Hiring Principles

Part of The PIRATE Way — Stories about scaling up engineering teams

When a startup is transitioning into a scale-up phase, it’s crucial to define and adhere to hiring principles that will support sustainable growth, maintain a positive company culture, and ensure that the team’s skills align with the company’s strategic objectives.

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Introduction

As a leader, dedicating significant time to hiring is a necessity and a strategic decision. In many cases, this can represent half or more of your time. From my perspective, this level of involvement is crucial for the following reasons:

• Candidate Experience: Meeting with a leader can significantly improve the candidate’s experience. It shows candidates they are valued and that the company’s leadership is invested in hiring.
• Communicating Vision and Culture: Meeting with potential hires allows you to communicate the company’s vision, culture, and values directly. This can help attract candidates who align with these aspects.
• Consistency and Alignment: By being directly involved, you can ensure the adherence of hires to the company’s standards and culture. And ensure consistency in the hiring process is vital to ensure fairness and to maintain the company’s reputation. Your involvement can help ensure that the same standards are applied to all candidates.

Transparent and Consistent Process

We will deep-dive into this in the next post. Generally, the hiring process should be fair, transparent, and consistent. Candidates should know what to expect, and all applicants should be given equal opportunities to demonstrate their skills and fit.

Define a structured and standardized process that ensures consistency across all engineering hires. This includes establishing clear criteria, interview formats, and evaluation methods to ensure fairness and reduce bias. Why is this important?

• Candidate Experience: As it happens with the ability to meet the company leaders, having a transparent and consistent hiring process improves the overall candidate experience. Candidates appreciate knowing what to expect and when to expect it.
• Trust and Reputation: Transparency fosters trust. Companies that are open about their hiring process are often perceived as more trustworthy.
• Fairness and Diversity: Consistency in hiring is crucial for promoting fairness and reducing bias. This can also support diversity and inclusion efforts by ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their skills and qualifications.
• Efficiency and Quality of Hire: When each process step is clearly defined, it’s easier to identify and rectify any bottlenecks or issues. Plus, consistency allows us to make decisions based on the same set of standards for every candidate.

Hire Slow, Fire Thoughtfully

I always try to optimize the hiring process for a false negative, so if there’s any doubt about a candidate’s suitability for a role, the process is designed to prefer NOT to make an offer to them (“false negative”) over potentially hiring someone who turns out not to be a good fit (“false positive”).

If you consider the definition of the role (mission, outcomes, skills, job description), the design of the hiring process, the creation of the pipeline, interviewing candidates, getting the offer accepted, waiting for the notice, onboarding … Hiring the wrong person can be costly in terms of time, resources, and impact on team morale. It’s often easier to deal with the cost of a missed opportunity (not hiring a potentially good candidate) than the cost of a bad hire.

But there are other good reasons for that:

• Care about candidates: Being let go from a new job shortly after starting can be a negative experience that impacts a person’s self-esteem and professional reputation. It can also cause stress and financial instability.
• Maintaining High Standards: This approach helps maintain high standards in the hiring process. It ensures that only candidates who are a clear fit for the role and the organization’s culture are hired.
• Preserving Culture and Team Dynamics: A bad hire can disrupt team dynamics and negatively impact the work environment. By optimizing for false negatives, organizations can better protect their culture and the well-being of their existing team.

Take your time to ensure you’re hiring the right people. Making a bad hire can be costly regarding time, money, and morale.

Conversely, if someone isn’t working out, it’s generally better to let them go sooner rather than later to minimize potential damage. But, my take is to find a balance with patience. Unless there is a clear culture mismatch, gross misconduct, a clear lack of engagement or commitment, or collaboration issues, it is fair to evaluate how to make it work. Even if you have the best onboarding process, which is unlikely for an early-stage company, it won’t work for everyone, take that as a continuous improvement opportunity, give feedback, and even conduct a performance improvement plan.

Long story short, the fire-fast approach can get you into a death spiral.

Hire for Culture Add, Not Just Culture Fit

Don’t get me wrong, place a strong emphasis on assessing culture fit throughout the hiring process. Ensure that candidates align with the company’s core values, work style, and collaborative nature of the team. Employees who believe in the company’s mission and principles are more likely to be engaged, committed, and productive. This can be achieved through dedicated culture fit interviews and involving team members in the evaluation process.

But, while it’s important to hire individuals who align with your company’s values and culture, consider hiring for “culture add” — that is, look for individuals who can bring unique perspectives and experiences to enrich the culture rather than simply fitting into the existing one.

Learning and Growing Mindset

While relevant experience is important, the ability and eagerness to learn can often be more valuable in a rapidly growing company. Look for candidates who demonstrate curiosity, adaptability, and a growth mindset.

Seek candidates with a strong desire for continuous learning and a growth mindset. Assess their ability to adapt to new technologies, learn quickly, and embrace challenges.

Why is this important?

• Adaptability in Rapidly Changing Fields: In our industry, the pace of change is so rapid that specific experience becomes outdated quickly. A candidate with the potential to learn and adapt is often more valuable than one with specific experience but limited flexibility.
• Growth Mindset Over Fixed Skillset: Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset supports the idea that individuals who believe they can grow and develop their abilities (potential) over time are more likely to succeed than those who believe their abilities are fixed (experience).
• Innovation and Creativity: Experience can sometimes limit a person’s thinking and approach to problem-solving. A less experienced but high-potential candidate might bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the role.

Diversity and Inclusion

Prioritize diversity and inclusion throughout the hiring process. Develop strategies to attract diverse talent, mitigate biases, and ensure equal opportunities for candidates from underrepresented groups. This may include a diverse interview panel, inclusive job descriptions, and unbiased evaluation criteria.

Very often, when we talk about diversity, there is a tendency to focus on gender, but diversity is a lot more than that. There are up to 7 primary types of diversity (Race and Ethnicity, Age and Generation, Gender and Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Religious and Spiritual Beliefs, Disability, Socioeconomic Status, and Background)

In my case, I’m a single dad. I have half the custody of my daughter, and I’m not a rare case. Parents are not part of many lectures about diversity, but we have special needs, so when you think about a diverse workplace, consider how many events or activities are scheduled when you are supposed to be getting or picking up your children from school.

Strive to create a diverse and inclusive team. Research consistently shows that various teams are more innovative and better at problem-solving. This means actively seeking out candidates from underrepresented groups and ensuring your hiring process is free from bias.

Why having a diverse team is essential?

• Increased Innovation: A study by Harvard Business Review found that cognitively diverse teams solve problems faster than teams of cognitively similar people. In other words, when people who think differently from one another collaborate, they can come up with more diverse solutions, leading to increased innovation.
• Enhanced Problem-Solving: Research from the Kellogg School of Management has shown that diverse teams can outperform homogeneous teams in problem-solving because they bring different perspectives and approaches.
• Better Decision-Making: A study published in “Economic Geography” found that firms with more diverse management were more likely to introduce radical innovations than those with homogenous leadership.
• Improved Financial Performance: A report by McKinsey & Company found that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians. Similarly, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
• Greater Market Understanding: Teams that reflect the demographics of their target audience can better understand and meet the needs of that audience. According to a report by Nielsen, companies with diverse teams are better equipped to serve diverse audiences and can thus tap into larger and more varied markets.

Referrals

Employees can be a tremendous source of new hires, especially when you’re scaling up your team. They understand the company culture and the nuances of their roles, allowing them to refer candidates who would likely be a good fit.

LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends report suggests that around 48% of businesses see employee referrals as a top channel for quality hires. The power of this recruitment method lies not only in its efficiency but also in the potential for higher retention rates.

Protecting the candidate experience is of paramount importance, and this is particularly true for referred candidates. Not only is their experience a reflection on the referring employee, but any negative outcomes could potentially impact internal relationships and morale. It’s crucial to ensure a positive experience for referred candidates to maintain trust and engagement within your existing team.

You might consider adjusting your interview process for referred candidates, and offering specific guidelines to interviewers. This approach ensures every referred candidate gets fair consideration while preserving the integrity of your process. However, it’s important to remember that while referrals can be an excellent source for candidates, maintaining a diverse and inclusive hiring process should always be a priority.

Continuous Improvement & Data-Driven Evaluation

Wrapping up the hiring section, let’s underscore the importance of continuously evaluating and improving your hiring process. Whether you have quarterly or annual hiring targets, or perhaps you’ve adopted a strategic framework like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), a consistent, data-driven review of your hiring practices is essential.

Implement a regular routine to review your hiring metrics. This could be weekly or bi-weekly, depending on your company’s needs and the pace of hiring. But it isn’t just about numbers — collect and consider feedback from candidates, hiring managers, and team members alike. Their experiences and insights are invaluable for identifying potential areas of improvement.

The hiring process isn’t static. It’s a dynamic system that should evolve as your company does. Use data and feedback to make necessary adjustments, optimizing the effectiveness of the process. Aim for continuous improvement, with each hiring cycle better than the last. Remember, a refined hiring process not only helps you attract and secure the best talent but also reflects positively on your company’s image and employer branding.

Maximizing the Candidate Experience

While we’ve touched on the importance of the candidate experience in the sections above, it’s crucial to go deeper into this aspect. A positive candidate experience is not just about improving the image of the company or ensuring fair treatment; it can also have a direct impact on the quality of the hires and the success of the recruitment process.

• Communication and Feedback: Clear, consistent, and timely communication is vital throughout the hiring process. Candidates should always know where they stand and what the next steps are. It’s also crucial to provide constructive feedback, whether they’re successful or not. This shows respect for the time and effort they put into applying and interviewing, and can leave them with a positive impression of your company, even if they weren’t the right fit for the role.
• Flexibility and Accommodation: Demonstrating flexibility can significantly improve the candidate experience. This could involve offering different interview times to accommodate their current job, considering remote or flexible work options, or even adjusting the interview process to their needs. However, it’s important to remember that flexibility should also respect boundaries. Aim to conduct interviews during regular working hours as much as possible. Scheduling interviews outside of these times, such as at 8 PM, may inadvertently send the wrong message about your company’s work-life balance. This signals that your company values both flexibility and a healthy work-life balance, respecting individual circumstances without compromising on core principles.
• Value their time: Make sure interviews start and end on time. Prepare for the interview in advance, be focused during the meeting, and avoid rescheduling as much as possible.
• Personalization: While maintaining consistency in your hiring process, strive to also personalize the experience where possible. This could be as simple as using the candidate’s name in communications or as complex as tailoring the interview questions to their unique experiences and skills. Personalization can make candidates feel valued and seen.
• Transparency: Be upfront about the role, the company culture, and the expectations. This can help candidates make an informed decision about whether the opportunity is right for them.
• Show Appreciation: Thank the candidates for their time and effort. A simple thank you email or call can go a long way in showing appreciation and respect.
• Ask for Feedback: Following the conclusion of the hiring process, ask candidates for feedback on their experience. This can provide valuable insights for improving your hiring process in the future.

In the end, every interaction with a candidate should reflect your company’s values and culture. This will ensure a positive candidate experience, improve your employer brand, and help you attract top talent.

The Talent Acquisition Team

Your Talent Acquisition (TA) team is an essential partner when it comes to scaling your team. According to LinkedIn’s 2017 Global Recruiting Trends report, 83% of talent says a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company they once liked. This highlights the importance of a strong TA team partnering with you in providing a positive candidate experience and ensuring successful hires.

The configuration of your TA team will largely depend on the volume and diversity of roles you’re hiring for. Each role necessitates significant effort, not just to develop the hiring process but to build the candidate pipeline from scratch.

According to industry standards, a well-versed TA Specialist handling Product-Engineering roles should be able to hire two to three new members each month. Of course, this is contingent upon your hiring goals and the strength of your Employer’s Value Proposition and Brand.

For example, if you have a target of 5/8 new hires per month, you may need:

• TA Manager: This person will be responsible for coordinating actions, managing the team, and leading weekly alignment meetings.
• TA Specialists (2): They will be involved in direct sourcing, screening, hosting wash-ups, and closing deals with candidates.
• TA Coordinator: This role is primarily responsible for scheduling interviews, managing candidates’ and interviewers’ availability, and ensuring you have the most efficient time-to-hire (TTH).

Poorly managed scheduling can have direct negative impacts, leading to candidates withdrawing from the interview process and causing a drop in the candidate experience almost immediately. But also burn out in the pool of interviewers.

The outcome of this team goes very often further the hiring, and usually, they are very supportive or even owning brand-building activities. Depending on the extent of your brand-building activities, you may need a dedicated TA member coordinating it, or have a TA Specialist allocate part of their time to this task.

As per a 2020 study by LinkedIn, companies with a strong employer brand see a 43% decrease in the cost per candidate they hire, emphasizing the value of continuous branding activities.

Final note. I would strongly recommend never stopping recruitment for roles that you recurrently need (e.g., Software Engineers). Reactivating a pipeline may take up to a quarter, based on my experience. It’s more efficient to keep these pipelines active and merely slow down the hiring to a minimum rather than completely stop them. Unless you know the hiring is going to be frozen for 6+ months.

Summary

In summary, the active participation of leaders in the hiring process, clear and consistent communication, setting and managing expectations, and flexibility with respect to individual circumstances can greatly enhance the candidate experience. These practices not only attract quality talent but also contribute to a positive perception of your organization. They reflect the values and culture of the company and set the stage for a healthy and productive working relationship.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. The hiring process is a complex and nuanced journey that requires thoughtful execution at every step. While we’ve focused on certain elements in this discussion, we’ve barely scratched the surface.

In the next post, we will delve deeper into the subject and breakdown the hiring process itself. We’ll explore strategies, pitfalls to avoid, and key steps to ensure a smooth and successful recruitment drive. Stay tuned for a detailed exploration of this crucial aspect of building a dynamic and capable team.

Remember, each candidate is a potential ambassador for your brand, and each interaction is an opportunity to leave a lasting positive impression. Let’s make each interaction count!

Remember: This is a blog post from the series “The PIRATE Way”.