Hiring BYOT: Bring your own team

So, many of you have probably read Stripe’s interesting post about hiring groups of people that have already worked together before.

Many people will see this as a novel and even a progressive idea. I would argue that it’s been happening for a very long time, however, it may have been happening at a much slower rate.

For the majority of us, getting a job is based on referral. Your friend gets a job somewhere and does well, the company starts hiring and your friend pipes up and says

“Hey, I know someone I think would be great for this position!”

and then the employer says

“Awesome! We really like the work you’re doing and we think there’s a good chance that your friends are similar to you so we definitely want to interview them!”

Now, if the company is hiring more than one person anyway, doesn’t it make sense to hire a group of people that have worked well together in the past? Let’s look at some of the benefits.

First, the group doesn’t have social barriers to overcome with communication, i.e. no need for ice breaker events.

Secondly, each person in the group will know the capabilities and experience levels of each other person in that group. So when one person in the group is trying to explain something to another they will know exactly where to start with that person and also how to best interact with that person.

Third, groups can learn faster and then spread knowledge through the company together. So as the group works on a project, if they’re the types that tend to share(which I recommend you find), then the rest of the company will increase in value as this team works through problems.

Fourth, there will be less politics and underhandedness in that team. Why? Because these people will all want to remain friends after and outside this job.

Fifth, less recruiter fees for the employer. If you just write a blog post saying that your company wants to hire in groups such as Stripe has done, I think you would get a lot of applicants without having to go through a recruiter. So you might save between 10–50k in recruiter fees hiring them directly. If you feel like hiring a group is a risk then that will ease the sting a little.

Sixth, you get an immediate impact by hiring a group, instead of hiring the friends of current employees over time. If you hire one person and wait a year to see how well they do(and they should do well if you have a good hiring process) and after that year you start hiring people that they recommend, then you’ve lost one, two, three years of multiplying productivity by their friends working for someone else.

I’m not saying that there isn’t risk in hiring in groups but I think the rewards far outweigh the risks in most cases.

Let me know what you think!