The similarities between a startup business and a rising sports team are striking. Just as a sports team needs a good manager, good staff and the perfect players positioned at their ideal places, a startup also needs to have good leaders and good employees who are placed at the position of maximum productivity. Since both the rising sports team and the startup is lacking both in funds and mass public appeal, they cannot afford to follow the path set by established big businesses. They have to manage their budget tightly and follow smart and efficient rules of hiring in order to reach the top of the ladder.
A startup needs to hire quality employees quickly without compromising on desirable traits. Following are some of the recommend guidelines for selecting the best employees for your startup:
Check for Strengths, not Weaknesses
For many companies, the strengths of an employee may be outweighed by certain weaknesses, especially if most of the interviewing board disapproves of those weaknesses. However, as a startup, you must realize that in order to develop a quality product, you need technically strong employees. This is why you must let the hiring manager, or the department-in-charge, take the call. Decide your own rules of hiring, but give utmost importance to their decision, as they know exactly what they want and how fit a person is for that position.
Check for Passion, not Experience
While previous work experience is important, what a startup employee needs to have more than experience is passion and the drive to excel. Hire someone who is truly interested and will give their cent percent and more for the company, and whose career will improve on joining the company as well. Hire someone who talks about all they can do for your company, and not what they could’ve done for other companies. This is one of the most important rules of hiring.
Check for Active, not Talkative
Beware of honeyed tongues. Always check for mud-stained fingers. Not to be taken literally, of course. Quite simply, when someone tells you they have insane marketing skills or coding skills, ask them to sell you a pen or write a code for a small problem. This rule of hiring is followed by companies worldwide. Always verify whether someone is just throwing darts in the dark or not. You do not need good talkers in your company, you need good workers.
Check for Eagerness, not Expertise
At a startup, the expertise of an employee will soon be nullified due to the new challenges they’ll be facing on a daily basis. Given that every startup is a new adventure for everyone, no expert will be able to solve the problems based on knowledge and skill itself. For that, you need people who are adaptable and eager to learn. If someone is not eager to learn and develop, they should have no place in your startup. Remember: your rules of hiring are decided by you, not your circumstances.
Related: How to retain the right talent in your startup?
Check for Diversity, not Similarity
You need to develop a solid, dynamic and exciting product. While your ideas for the product are of utmost importance, you need the ideas and opinions of other people in developing the product. Hire people from different backgrounds with different thought processes. Introduce a little diversity into the system, and see it work wonders. Creativity, diversity and opportunity are the pillars on which your business rests, so make sure they are reflected in your rules of hiring.
It is always good to have different types of people in your team as they just not help in maintaining diversity but also balance in your startup.
Check for Audacity, not Comfort
At a startup, you are aiming to do something that has not been attempted before, or you are trying to revolutionize something. No matter what you aim, your team needs to be composed of dreamers, innovators, visionaries and not people who are too scared to move outside their comfort zone. Your rules of hiring may be different from established companies. Hire brave young talent, not experienced but rusty professionals.
Check for Team Players, not Egoistic Prodigies
One of the biggest problems in the current job market is that those who are extremely skilled in certain languages or spheres are chased by companies and recruiters, which leads them to develop egos the size of your office space. A startup does not need those people in their team, so make sure your rules of hiring filter out such candidates. You have plenty of talented people; you cannot afford to have one person and their ego take up the entire room. You need people who can work well in your team.
Check for Positivity
In a startup, the attitude needs to be one of taking the world by storm, and your rules of hiring may be as radical as you choose. You’re out to paint the town red, and let nobody, least of all your employees, tell you otherwise. You need a positive mindset from your team, who needs to believe in your idea as much as you do.
Hey You, don’t help them to bury the light; Don’t give in, without a fight. – Pink Floyd
Check for Compatibility
You need workers who are compatible with your workplace culture. Candidates with a good sense of humor, willingness to work and the ability to listen to what you need and fit in with the team are what you should be looking for. Your rules of hiring should reflect your office culture as well as your own.
