Startup to startup advice on making that first technical hire
Earlier in 2017 I put out a survey asking startups to answer some questions about the make up of their company and how they found and hired their first technical team member. You can read the results of that over here.
I also asked respondents to answer the following question:
“Have you changed anything about your hiring approach? Would you do anything differently when hiring in the future?”
The answers contained a few gems of advice that I felt would get lost in the mix of the other piece of research, so here they are now:
Expect it to take longer. Start hiring earlier.
87% of respondents took between 1–3 months to find and onboard their hire, which is fine if things aren’t blowing up. If your product is scaling fast, and your code and infrastructure is held together with string and sellotape, three months will seem like a lifetime. Start thinking about where you’re heading and where you hope to be and hire with that in mind — hiring in a reactionary manner can cause more problems than it solves.
Have someone technical vet the candidates if you’re not technical yourself.
It sounds obvious but so many non-technical founders jump into working with technical talent on blind faith, usually because their frustration at moving slowly pushes them into it. Tapping up anyone you know that can help with a technical interview — or even to better define what you’re looking for in advance — was a common change in most respondents alterations for hire number two.
Always ask your network first.
Word of mouth and network driven introductions was by far the highest rated method of finding the first technical hire so it makes a lot of sense that respondents didn’t change that approach when they hired someone else. However, it was noted that this route took the longest and that having things like job ads out at the same time (especially on your own site) helps to give people a port of call.
Don’t get hung up on the shiny shiny.
Hype technologies and frameworks pop up every day and sometimes the amount of noise about them can trick you into thinking that you’ve got to have exactly that in order to succeed. Many respondents insist that getting hung up on stuff like this will be detrimental and that hiring people who use more ‘tried and true’ languages will always serve you better.
Ignore the cultural fit at your peril.
The first technical hire not only needs to deliver on the technology front but might also have to have some air of management skill too, as they could soon be responsible for hiring and working directly with additional hires. Ensuring that the first hire you make fits with how you want your company culture to play out is important.
Trust your gut.
When you desperately need that technical hire to be done, and you’ve found someone who is a great fit on paper but it just doesn’t feel right, you should go with your gut and move on.
Don’t hire senior. Raise them up in your team.
This is one I 100% agree with. I often see companies hiring senior this and senior that, usually when there isn’t much need for the senior at all. I know developers coming out of university (and many that skipped uni altogether!) that crush the skills most ‘seniors’ have. Hiring more junior team members not only gives you access to quality but you give yourself more room for salary negotiation and the likelihood that they’ll stick around in the business for longer. People that aren’t going to learn anything new in a role aren’t going to stick around.
6% of respondents used a recruiter the second time around.
Recruiters did not feature in any of the respondents answers to the first hire survey, but they did when it came to hiring further employees. A combination of them being better suited to hiring senior staff and the founders needing to free up their time away from hiring were the primary drivers for using a recruiter second time around.
Be more formal.
A common change for further hires was the formalisation of the process of interviewing and on-boarding. Respondents to the survey moved to more ‘traditional’ multi stage interviews for later hires and some even included outside advisors in this to give a larger range of opinion. Being “clear about what answers you’re looking for,” came up a few times in regard to changes to the profile of candidates being sought, as well as in interviews and knowing what you’re looking for in their answers.
That’s it for this survey. I don’t think there’s anything left in the data to extract value from so I’ll put it to bed here. I am planning two more data driven articles over the next month, one that will cover compensation and equity at early stage and another that will look at how teams 12–36 months old are structured.
