Scaling at speed: 3 lessons on hiring
In the last two years, our team has grown 10x. We’re now 500+ people and still growing.
That’s a lot of time spent interviewing people. At one point, I spent around 40% of my time every week interviewing potential new Wisers. I’m still yet to find a completely surefire way to get it right every time.
But here are three key things I’ve learned along the way:
1. STAY TRUE TO YOUR VALUES
At TransferWise, at the core of our culture are four values:
- We get it done
- Customers > Team > Ego
- No drama, good karma
- This isn’t just a job, it’s a revolution
These four values guide the whole team and they’ve become a vital checklist when it comes to finding the right people to join us. Especially the first two…
2. FIND THE DO-ERS
When a new hire is afraid to roll up their sleeves and get things done, it’s a clear sign it’s not going to work out. Believing you’re too ‘senior’ to actually get stuck in and thinking your role is to sit back and tell people what to do … well, that’s BS and is not going to have the needed impact.
3. AVOID THE EGO
A preoccupation with job title is an immediate giveaway that someone’s priorities are not in line with the company’s. We operate a pretty flat structure, with empowered teams. Job titles are pretty irrelevant. If you’re more worried about what you’re called than what you can do to make a difference to our customers… well, then you’re not for us.
We haven’t always got it right. And when the culture fit is wrong, it becomes clear pretty quickly. Yes, it’s important to figure out if there’s a way of fixing it but it’s also key to act fast because of both the immediate impact on the team and the longer term consequences.
If you’ve got the wrong fit in a leadership position, the risk is that the whole team will become the wrong fit as that leader manages and hires people according to their own values, not the company’s. That ends up being a much more difficult problem to solve.
One of the early lessons we learned was that it can take time to find the right people. But getting the right people together helps propel the business to the next level: providing new ideas and better solutions.
When you’re building a rocket ship, that extra rocket fuel makes all the difference.
Follow me on Twitter here: @taavet
For more from the great team behind the TransferWise revolution, follow the ‘TransferWise Ideas’ publication on Medium.
And we’re hiring revolutionaries — if you’ve read the above and think you fit the bill, we have roles in London, Tallinn, Tampa and New York here.
