Are you hiring right?
The success of any startup in the initial phase is largely driven by the people it hires. It’s very important to build a group of people who are highly passionate and believe in your company’s vision. Perhaps for this very reason the first x (varies from startup to startup) hires are made by the founder themselves and they take a good amount of time to convey the purpose of start-up and the vision of theirs. It’s very important to align the thought process with what you are building.
Recruitment should generally be a well-defined process that has to produce the right fit for your startup.
The Process
Getting an ideal candidate is very rare but we should be very clear as to look for the strength we want in the candidate and identify weaknesses which can either be tolerated or can improvise over a period of time; that is the purpose of recruitment. Develop a set of rounds that help test the strength, get in the right interviewer. It always helps having more than one perspective and hence having at least two interviewers will help. The outcome of the interview shouldn’t be hazy, either the person has the strength you are looking for or he doesn’t. If the interview rounds don’t help you have a binary output then redefine the rounds. One more thing, from my personal experience, when in doubt don’t hire. Give the person good feedback to help him build his profile and chart his learning curve if he is interested and ask him to apply again.
Finding the right fit
We are lucky to be in an industry which every year gets infused by at least lakhs of freshers. These freshers bring in new perspectives and energy but at the same time also push their seniors to stay relevant and be on edge. If you are not looking to build a Big 5, you can typically handpick the people for your startup (from the domestic IT crowd). While there is an influx of startups, the first step for recruiters has to be able to differentiate yourself from the rest of the startups and pitch the vision.
If a candidate is not convinced of what your startup is building/doing, he will never buy in your recruitment process.
I remember my initial days (first 3 years of my startup) when I used to call candidate, the first 10 -12 minutes I felt as if I was giving an interview. It takes time to share and explain to them what we are trying to build, especially when you don’t have any VC backing the startup. Are we convincing them enough? Are we helping them identify how the current opportunity is different from any other job openings? Why they should leave the established and successful companies to join yours?
USP of your offer
Money is just one side of the coin, it may be the important side as well. But there is nothing that can parallel the joy of independence, autonomy, and a lot of opportunities for growth. We are surrounded by risk-takers and risk avoiders, we just need to find the right people, understand what they want from the job and help them see if this opportunity with a startup is going to amplify their career or not. While you are spending time & money, why not spend on the right candidate.
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Happy Reading!
Nishant Verma (CEO, TestVagrant)
