Businessweek has a nice refresher on recruiting top management. While it primarily seems to be written for large companies, the lessons are equally relevant to startups. Of course, there are some additional points one needs to keep in mind when recruiting for startups:
- Sell a personal vision – not just of where the company wants to be, but also why the prospective candidate should get involved. Money? Significance? Career advancement? Broad-skilling?
- Build credibility – let others speak for you. Customers? Investors? Advisors?
- Prepare well – have a detailed view on why you need this person – is he going to feel overqualified once he comes in?
- Hire the best – this is a motherhood statement, but one which cant be emphasized enough, especially for startups.
Any others that have been useful in your experience?
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Although getting the “best” candidate is next to impossible, but i still stick to it. I believe startup is all about right people.
We have a veto in Druvaa for hiring even if one person says no its no. Yes, we have been rejecting 9/10 candidates we interview, i still think this time investment will pay off.
When we can pitch for months to get just a few million from VCs, I think investing time in team in early says is worth. Every person at Druvaa is undoubtedly the best you would have come across. Ok, you can exclude me from the list 🙂
And the fun part kicks in when you try to do what Harpreet and Krish are saying. Both have elements of truth in them, but if you want them both in a candidate – hardworking and a solid contributor AND someone who understands “vision” and all, he/she is one rare gem.
And from a practicality standpoint, “best” is a very relative statement. How do you guage if what you have is the “best”?
I think it makes a lot of impact if you are extremely honest in your discussions. Especially for a startup to hire some senior professional, put everything on the table – the good, bad, even the ugly. Many times, it is the honesty along with the passion that works in creating a positive impression on the person sitting across the table.
I believe ‘Hire the best’ is an easy statement to make but rather difficult and impractical to implement for startups. Hire hardworking people with hunger (probably from small towns) who want to make an impact and train them. Make them the best. Takes time but then you have a team member for life.
While you advocate “sell a personal vision”, it would be worth our while to look for “buying an enterprise vision” as well.