[Scale] How to structure your hiring process

When scaling your startup, identifying and attracting the right talents is maybe the toughest part of your growth journey. As investors we often get questions from startups on that topic both to spot talents in our network and share tips on how to structure the recruitment process.

Our first answer is: you should read ‘Who: the A method for hiring’ from Geoff Smart and Randy Street. It will indeed help you build a structured process for recruitment whereas most entrepreneurs are only relying on their gut feeling.

In case you won’t be able to read it soon, here are the key learnings from that book:

1) Build a scorecard

The 1st step in your recruitment process is to write down a scorecard where you’ll detail the following topics:

• Mission = short description of the role
• Outcomes = milestones or KPI that should be achieved/delivered
• Competences = fit with both the culture and position

This will help you have a clear view of what you are looking for and easily measure and compare people you’ll meet during the process.

2) Industrialize your sourcing

Then you need to have a systematic approach to generate a “dealflow” of potential talents, via:

• Recommandations = ask people around you to suggest people they were impressed by
• List of people spotted = through conferences, meetings, lunch, …
• Weekly call sessions = to nurture your network

3) Structure your interview process

Meeting people and interviewing them might be time consuming especially when you don’t have a clear view on what you should achieve at the end. Having a structured process will help you have a 360 view on candidates and address each point you’ve identified on the initial scorecard. Then it will help you assess who are the talents you really want/need to hire. These 4 steps should help:

• ‘Screening’ interview = assess ambitions, strengths/weaknesses and feedback from previous bosses
• ‘Who’ interview = for each passed position, get details on goals, achievements/failures and likes/dislikes
• ‘Focused’ interview = deep dive in achievements related to outcomes and competences you defined in the initial scorecard
• ‘Reference’ interview = crosscheck data points with people you’ve identified as relevant references

4) Sell the position

As competition is increasing among startups, you will probably have to convince talents to join your company. The 5 ‘F’ methodology should help (make sure you cover each of them and focus on the most important depending on candidates and where you are in the recruitment process):

• Fit = make sure you’d like to work with that person
• Freedom = make sure to leave room for the candidate to express himself/herself
• Family = make sure his / her family is onboard thanks to a balancer lifestyle
• Fortune = make sure to offer a great package
• Fun = make sure the candidate will enjoy working at your company

Hope this quick overview will make you want to read that book !

Co-founded by Florian Graillot and Jan Kastory, astorya.vc invests in tech startups to build the next insurance generation.

Leveraging its own sourcing technology astorya.vc identifies promising startups, structures their growth through its extended network of mentors, and develops new business opportunities with its insurance investors.

Raised from insurance players, astorya.vc is the first early-stage investor in Europe, focused only on the insurance industry.

Learn more on http://www.astorya.vc

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