In Good Company
How To Hire Well
Your team will make or break your success.
I’ve seen good products and solid revenue models be jeopardized by early-stage employees:
An Operations Manager who purposefully sabotaged the company’s largest paying account because he thought managing the relationship with the client was “too complex.”
A Sales Manager who failed to hit targets month after month and blamed it on external forces.
A Director of Interior Design who overspent her budget and didn’t keep invoices.
And a slew of others who may have been competent at their job, but who were difficult to work with — which is exacerbated when you work alongside someone 60+ hours a week.
Luckily, there’s a few things you can do before bringing someone on board to increase your (and their) chance of success.
Hire slow.
This is an unpopular opinion, but I’m supportive of a lengthy interviewing process.1
To be clear:
I don’t support ghosting candidates.
I don’t support long wait times between interviews.
I don’t support having the candidate re-interview with the same people in late stages.
I don’t support take-home evaluations that require days of work.
Here is what I do support:
5-7 interviews or steps in the process, each with their own purpose (screening for requirements, reviewing past experiences, testing technical skills, testing soft skills, culture fit, etc).
Emailing the candidate after each interview, thanking them for their time and inviting them to the next step (if you want them to move forward).
Involving the hiring manager, their manager, and peers in the process.
A mix of in-person and remote interviews (if the role is hybrid or in-person).
A take-home evaluation that can be completed in a few hours.
Having the whole process take ~3 weeks.
Some of you may think: “Don’t you know enough about a candidate after 3 or 4 interviews?” and my answer is — unequivocally — no. Humans are complex. Can I get a sense of their skills and capabilities in the first 3 conversations? Yes, of course. Do I know for sure that I can be in the trenches with this person through the highs and lows of a startup? I need more time to decipher that AND I want to make sure the candidate knows what they’re getting themselves into and are along for the ride.
Hire for shared values.
If you haven’t already, take the time to create your core values. It can be as easy as coming up with 3-5 words or phrases that you think are most important to your culture (Discipline, Teamwork, Resourcefulness, etc).
You can then integrate your values into your hiring process, like craft questions to test for the presence of certain values. If teamwork is important to your startup, have the candidate participate in a group brainstorm to see how they interact with others. If you value resourcefulness or frugality, ask them how they would do {x,y,z} task with zero dollars (this can also test creativity).
I’m also a fan of asking candidates what their personal values are; they may not match up exactly with the company’s but could be a wonderful addition — and who knows, one of their values could be added to the organizations’s down the road.
Be careful when hiring friends.
Early-stage startups don’t often have the funds to hire skilled and experienced employees, so they default to what’s available: their personal connections.
I’m not against this in theory, but you should proceed with caution.
Some tips:
Even with friends, hire for shared values. They may not be the most skilled but if they can at least “fit” within your vision for the organization’s culture, you’re preventing potential issues.
Set expectations. You can be friends outside the office but within it, you might expect a level of respect or deference. Make this clear.
Consider contractual work. As your company scales and you can afford more skilled and experienced employees, some of your legacy employees may no longer be a fit for what you need. If you start the working relationship with a contract that includes an end date, you might save yourself from an awkward dismissal (you can still offer stock options to incentivize them).
Encourage behavior that scales. For example, if one of your core values is “Always Be Learning” or “Improve Continuously” — you’re setting the tone that you expect people to try to grow with the organization.
Look for winners.
There are certain experiences, values and experiences that (in my opinion) signal A-players:
They’ve worked at a startup before and show grit and resilience.
They default to learning when they make a mistake, and share the credit when they reach a milestone.
They are problem-solvers: early-stage startups are just teams encountering one problem after another until they reach product-market fit. Find people who love puzzles.
They have low egos. They’re self-aware, willing to admit when they’re wrong, and great team players.
When I think of the best people I’ve worked with in the last decade — from Finance Directors to City Launchers — these are the characteristics that they share. Some were more data-driven while others were more creative. Some were introverted, others extraverted. They’re also an incredibly diverse group of people because when you hire for values and behaviors over specific past companies or schools or locations, you access a group of people that is actually talented instead of assumed to be talented.2
Hiring the right talent is hard, but focus on hiring the right people for your startup.
Take your time, be intentional, pick people based on their values, not their background.
For startups. I’ve never worked at a large, public company so I won’t speak to that here.
I knew a startup that specifically hired from certain companies (Uber, McKinsey), Ivy League schools and mostly in the Bay Area because they believed it had “the best talent in the world.” I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that many of these hires were not culture fits for certain values, like resilience and resourcefulness.
Nailed IT! 🎯