This year, nearly 3,000 athletes are gathered in Sochi, Russia to compete in the Winter Olympic Games, demonstrating the guts and determination that may ultimately spell glory for their countries.
Team-building in any sense is no easy task; much like putting together a great Olympic team requires painstakingly recruiting the most talented and driven athletes, acquiring and engaging the right employees to build a successful business or startup is no walk in the park.
The repercussions of hiring the wrong talent — especially on a small, elite team — can be extremely serious. No one wants to trail behind in the Olympic medal rankings due to a poorly chosen seed; in a similar way, a bad hire can set a company back $50,000 or more. (That’s a lot of gold.)
Attracting the cream of the crop is a concept Olympic recruiters know a great deal about, as well as an approach that hiring managers can strive to replicate. In order to effectively achieve company goals and hire employees that align with your organizational objectives, you need a clear idea of what a top performer looks like.
Below are a few tips on how to go for the gold in your hiring efforts.

Image: Flickr, N A I T
Olympic athletes are clearly focused on and aware of the ultimate goal of their training and hard work — bringing home the gold. In your company, you need every employee to strive toward the same objectives from day one. This focused mindset allows athletes and employees alike to reach new heights of accomplishment; if they know that a medal is within reach, they’ll work that much harder to grasp it.
Olympic Tip: In an office atmosphere, it’s entirely possible that some of your employees aren't visualizing a cohesive goal. A recent survey focusing on leadership found that while 43% of employees are familiar with company goals, most couldn’t specifically name them. To get employees to "go for the gold," you've got to make company goals a part of their daily lives.
Focusing on goal alignment means that everyone is on the same page and that the whole team can easily see and understand what they’re working toward. No athlete has ever won a medal while moving in the wrong direction — don't allow your employees to travel down a misguided path.
Olympic teams understand the emotional and physical skills that prospective Olympians must possess in order to make the cut, and an Olympic recruiter knows exactly how fast a runner must be able to run or a swimmer must swim. Similarly, coaches need to know whether an athlete can reach a goal before they make the team. In the same way, it is essential that you understand the needs of your employees within a corporate structure.
Olympic Tip: Nobody recruits junior-league talent for an Olympic team. Just as Olympic teams have set standards to ensure they recruit top talent, your company needs to know exactly what skills and abilities are required for the job. Before hiring, be sure that you fully understand how the position in question fits into the company as a whole, and how the role will contribute to overall goals. By nailing down the ideal qualities you're searching for, you can write better job descriptions, focus on the right things in the interview process and attract higher quality candidates.

Image: Flickr, Carmen Rodriguez
Perhaps the most important characteristic Olympic athletes exhibit is passion. After all, you need to be passionate to work and train hard enough to bring home Olympic gold; no athlete is just "so-so" about his or her career. They put blood, sweat and plenty of tears into achieving their lifelong dreams. Passion is also an essential to look for when seeking to hire the perfect team of employees.
Olympic Tip: It doesn’t matter if you’re hiring for a large organization or a small-scale startup; passion is a key ingredient in all great workers. During the hiring process, you need to search for candidates who possess drive in order to attract all-star talent. Use the interview process to ask questions about why the candidate wants to work for your organization, what career goals he or she wants to achieve and what specifics about the job would make the candidate excited to get up in the morning. Be on the lookout for Olympic-sized passions.
The process of reaching Olympic gold doesn't happen in a vacuum, and the athletes aren’t the only ones responsible when a team makes it to the podium. Coaches have a lot to do with success; think of yourself as the hiring coach of your employee team.
Olympic Tip: Collaboration with your hiring team as well as with other departments is one of the most effective ways to find and recruit the best talent. This holistic approach to hiring takes everyone's roles into account in order to develop a greater understanding of the position you're seeking to fill; yet, only 8% of companies communicate goals daily. When your team is on the same page, you're more likely to scoop up the top talent before the competition does.
Hiring an Olympic-level team isn’t easy, but if you keep your hiring efforts aligned with your company goals, you’ll stand a better chance of hiring a winning team.
What are some hiring tips you've learned about building an Olympic-level team? Tell us in the comments.
The Mashable Job Board connects job seekers across the U.S. with unique career opportunities in the digital space. While we publish a wide range of job listings, we have selected a few job opportunities from the past several weeks to help get you started. Happy hunting!
Senior Android Engineer at American Express in New York, N.Y.
Social Media Editor, News at Univision Communications Inc. in Miami, Fla.
Social Media Program Director at IMRE, LLC in New York, N.Y.

Andre Lavoie is the CEO of ClearCompany, the first talent alignment platform that bridges the gap between talent management and business strategy by contextualizing employees’ work around a company’s vision a...More