8 Steps to Hiring Right for Your Startup

1. THE RIGHT ATTITUDE
There are two kinds of people who you can hire,

Those who want to push the train,

And those who want to jump into a moving train.

Just as people love to root for the underdogs in sports, pick the ones for your team who believe they can beat the ones with more funding. They are ones who join for the idea and the experience rather than the designation. They will stick through thick and thin, they will relish challenges and bring forth the passion, every day of the week. At the end of the day, the candidate you pick needs to believe in the vision, and not the money behind it.

2. PASSION OVER SKILLS
It’s critical your first employees have the right mentality and the right desire. Skills do matter, most definitely. But, unlike skill sets, passion and purpose are two things that can’t be bought.

3. WORK CULTURE
It’s the culture you define that helps you hire the very best. The work environment will need to be intense with lean teams working on full throttle all the time. An attitude of “all or nothing” should surround the group — a sense of urgency; the hunger of wanting to succeed. Right from the concept to early growth stages, the environment will be mix of chaos and high energy. And your new hires will need to fit in to this environment.

4. DEVELOP LEADERS
If you can hire proven leaders, great! Else, it’s critical to develop them.

However, also remember that,

“Power without responsibility is madness. Just as responsibility without power is useless.”

So, it’s imperative that your ‘homegrown’ leaders learn to exercise their powers constructively. That requires a certain level of maturity which is usually gained through experience. They would need a lot of guidance. Be sure to provide it. These are good reasons to be extremely cautious when closing the leadership positions in your company.

5. BUDGET HIRES
Start by looking for candidates who fit your budget and make the best of it. There’s no point trying to sign a Lionel Messi, when your team is playing in the second division.

Perhaps, you have the budget. But then, everyone wants to pick from that elite pool. And if you decide to swim in that pool, you will soon realize that it’s quite small and too competitive.

So, look for candidates with the right mentality while recognizing their potential. Eventually, your company can then develop that potential and turn it into useful skills.

6. KEEP ATTRITION LOW
As much as it’s important to hire the right people and develop their skills, it’s equally important to keep them together.

There has rarely been a successful team where attrition has been high – be it in the corporate world or in startups. For instance, most championship winning teams in sports usually have a squad that has been together long enough, have bonded together and put in consistent performances, before winning those trophies. Therefore, it’s crucial that at least the key members of a team stick together. It’s important to create an environment where there’s a feel-good factor in the group. The team needs to be strong enough and critically, patient enough, to become successful.

7. BUILD LEAN TEAMS
Lean teams are a must for a startup. Such setups flourish because there’s hardly any bench-time, fewer uninspiring tasks and more responsibility thrust upon members.

But, lack of redundancy can be a weakness too. So, it’s important that a few members know not only their roles but also how to cover for each other, because that gives confidence and flexibility.

Simply put, hire the equivalents of full-stack developers across departments.

8. STICK BY YOUR DECISIONS
Hiring mistakes will still happen. As the leader, once you’ve convinced yourself of a decision you have to take it. And sometimes it might not be what people want to hear. If it means someone has to be let go, then so be it.

It’s hard. So, before you take a call, you can and should get inputs from all the relevant people, but, in the end, when you take your decision, you have to make it alone.

However, it doesn’t hurt to be the nice guy until you can’t be the nice guy anymore.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
These points are broadly applicable for seed and early growth stage startups. As a company grows beyond that stage, the Peter Principle invariably takes over. It states that,

“In a hierarchy, individuals tend to rise to their level of incompetence.”

But, in the end, the success of your startup come down to your leadership. When you leave a meeting room, the atmosphere should not be worse than when you entered it.

If you are the leader who takes responsibility and whose infectious enthusiasm motivates the team, all the while remaining humble and aware of your days of oblivion, you should have built a positive culture, a cohesive team and hopefully a kickass company!

(Image Credits: Thinkstock)