11 Fast Hiring Tips We Learnt From Reading About Revenue

More often than not as a Startup CEO you have little or no experience about the recruitment process apart from what you went through at that one bank or firm you wanted to start your career at. Here are 11 steps we compiled from different sources that will pull you through and help you get the best team to grow your company.

1. Know who you need: This might sound a little obvious but first time CEO’s rarely know what functions they need to hire for. Don’t make the mistake of hiring a structural engineer because you want to build a stool or a carpenter to build Trump towers. Knowing who you need at every point in the life of your company is important. At the earliest stages of your company you need self-starters and hustlers who’ll get you to next level on the back of sales driven growth, growth hacking or product development.
2. No boring JD’s: Boiler plate job descriptions are everywhere online and that’s why they no longer standout. Candidates don’t even really know or care what they mean. Approach creating your job description with the same care you did on writing that amazing medium post that drove 35% of your deals last month. Be clear concise and conversational. Have a clear idea or goal of what successfully hiring this person looks like at the end of the quarter or at the end of the year. I am speaking of course in terms of product or revenue goals.
3. Digging deeper: A job description works wonders when done right but even better is a video job description. It helps candidates connect and get an instantaneous sense of what working for you and your company will be like. You don’t need a production level video done, an iPad video works fine. Explaining what a role entails this way sets you apart from the numerous faceless corporations.
4. Cast your net: We know you are early stage and might not need or afford expensive job ads. Here’s a more organic way to spread the word. Post a funny tweet about the opening. N.B: Light humor only but if you can pull off a full house cracker without offending anyone, points to you. Do a Facebook post or even turn your job description into a medium or linkedin post. (Get why it has to be conversational now.)
5. Tell them your process: No one really likes being surprised except it’s a birthday party. Don’t let any step of your recruitment process come as a surprise to any candidate. Be transparent about what your process will look like and what you expect. That gives Candidates a chance to prepare accordingly and take you more seriously as a potentially favorable career choice. Hey don’t forget to build feedback into your process so each candidate knows exactly where they are in your process and their status. Make it a rule to over inform your candidates.
6. Exercises are good: Who says you have to use standardized tests? If I practice a test type over and over again, I’ll become proficient at answering that test but not necessarily proficient at doing my job using the skill you are testing for. If you absolutely have to use tests, go ahead but try them in addition to giving candidates tiny slivers of homework that revolve around the kind of tasks they’ll perform in that role. Warning: Never ask a Candidate to do free work, its illegal. If they offer to do so, that’s fine.
7. What are your criteria?: What do you score them on?: For recruitment to work, there must be certain traits you are looking out for. Make sure these traits are well researched and have direct relationships to how an employee in that role performs. An example of criteria to use could be.
8. Get to know your candidates: So candidates have entered your process and are already being evaluated. There’s a huge difference between evaluation and knowing your candidates. This is where phone screens, video interviews and the like come in. You want to get to know your candidates fast so you can get on with making your hiring decision and we couldn’t agree more. You don’t want to spend too much time putting people through your process as the best hires will probably opt out and pursue opportunities with your competitors. You also don’t want to rush too fast as making a wrong hire costs you even more. We built Dropque to help with that. Simply add your interview questions and invite your candidates to answer them. Also did I mention
9. Set expectations on pay: A stitch in time saves nine. Get the conversation on to compensation as this is the major reason why candidates want to come join your company. What’s in it for them? Set their expectations early and it encourages a more open relationship with the company as per compensation down the line. Don’t forget to also talk about how raises will occur and what bonuses there potentially will be.
10. Extend an offer letter and employment contract: “You’re hired!” doesn’t quite cut it anymore. Your hiring decision needs to be backed by legal agreements in order to protect both the rights of your company and those of the employee. Get a good lawyer to help draft an employment contract based on your negotiations and agreements with the candidate.
11. Onboarding is crucial: Great onboarding has been shown to help new hires settle in faster and hit the ground running. Have a good onboarding process and employees will likely stay longer with your company as you get the opportunity to expose your company culture in it’s purest form during the onboarding process. Don’t forget a key part of a good onboarding is a great training program depending on what stage your company is.

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