How To Hire Effectively In A Startup
Ten lessons I’ve learned from 50 portfolio CEOs about the process of finding strong candidates and moving them through a recruitment pipeline
“It’s killing me,” said Pablo. “I’m under huge pressure to hire. I’ve got to bring in nine new people in the next six months, and my board keeps asking why headcount is way under forecast. Yet even though I feel hiring is taking up half my time, I’m not getting great candidates. I don’t dare admit it to my VC investor, but I hired a couple of the people out of desperation — and now I’m thinking I need to fire one of them. He was simply the wrong choice.”
Pablo, one of the CEOs I coach, felt ashamed that he was doing a bad job on hiring — and he’s not alone. A surprisingly high percentage of company founders raise mone and then run into trouble when they need to bring in more people quickly without sacrificing quality.
Yet there are things you can do to get better at hiring. At the 50-odd companies in our portfolio and the 19 boards I’ve sat on, I’ve observed ten things that companies who do this well have in common. Here’s the list.
1. Get the job specification right
This means having a super-clear understanding of activities, qualities and objectives: what the person you want to hire will be doing, what skills and…
