Hiring Self-Starters And Mixing Drinks
While mixing Moscow Mules on PowerToFly’s second “Female Founders on Facebook Live” show for Elle.com I got some fantastic tips on hiring self starters from two women who have scaled their company — fast.
Lindsey Andrews Schilling and Lara Crystal, the cofounders of Minibar, joined me to discuss how in two years, and with less than $2 million in seed funding (yes, that little), they’ve grown Minibar from a NYC based alcohol delivery app to a service operating in over 26 cities. In addition to making drinks, we talked about how they came up with the idea for Minibar, researched it and expanded across America. Watch the video below to hear us discuss hiring tips around minute six… Oh, and read to the end to learn how to make your own Moscow Mule.
Testing for Self-Starters
One thing I’ve learned co-running PowerToFly.com with @milenaberry over the last two years, is that you don’t want people on your team who wait for you to tell them what to do. You’re looking for that particular person who will do first and ask for forgiveness later. The key is that they shouldn’t be asking for forgiveness often, or really at all, because they aren’t making the wrong calls.
It’s always a huge problem when you find that the person you thought was a self-starter is really someone who needs constant direction. Self-starters have confidence — and that’s something that’s hard to train into people who need time to build it up.
So how do you make sure you’re hiring a self-starter? Here are some ideas from the our video. Watch at minute six to hear us talk this through or read the bullet points below:
- Check references in a “real way” — This means don’t rely on the references you’re given. Find other people the candidate has worked with via LinkedIn, Facebook and other means. Get them on the phone. Ask a lot of questions.
- Bring in a myriad of opinions — Make sure a candidate meets people who aren’t just responsible for hiring her. How does the candidate perform when being questioned by someone who might report to her?
- Test, test, test — When I was the News Editor of The Huffington Post (I was the site’s sixth hire) I gave aspiring news editors a headline test. I told them to rewrite all the site’s headlines in 30 minutes. It was a great test to see if people could move fast, understand our voice and perform under pressure. So give people a project to do that doesn’t take up too much time. You should pay candidates if your test is more than a few hours since they’re likely cutting out of work to take it for you.
- Hide Easter Eggs in your application process — Hiring for a copy-editor? Sneak a typo into the job description and see if they catch it.
Questions about this? Write me a note below and I’ll write you back or address it on our next Facebook Live show.
Now, You’ve Made It This Far… Learn How To Make A Moscow Mule
The drink is made up of three ingredients: 4 parts ginger beer, 3 parts Vodka and lime juice.
Add ice first and then mix in the rest. Measure the parts with a jigger or just count it out in seconds. For example, count four seconds to get to four parts ginger beer. Up to you how long your seconds are…
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