The Most Common Recruiting Mistakes Early Startups Make
This CBINSIGHTS Article highlights the failure to hire the right team as the third most common reason startups fail.
Let’s discuss some of the most common mistakes first-time founders make before giving offers or dishing out equity.
Not Knowing Who You Need. You have to analyze the market first and see if you really need to hire someone right now. Carefully think through candidates’ responsibilities, skills, and tasks not only for tomorrow but at least six months ahead. You can say, “I just need a good designer or engineer,” but you need to think through all their responsibilities and the scope of work that needs to be done. Once you analyze and design the candidate’s position you’ll be surprised — some founders understand that it’s not a necessity to open this position at all, or that it can wait for half a year. Also, ask yourself if it’s a really full-time job. Maybe it should be part-time, or you could try hiring a contractor. Don’t give out executive C-type roles too quickly.
Easily Falling in Love. When you see a perfect Linkedin profile with ideal skills and experience and barely interview the person — it can cause all sorts of problems. Two months later you might have to let them go because they don’t fit the culture you’re trying to build or can’t work with the team. You can lose time, money, and in the worst-case scenario — your reputation. Another scenario I’ve seen, a founder interviews a candidate and it’s a great conversation, a perfect bond. Yet later, after you hire them you realize that they are a social butterfly, but maybe they can’t actually code as well as you thought, and again you’re losing time and money. So, the solution to not falling in love with your ideal candidates too easily is to have a second opinion. Ask your teammates to interview them as well. Have a proper technical interview if it’s a technical position, but also check their soft skills, ask behavioral questions. Speaking of behavioral interview questions….
Hiring “Non-startup Material”. This can be a mistake even at the job posting stage because many companies post really nice, fancy job descriptions, and then when interviewing don’t share the whole truth about work-life balance or your company’s culture. Think about what problems you are trying to solve. Explain the structure of your team, everything from who’s doing what to what the responsibilities are. Thoughfully allign interview structure with your and compay’s values. Properly introduce new team members and do onboarding. Don’t think that everyone should know and instantly love and understand your ideas or your vision, you have to teach them first. Also, check if the candidate would be comfortable with startup life, do a behavioral interview and share your real-time situations, ask them if they’re ok with it. Write a proper and inclusive job description with real responsibilities, don’t just copy a similar post from another company. Ask about their goals, motivation, expectations, and interests — don’t make assumptions.
Burning Bridges. Keep in touch with past candidates and especially with your second-best option. We’re talking about a startup, it might happen that you hire someone, and then in a couple of months you have to let them go. Or you’re in such a competitive market that someone headhunts your professional. You might have to start the hiring process again sooner than you think. Keeping in touch will save you time and money.
Hiring Too Slowly. This can be as costly as hiring too fast. Don’t make very slow or overly picky decisions, — a great talent is hot on the market and they won’t wait. Talking to too many candidates may mean you end up just interviewing and not working on the company’s growth. If you interview ten candidates it might be too late by the time you realize that the third candidate you spoke with was the best one.
