English term
Iran
Native in: Persian (Farsi) 
far relative to the time it takes to hire them.
When hiring executives, look for people who have the experience and background that would make them a good fit or hire for the next 12–18 months.
Anything shorter than that and they will not be able to scale sufficiently far relative to the time it takes to hire them.
Anything longer and you will over-hire and end up with someone who is a bad fit for the job.
Non-PRO (1): Yvonne Gallagher
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Responses
far enough compared to the time it takes to hire them
NOTE the comma I have placed for your convenience: ...they will not be able to scale sufficiently far, relative to the time it takes to hire them.
| It was the author's parsing, not me! :) |
| agree |
Tony M
1 hr
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Thank you very much!
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| agree |
Andre S. M. Pires
4 hrs
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Thank you very much!
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| agree |
Daryo
: which still leaves the mystery of how do you "scale" a person? // the "additional context" seems to twist the meaning in another direction, but trying to get to the bottom of it looks like a hopeless task ...
7 hrs
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Thanks! I tend to treat the fact that corporate parlance is teeming with nonsense phrases as… well, a fact.
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philgoddard
: To scale means to develop. It's not nonsense, but neither is it clearly understandable.
9 hrs
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Thanks! "Develop", as you say yourself, would make for a much nicer formulation IMHO… "Scale" seems to me like a sort-of trend term in this type of contexts.
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Translations by lawyers for lawyers
Native in: English
Works in: Portuguese to English, English
given the time it takes to hire them.
The source text is poorly written as the word "far" is redundant and there should be a comma before relative.
So:
Anything shorter than that and they will not be able to scale sufficiently, relative to the time it takes to hire them.
i.e. potential employees, who are only a "good fit or hire" for less than 12- 18 months, will provide good service for a time that is too short, given the time it takes to hire them.
| disagree |
Daryo
: I don't see that "far" as redundant at all! It does make sense.
32 mins
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| disagree |
Tony M
: I think you have been misled by Asker's incorrect parsing: it is 'scale sufficiently far' and then 'relative to...'
1 hr
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| neutral |
philgoddard
: I agree with your answer, and 'far' is redundant, but I don't see that this adds anything to the previous one.
3 hrs
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Thank you
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| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: Don't understand "disagrees" when it's a better explanation. Yes, "far" is unnecessary (as is the comma) though is not wrong. And not "nonsense" either
1 day 6 hrs
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Thanks
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Kenya
Science, Sociology and Linguistic guru
Native in: English
Works in: English to Swahili, Swahili to English, English, and 1 more.
Discussion
Is this a direct unadulterated quote from your Source Text?
I yes, it clarifies A LOT.
1 - a KEY element of this story was missing until now: this whole business is expanding rapidly - going up on the "scale" of orders of magnitude of sizes of businesses, changing from a "small business" to a "medium/large size business".
2 - it explains what they mean by "scaling people":
-- getting people used to work in businesses that operate at a different "scale of sizes" i.e. people used to working in large size companies.
-- and also "scaling" the number of people employed they will need to recruit a lot of new people.
SO FAR, it looks like
When hiring executives, look for people who have the experience and background that would make them a good fit or hire for the next 12–18 months.
is supposed to mean:
When hiring executives, look for people who will useful during this 12–18 month expansion period, not only now.
The company is scaling, so it's different in 12-18 months later. the people we are hiring should be a good fit for the company 12-18 months later. after 12-18 months it would be a bigger and more complicated company, so it needs a more developed person.
sorry, my English writing is poor. I hope I could answer your questions.
Anything shorter than that // and they will not be able to scale sufficiently far // relative to the time it takes to hire them.
=
Anything shorter than that = if you find someone who would not fulfil this (unclear) criteria for less than "12–18 months"
they will not be able to scale sufficiently far = there would not be enough time for this "scaling" to advance far enough (there is the idea of some level / limit to reach)
relative to the time it takes to hire them = some "period of time" would be too short in relation to / compared to "the time it takes to hire them" - a plausible interpretation: "if they are not going to stay with the company at least for the next 12–18 months, they are not worth the expense of time and effort to recruit them."
What are the previous few sentences? That might clarify how do you "scale" a person ...
The term that I find to be the real "obstacle" to understanding the whole sentence is "to scale".
"scaling" this and that is a favorite buzzword in management lingo, only problem is .. how do you "scale" a person???
First ambiguity:
When hiring executives, look for people who have the experience and background that would make them a good fit or hire for the next 12–18 months.
= the hiring will take place in the next next 12–18 months?? At the very top levels, "hiring executives" is a very slow process, but even then "12–18 months" would seem to be excessively slow.
= they will be hired for at lest "12–18 months"?? That would seem a bit short.