Startup Hiring – to get the Best !!!
fm Manage WP [Word Press] 27 March 13 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz
In what has been our two-year history so far? The most mistakes I have made were regarding hiring. I often relied too much on the candidate’s test scores or was in a hurry to hire. I inevitably made some bad decisions.
However, we are a more mature & stable company now and I have learned from my mistakes. In this post, I want to go through the successful process I follow for recruiting new hires. If you are working on your own startup or plan to in the future, these are the key things to keep in mind when hiring.
1. Define your Startup’s Mission, Vision & Values. It took me a while to realize that the goal of a company is not to make money, but to fulfill a mission. The way you fulfill the mission is to have your values defined and surround yourself with the people who share those values. Your primary goal when hiring is end up with someone whose personality and outlook aligns with your Values. When you have a Mission and set of Values that you firmly believe in, you get an extra ‘detector’ when interviewing candidates and should be able to ‘feel’ which ones fit.
2. Use Poor Spelling & Grammar as a Filter. I am still amazed by the number of spelling and grammar errors I see in candidate CVs. Your CV/Resume is your one shot at getting the job. You are supposed to give your best at it. Make the best possible impression. Someone who hasn’t even seen fit to “proof-read” their CV, is someone I do not want to work with. We absolutely have to have people who care about details.
3. Have the Candidates “pitch” themselves. Ask the candidates to prepare a short presentation about themselves and their past experience. Have them present this in front of your entire team. This will serve as a stern test of their ability to operate effectively under pressure and give you an insight into their character. For instance, do they have a sense of humor (always good in a startup)? Do they display symptoms of excessive anxiety in carrying out their presentation? You’re hiring a person, not a robot, so it is key to make note of all their human attributes – good or bad.
4. Look for Optimists & reject Pessimists. In any startup, things will inevitably go wrong at times, so try to surround yourself with optimistic people. That will make hard days easier to cope with. If the guy on the other side of the desk is brilliant but you can not imagine having a drink with them one day, it’s probably not going to work well together.
5. Qualifying Questions to ask.
Over the time I have compiled a list of questions that help detect hires versus non-hires. Take time to ask yourself the following questions during an interview:
1. Would I like this person to lead one of the teams one day?
2. Would I be upset if they left for the competition?
3. “Kindergarten test”: Do they play along nicely with the others? Are they curious?
4. “Sunday test”: If this person was working alone in the office on a Sunday, would that make me more likely to come to work?
5. If I had to sit next to them for six hours on a transatlantic flight, would it be interesting?
6. Would I invest my money in their startup?
7. Will they help me achieve the company’s mission?
If the answer to any of these questions is “No” then it’s probably not going to work.
6. Close the Interview with a Yes or No.
If at the end of the interview you do not have a clear yes or no, you have not prepared well enough. The decision to hire should be made by the time the candidate is ready to leave. Basically the choice is “Yes” and everything else (“maybe”, “we’ll think about it”) should be taken as a “No.” It’s too pivotal a decision to feel unsure about.
7. Have a Referral Program. Nothing works as good for hiring as Referrals from your current employees. Since these are the people who have already passed your tests and fit into your company’s mission & value, it is likely that their friends will too. Have a Referral program that rewards anyone who refers a friend you end up hiring.
This does not have to be a huge sum, but it should be made clear that you endorse hiring in this way.
Comments: Do you have any advise on the Hiring process?