P-G fit compared to supplementary P-G fit. Most of the firms sampled had fewer than 100 employees, and discussion of their firms' growth centered on adding skill sets, rather than duplicating existing positions. These methodological lim- itations translate into boundary conditions for generalizability across industry, firm size, and economic conditions. However, previous work by Miner (1985) and Granovetter (1974) already has established that OH is used in large firms and in other industries. Future research is needed to establish the prevalence of this technique, which will require the collection of base-rate data across industries, economic conditions, and types of jobs. Although OH could be justified more for nonstandardized jobs than for highly prescribed ones, these data showed that a variety of positions were created for or by new employees, such as management, staff, functional heads, and programmers. Larger studies of OH are needed to ascertain which jobs are most commonly and success- fully created this way and why. Economic conditions may affect the ease of collecting these data, since it may be less common to

hire for future needs when skilled labor is easy to attract. Such information could be used to enhance the design of future studies of contrarian staffing strategies to explore the purpose and impact of those jobs within the firm.

The findings from this study provide speculative evidence as to how firms concep- tualize a potential employee's fit with an opportunistically created job. A methodolog- ical limitation of the study was that inter- viewees were asked to recall instances of opportunistic hiring. Their recollections and sense making may be less accurate in retro- spect than if the data had been collected through direct observation, journaling, or some other technique that can capture deci- sion-making details and contextual nuances throughout the process of job creation. Inter- viewees were not asked to objectively assess any one individual's fit, because the focus of the data collection was on whether OH occurred within the firm and how it played out. Interviewee responses to open-ended questions and their intuitive and retrospec- tive assessments highlighted fit. The rela- tionship between OH and fit needs clarifica- tion—in particular, how P-J fit and P-G fit evolve over time for newly created positions. While future research might utilize empirical measures of P-G or P-O fit, it may be prob- lematic to apply objective P-J fit measures if the latter were developed solely for use with jobs that are outlined a priori.

This issue raises the critical question: How does one measure the characteristics or needs of a nonexistent or evolving job? These data suggest that managers and founders assessed P-J fit broadly, and with ambiguous terms, in some instances focusing on skills/needs and other times on supplies/demands. One solution may be to control for the extent to which the job has been articulated prior to the new hire coming on board by examining the depth and breadth of a job description, if it exists, and then benchmarking against the job descriptions of established jobs within the same firm.

Are different types of fit used as the basis for hiring decisions regarding the four cate- gories of OH? The optimal types and weights of fit assessments for these categories would

The findings from this study provide speculative evidence as to how firms conceptualize a potential employee's fit with an opportunistica lly created job.

314 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

P-O fit was more important than P-J fit, because a new employee paralyzed by high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity would be unable to create a joh that helped the firm meet its needs.

need to be determined. Anecdotally at least, the type of fit most relied on during selection appears related to the extent a firm articu- lated the tasks that needed to be done. The extent of job definition for opportunistic hires covered the gamut from clearly identi- fied tasks and goals having been specified in advance to those jobs that were barely a ker- nel of an idea. For instance, a reliance on P- J fit appeared to be less a function of hiring immediacy and more about the firm's ability to define the jobs' core tasks in advance, rec- ognizing that the boundaries, coordination mechanisms, and other aspects needed to be worked out. The expectation was that the job would develop as firm needs emerged in that general functional area. At the same time, the employee's own preferences may alter in response to new challenges or opportunities. Metzler and Hamilton (2002) proposed that selection relies more on P-O fit than P-J fit when the tasks and job behaviors cannot be clearly specified and performance standards are ambiguous. Studying their assertions within the framework of the four OH cate- gories would provide a more robust picture.

Whereas past research has focused on the strong correlation between role ambigu- ity and negative outcomes (Jackson & Schüler, 1985; Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman, 1970), the research here supports the claim that there may be situations where ambiguity is desirable because it leans toward adaptive responses that enhance organizational effec- tiveness (Van Sell, Brief, & Schüler, 1981), and where employees willingly enter into ambiguous jobs. The interviewees described various levels of ambiguity for opportunisti- cally created jobs, with Implementers and Builders having less amorphous jobs and Expediters and Explorers having jobs that were initially less defined or articulated.

Since selecting employees congruent with an organization's desired culture is believed to increase its success (Bowen et al., 1991), the high levels of job and organiza- tional ambiguity some opportunistic hires encounter (e.g., in rapid-growth firms) mean they must not only be tolerant of it, but capa- ble of being effective in that milieu (Kotter & Sathe, 1978). The employers in this study parroted this belief, and some went further to

say they sought employees who would thrive in this atmosphere. For them, P-O fit was more important than P-J fit, because a new employee paralyzed by high levels of uncer- tainty and ambiguity would be unable to cre- ate a job that helped the firm meet its needs.

The interviewees in this study identified some problems they encountered with OH. We know that behavior in ambiguous situa- tions in general is driven by individual differ- ences (Mischel, 1977). Organizational scien- tists and managers alike would find value in understanding the challenges faced by employ- ees who are hired opportunistically, how those may differ across the four types of OH jobs, and whether difficulties can be predicted based on how the job emerges and evolves.

An exciting area needing further investi- gation is the analysis of the fit of opportunis- tic hires in conjunction with job evolution. The two axes from Figure 1 provide direction to examine both the timing of the need for that job (immediate, future) and the extent to which it was delineated in advance for the new hire (tasks detailed prior to hire versus tasks not at all determined). A longitudinal assessment could better expose how fit deci- sions are made for the four categories of OH over time, and how those correlate with the direct and indirect outcomes of these jobs.

As one example, when examining estab- lished jobs, it is fairly common to have new hires assess their own fit (Edwards, 1991) so as to make predictions about turnover and performance. Although data were not col- lected from new hires, the founders and managers interviewed in this study did not emphasize concerns about initial P-J misfit, likely because these jobs were expected to form around individuals. This finding chal- lenges common wisdom around P-J fit. Prior studies have examined it in the context of pre-existing jobs in relatively established firms where a poor initial P-J fit has been linked to low postentry P-J fit, which itself is correlated with intent to quit and low job sat- isfaction (Saks & Ashforth, 2002). The underlying assumption has been that job knowledge is codified and shared, such that new hires are presented with seemingly objective and complete job descriptions. Inaccurate prefit perceptions are thus

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit 3¡5

believed to come from insufficient knowl- edge of a firm or its jobs (Cable & Judge, 1996; Kristof, 1996), resulting in decreased perceptions of postentry P-J and P-O fit (Saks & Ashforth, 2002). If perceptions about P-J fit for existing jobs decrease over time, we might conversely theorize that posthire P-J fit will continue to increase for newly created johs due to the incumbents' involvement in establishing the joh itself. P-J fit may be enhanced as the job becomes increasingly idiosyncratic and is defined by and around the incumbent. Exploration of longitudinal fit as it relates to opportunistic hiring would thus expose the nuances of how it is used for selection, as well as how it is conceptualized by managers and by incum- bents at different stages of job creation.

Conclusions

This article has attempted to spark interest in the practice of opportunistic hiring and demonstrate its common use, at least during a period of low unemployment. Opportunis- tic hiring stands in contrast to hiring processes that focus on filling vacancies by first identifying the job requirements, responsibilities, and goals to be accom- plished, and only then evaluating suitable job candidates. In the latter case, managers are able to enhance positive outcomes through actions such as training, concrete job expec- tations, and standardized performance evalu- ations. Opportunistic hiring, however, is more like putting the cart before the metaphorical horse or, stated otherwise, put- ting the new employee before the job. New- comers hired into these emerging jobs are

valued for their expertise and assumed ahility to create these positions on their own. Opportunistically created jobs are influenced by new employees' preferences, past experi- ences, and personalities, as well as by adjust- ments to evolving firm or workgroup needs, changing job demands, and the discovery of their own interests and developing skills. These employees tailor the job to their own preferences while trying to meet the organi- zation's needs—whether the latter have been defined by or for them.

The evidence described previously sug- gests variety in the reasons firms use OH, the success of said employees, and the informal assessments of person-job, person-group, and person-organization fit used to make the ini- tial selection decisions. It was proposed that four types of opportunistic jobs exist, as determined by the immediate or future need and by the extent to which the job tasks might be articulated in advance. Overall, this under- studied area of organizational behavior has the potential to provide insight into job cre- ation, maturing rather than static measures of fit, and the evolution of employee relation- ships with job, workgroup, and employer.

This article benefited from feedback given by Jeanne Wilson, Regina O'Neill, anonymous reviewers, and, in particular. Editor Motohiro Morishima. Financial sup- port from the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship and the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership made this research possible. An earlier version of this study was presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Eastern Academy of Manage- ment, NewYork City, 2001.

LAURIE L . LEVESQUE is an assistant professor of management at the Frank Sawyer School of Management at Suffolk University and assistant chair of the Management Department. She holds a PhD and an MS from Carnegie Mellon University, an MSOB from the University of Hartford, and a BS in business administration from the University of New Hampshire. Her articles have appeared in the JoMrwoi of Organiza- tional Behavior, the Joumal of Action Research, the Joumal of Management, the Jour- nal of Management Education, and Sex Roles. Her research interests include role cre- ation, organizational processes and employee experiences in new or evolving firms, and seasonal businesses.

316 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

NOTES

1. The one exception was an HR director who par- ticipated in a pilot interview and whose prior work experience was at a large corporation. He was shocked by the idea of OH and predicted employees would go in their own directions, though he conceded he had created his own position at the current firm.

2. Pseudonyms and limited firm descriptions are used in the interview quotes to maintain anonymity.

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