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 reasons, processes, and implications of opportunistic hiringhiring employees before their jobs
exist. Examples from an exploratory study show how fit factors into selection decisions. A typology 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 descriptions, determining selection criteria). The
best entry conditions for new workers are
believed to be when job expectations are well
articulated, since this clarity is associated
with successful assimilation, strong organizational 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 outcomes. New employee fit can be conceptualized 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 flexible jobs may
adapt them to better match their personal
interests or abilities (Bell & Staw, 1989;
Jones, 1986), particularly if they learned
during socialization that it is acceptable to
do so (Ashforth & Saks, 1996; Black & Ashford, 1995). Conversely, workers may decide
to change themselves or their personal values to enhance alignment with the new job
or employer (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979).
Most research on person-organization fit
deals with documented vacancies, or existing positions where expectations, tasks, and
the culture of the firm are known and measurable. This research instead examines the
hiring process in situations where the jobs

Correspondence to: Laurie L. Levesque, Suffolk University, Frank Sawyer School of Management, Management Department, 8 Ashburton Place, Boston, MA 02108, (617) 573-8389, llevesque@suffolk.edu
Human Resource Management, Fall 2005, Vol. 44, No. 3, Pp. 301317
2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
DOI: 10.1002/hrm.20072

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

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 implications of this practice, especially extreme
cases where only the barest 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 foster academic interest in this understudied
human resource practice.
Opportunistic Hiring
Opportunistic hiring (OH) is the creation of a
job or the amalgamation of previously distributed 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, technical, and managerial workers found that 35%
reported being brought into newly created
positions (Granovetter, 1974, 1995). However, 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 discouraged by some academics for fear these
decisions may jeopardize organizational effectiveness (Graves & Karren, 1996).
It is plausible that contrarian staffing
strategies lead to opportunistic hiring. During economic downturns, larger firms use
contrarian staffing techniques to seek out
additional employees, depending on their
forecasted HR needs and goals, such as managing their workforce age distribution or fostering career and employee development
(Greer & Ireland, 1992). This counter-cyclical hiring of key managerial and professional
employees focuses on firm strategy (Greer,
1984; Greer & Ireland, 1992), with aspirations of improving future firm performance
via increased workforce diversity and avoidance of personnel shortages (Greer, Ireland,
& Wingender, 2001). Counter-cyclical hiring
also is associated with the underutilization 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 colleagues do not report data that could help
discern whether employees hired countercyclically 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 outcomes at the individual, group, or organizational levels (Aldrich, 1999). Few field studies 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 (Cogswell, 1972; Rollag, 2004),
organizational newcomers are conceptualized as filling established vacancies; thus, we
know little about jobs formed specifically for,
with, or by them. This omission is significant,
since opportunistically hired employees are
unlikely to have the same selection, assimilation, 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. Current conceptualizations
and methods to assess fit and entry experiences do not account for undefined or evolving 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

from multiple angles, such as a persons fit

with his or her job (P-J fit), workgroup (P-G
fit), and organization (P-O fit). In the sections that follow, these types of fit are discussed in conjunction with OH.
Person-job fit. Maximizing the fit between
person and job is the primary goal of the traditional 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 correlated 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 perceived requirements of the job (Cable &
Judge, 1996; Lauver & Kristof-Brown, 2001)
or comparing the workers preferences to
what the job actually offers (Edwards, 1991).
Person-job fit has rarely compared the documented requirements of a job to a workers
measured competencies (Edwards, 1991).
Although a newcomers skills and preferences can be measured, it is unclear how the
jobs 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 newcomers are chosen for complementary skills
or qualities that increase the heterogeneity
of the teams repertoire of skills (Werbel &
Johnson, 2001). Alternatively, selection can
maximize supplementary fit with the workgroup (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 hiring for jobs partially modeled after current
positions, but where the workers selected

303

must have personalities and skills that are

compatible with the work team.
Person-organization fit. Employees who perceive 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 themselves to be compatible (Schneider, 1987).
For example, job candidates who want decision-making responsibilities, creative environments, 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 organization (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 exploratory 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 implications of opportunistic hiring and its link to
person-job, person-group, and person-organization fit.
Methods
Sample
A convenience sample of 48 software development firms, Web development firms, and

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.

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

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 established companies. All companies were involved in a
larger study in 20002001. Theoretical stratified sampling was used to distribute 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 2549 employees (six startups), and 11 firms had 50 or more employees
(five start-ups).
Data Collection and Coding
Face-to-face interviews of approximately
4560 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 opportunistic hiring were CEOs, no other differences were found in the responses of CEOs
and HR directors on this topic.1
Interviewees were questioned about
opportunistic hiring using an amalgamated
definition based on Granovetters (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 indirectly from responses to prior questions
asked during the interviews, such as queries
about employees who were the first to perform their jobs in that firm.
Interviews were tape-recorded with permission 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 discussions of opportunistic hiring in the transcripts were identified. Then, two coders
marked text segments as pertaining to person-job fit, person-group fit, or personorganization fit. The coders had a 68% initial
agreement, low for some studies but
expected due to the difficulty of double-coding 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 discussion of how fit was relevant to the selection 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 respondents said their firms had not used opportunistic hiring, a third of those said they
would if finances allowed. The majority of
sampled firms (62.5%) hired opportunistically for both technical and nontechnical
positions: engineer, lead engineer, technical
or customer support, quality assurance, network engineer, competency manager, salesperson, VP of corporate development, marketing, 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 technique 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

dening current workers. OH also allowed

firms to exploit technologies and markets,
avoid production and service delays by having the right persons on staff at the time they
were needed, optimize the mix of employee
skills, and expand by bringing in people with
broadly useful skills.
The interviewees noted that OH was
used to meet current and anticipated needs.
Sometimes those needs were well articulated, other times interviewees described
opportunistic hires as actually assisting in
the identification and definition of the firms
needs and, thus, their own jobs. Also
reported were individual-level and management 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 indicated their reluctance to use this hiring practice a second time if an opportunistically
hired employee later seemed deficient in
some aspect of his or her new job. Additionally, the financial burden incurred by OH
was assessed in terms of how quickly those
employees were expected or able to contribute to the firms 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 jobs 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 bringing in people for their skills before the jobs
were created, interviewees additionally
described OH through the lens of personorganization 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 experiences that were needed on staff to accomplish short- or near-term goals. Comments

centered around hiring for skill sets that current 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 comments centered on complementary fit. They
gave examples where the need was identified
first and a candidate with the necessary abilities was then sought. Other examples were
cited where the idea for the job developed
only after meeting individuals who had
desired abilities.
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 firms particular application of technical 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 opportunistically fill future needs. As one CEO
explained, small firms generally do not have
the luxury of hiring someone solely because
they like the persons skills, experience, and
what he or she might do for the firm. Conversely, 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 consumers quickly enough to capture a profitable market share. The cost of not hiring
that person prior to needing his or her skill
set and knowledge could engender negative

305

Some opportunistic hiring

was done to fill
immediate or
exigent needs.

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

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 being unable to meet development
and sales schedules. These problems ultimately could affect the stability and growth
potential of a new and fragile firm (Magnus,
2002). Therefore, once aware of the availability 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 flexibility 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 directors. One strategy to circumvent these financial 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 both the fast-growth nature
of some of these firms and of the technology
boom of 20002001 during which time
these data were collected was how growing
firms indicated their desire to fill this
place. They described seeking talented people who could adapt and figure out how to
identify and accomplish the firms basic
functional needs and also pick up slack both
within and outside broad areas of responsibility. In the firms early years, these employees wore many hats to cover multiple jobs
that required skills spanning multiple functional areas. Though some firms expressed
an expectation that opportunistically hired
employees would find ways to be useful prior
to settling into permanent positions, a couple
of established firms said they had not staffed
this way because there were no loose ends.
That is, all the work that needed to be 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.2 Interviewees considered P-J fit, P-G fit, and P-O fit in
addressing current needs through opportunistic hiring. An example related to P-O fit
was provided by the HR director of a threeyear-old tech firm with about 300 employees.

He suggested that the uncertainty and

unplanned nature of his firms internal environment 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 embrace that type of environment.
Interviewees also framed future opportunistic hiring with these same categories of
fit, as seen in the representative quotes displayed in the last column of Table I. Firms
indicated that anticipatory OH was done
with the various types of fit in mind. The link
between current and future staffing needs
was that fit would evolve as the jobs themselves 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 compensated for by training to improve specific skills
or by altering the job itself. The founder of
an older, small firm described OH and P-J fit
by saying, [That employee] was the last one
hired and we are still evaluating what hes
going to excel at or be good at. When the
time comes and we can point him toward
advanced stuff, thats what were going to
do. Some start-ups and self-identified fastgrowth firms described the cognitive equivalent by saying they were guided by the
smart-person principlehiring bright,
hard-working, and motivated people without
a specific job in mind for them. In these
instances, the immediate concerns about fit
were global, with specific P-J fit left for later
consideration as the job took shape.
Range of Job Definition
In addition to the issue of future or current
need, opportunistically created jobs 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
jobs, they referenced various fit issues.

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit

TABLE I

307

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

Current Need

Future Need

P-J Fit
Needs/
Supplies

We took this person and basically had the discussion

of, This is what we need. Does that work with you?
We had discussed 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 empl)*

When you start a company, basically you have no

structure. So you put some structure in it. So it is an
evolutionary process really because things evolve
based on the person that we hire. So it would be very
flexible in terms of the job description, in terms of all
sorts of responsibilities, and just maximize and let
people define what areas they are comfortable.
(young firm; < 25 empl)

P-J Fit
Abilities/
Demands

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 the
person on the street, no matter for what 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; 2549 empl)

We have hired people who had a great skill set,

whom we really liked and thought they would fit in,
even though we did not have a current job open for
them. We knew we would need them 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 they will be doing something vastly
different. They fill other holesin doing so they also
learn the business, rather than having them assume a
temporary assignment. (older firm; 50+ empl)

P-G Fit
Complementary

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 they grow out of weaknesses
that we perceive inside. (older firm; < 25 empl)

From a staffing point of view, you wouldnt hire the

guy, because we are full, but we anticipate some
things coming and a target of opportunity. He came
along and came to our attention, and we said, We
ought to [hire him], so we did. (older firm; 2549
empl)

P-G Fit
Supplementary

We . . . needed somebody at a basic level to do some

of the grunt work, which freed [the programmers] up
to handle the higher-level stuff. (older firm;
2549 empl)

It hasnt 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 might basically separate it out
and say that one person has been burdened with too
much of the work. (young firm; < 25 empl)

P-O Fit

We were hiring an executive, and we found somebody

who was a tremendous cultural fit, [had] terrific
leadership capabilities, but on the technical or
experiential side wasnt quite where we wanted
somebody to be. We hired him and we are putting a
development plan in place to get him there. (young
firm; 100+ empl)

Even if we were in something approximating a steady

state, we would still try to hire those people that
really fit with the 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 articulated, interviewees referenced both the
needs/supplies and abilities/demands forms
of person-job fit. When making an opportunistic 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 comfort level is, and the focus. In other cases,
employers recognized these preferences

308

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

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 job 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 incumbents preferences surfaced, concurrent with the evolution and
identification of the firms 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 segment of that work. This type of hiring was
considered easier than creating and articulating 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 flexibility 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 founders need to reduce the
number of sales calls he made. Generally,
when existing employees were unable to manage 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 possible, since portions of work were shed for people recently met and hired. Additionally, when
a firm needed to fill the voids mentioned earlier (i.e., tasks not being done by other employees), 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 candidates

immediate availability and a firms 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 detailing what the job 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. 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 complementary 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 is and crossing ts 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 position held in a previous firm and will adapt it
to current circumstances and needs.
When using supplementary fit as a selection criterion, older firms focused on redistributing workloads by carving portions off
existing jobs to create new ones or by replicating 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

firms had a strong sense of what tasks newcomers 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 everything and they were willing to work the extra
hours . . . and thats the kind of personality
Ive been looking for, especially when you do
an opportunistic hire. His firm was identifying 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 established small firm said he tried to screen out
people looking for a career track or a specific job, but if they just want to work and
learn some things and have a good time . . .
thats 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 firms 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 firms 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 fortunes 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 decision-making meetings. The founder of an
established firm with fewer than 50 employees noted that there was not always a good
match between an executive and the smallfirm environment:

If you come out of a corporate industry,

[small firms] will chew you up and spit you
out very quickly. You cant 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 photocopied 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 combined P-J and P-O fit problem came from an
established firm with a staff of 15 employees.
They hired a programmer who showed initiative during the recruitment and interviewing
process. The founder said, But it didnt work
out. I dont think it was personalityshe got
along with everybody. It was skill set. Some
people actually prove incredibly fast that they
have the backing or education. She didnt
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 persons 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 in, and they do
seem like they have a good skill set, there
are things they have done in their background that would fit. We are looking at a
person right nowI cant say how successful 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 person-job fit, person-group fit, and personorganization fit. All three types of fit were
used as criteria for opportunistic hiring,
though the type and the degree to which any

309

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.

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 opportunistic hiring. The vertical axis represents
the extent to which tasks, work processes,
and responsibilities are delineated prior to a
jobs creation. The horizontal axis represents
the timing of the need for that position.
These subsequent four categories of opportunistically 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 welldefined, but new, positions that satisfy a

Figure 1. Four Categories of Opportunistic Hires.

firms 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 criterion. Examples of Implementers are those
people specifically hired to take a segment of
work off of a current employees shoulders or
to perform a job that managers were able to
outline in some detail based on the firms
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 communication (Argote, 1982; Van de Ven, Delbecq, &
Koenig, 1976), as incumbents or their managers outline specific tasks and responsibilities. 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 agreedupon expectations are noted prior to selecting
a new employee (Werbel & Gilliland, 1999).

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit

By using P-G fit as an additional hiring criterion for this well-defined position, the firm is
better able to determine how the tasks for
that single job integrate with other employees jobs. Implementers are likely to experience the least role ambiguity compared to the
other OH categories, because their jobs are
better defined and urgently neededthe latter being relevant because they are able to
focus and contribute quickly.
Builder
Firms that delineate jobs 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 changing and competitive environments, such that
delays in acquiring specific talent or getting
those individuals up to speed can create
missed deadlinesfor instance, by delaying
a product launch. Builders can be selected
based on P-J fit by considering their skills
given the known demands of the job, 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 the
ground). These new hires may face significant 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 nave understanding of the firm may cause Builders to
unintentionally interfere with others work.
Expediter
The examples of Expediters given earlier
were for jobs not known a priori. Even if
some tasks are outlined in advance, these
jobs are defined as needs are identified.
When managers or founders lack the expertise to create certain positions or are unable
to anticipate the firms needs in a particular
area, they hire people who can do so. These
Expediters are hired at that moment because
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
believed to be needed although the specifics
may not be known (the latter being easier to
do with venture capital backing). Expediters
are very much involved in creating and executing their own jobs and making themselves
immediately useful. New firms in particular
described having many needs and not
enough bodies to cover the work. These individuals 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 because they
seem to fit into the culture, but with no specific 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 category as all-around skilled people who can figure out how to be 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
brought in before their jobs are created, the
last two categories are those jobs that are
largely defined or identified only after the
newcomer is hired. Further, the difference
between 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
jobs, candidates may be sought who are perceived as being 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 jobs (e.g.,
Expediters and Explorers). More reliance
was placed on P-O fit than P-J fit if the job

311

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
individuals up
to speed can
create missed
deadlinesfor
instance, by
delaying a
product launch.

312

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 supervisors to make adjustments and develop coordination mechanisms with the newly evolving job. New hires were chosen because
firms believed they would be good additions, 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 firms 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 discrimination 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 justification for specific new hires (Miner, 1987).
In our litigious society, a related HR
issue of importance to managers is the consistent and fair use of performance
appraisalsa process inherently difficult to
apply to opportunistic hires. Whereas managers are able to train and socialize new hires
for jobs they themselves may once have held
or created, managers know less about opportunistic 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 evaluating fully specified jobs. Further, for those
jobs that emerge over a period of months, the
timing of the first performance appraisal is

an issuehow soon after hiring should the

individual be assessed? Although reasonable
to time an appraisal to coincide with the end
of a new employees 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 ambiguity 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 intermediate 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. Concerns then turn to the fairness of separatebut-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 preferences and skills. It follows that neither
supervisors nor coworkers will ever have held
that specific job because it is both newly created and suited to the individual. With a partial 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 hires initial
underutilization, any unintentional interference 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 twoway communication to improve it. The manager can do this too by carefully signaling the
extent to which opportunistic hires will

Opportunistic Hiring and Employee Fit

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 performance appraisal process and realistic expectations 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 munificence and a short supply of labor caused by
the technology boom. Although generalizability of these findings may be limited to
similar economic conditions, the findings
also may be correlated with a firms 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 limitations 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 successfully 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 conceptualize a potential employees fit with an
opportunistically created job. A methodological limitation of the study was that interviewees were asked to recall instances of
opportunistic hiring. Their recollections and
sense making may be less accurate in retrospect than if the data had been collected
through direct observation, journaling, or
some other technique that can capture decision-making details and contextual nuances
throughout the process of job creation. Interviewees were not asked to objectively assess
any one individuals 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 retrospective assessments highlighted fit. The relationship between OH and fit needs clarificationin 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 problematic 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 categories of OH? The optimal types and weights
of fit assessments for these categories would

313

The findings
from this study
provide
speculative
evidence as to
how firms
conceptualize a
potential
employees fit
with an
opportunistically
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 job 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 articulated the tasks that needed to be done. The
extent of job definition for opportunistic
hires covered the gamut from clearly identified tasks and goals having been specified in
advance to those jobs that were barely a kernel of an idea. For instance, a reliance on PJ fit appeared to be less a function of hiring
immediacy and more about the firms ability
to define the jobs core tasks in advance, recognizing 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 employees 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 categories would provide a more robust picture.
Whereas past research has focused on
the strong correlation between role ambiguity and negative outcomes (Jackson &
Schuler, 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 effectiveness (Van Sell, Brief, & Schuler, 1981),
and where employees willingly enter into
ambiguous jobs. The interviewees described
various levels of ambiguity for opportunistically 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 organizations desired culture is
believed to increase its success (Bowen et al.,
1991), the high levels of job and organizational ambiguity some opportunistic hires
encounter (e.g., in rapid-growth firms) mean
they must not only be tolerant of it, but capable 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 uncertainty and ambiguity would be unable to create 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 situations in general is driven by individual differences (Mischel, 1977). Organizational scientists and managers alike would find value in
understanding the challenges faced by employees 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 investigation is the analysis of the fit of opportunistic 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 decisions 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 established 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 collected 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 challenges 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 satisfaction (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

believed to come from insufficient knowledge 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 jobs due to the incumbents
involvement in establishing the job 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 incumbents 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. Opportunistic hiring stands in contrast to hiring
processes that focus on filling vacancies by
first identifying the job requirements,
responsibilities, and goals to be accomplished, 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 expectations, and standardized performance evaluations. Opportunistic hiring, however, is
more like putting the cart before the
metaphorical horse or, stated otherwise, putting the new employee before the job. Newcomers hired into these emerging jobs are

valued for their expertise and assumed ability

to create these positions on their own.
Opportunistically created jobs are influenced
by new employees preferences, past experiences, and personalities, as well as by adjustments 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 organizations needswhether the latter have been
defined by or for them.
The evidence described previously suggests 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 initial 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 understudied area of organizational behavior has
the potential to provide insight into job creation, maturing rather than static measures
of fit, and the evolution of employee relationships with job, workgroup, and employer.
This article benefited from feedback
given by Jeanne Wilson, Regina ONeill,
anonymous reviewers, and, in particular,
Editor Motohiro Morishima. Financial support 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 Management, New York 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 Journal of Organizational Behavior, the Journal of Action Research, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Management Education, and Sex Roles. Her research interests include role creation, organizational processes and employee experiences in new or evolving firms,
and seasonal businesses.

315

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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2005

NOTES
1.

2.

The one exception was an HR director who participated 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.
Pseudonyms and limited firm descriptions are
used in the interview quotes to maintain
anonymity.

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