Hiring Strategies for Early-Stage Startups
Early-stage startups require individuals who are self-starters, require minimal supervision, and possess transferable skills that can be applied to different roles. What are some hiring strategies to attract such people to your team?
Finding the right people to join a startup team, especially in the early stages, is one of the most critical decisions that founders make. In a fast-paced environment with limited resources, it is essential to hire individuals who are self-starters, can take initiative, and require minimal supervision. These hires are critical because they will play a key role in shaping the strategic direction of the business and the future team.
Wanjiku Kimani, a Venture Partner at The Baobab Network and VFA Alumna, highlights some hiring strategies that can help early-stage startups attract and retain the right talent.
Wanjiku grew up in Nairobi, Kenya, and started her career at Genesis Analytics, where she spent a few years in economic/management consulting within the financial services industry across Africa. When looking to move into the tech and entrepreneurship space, Wanjiku took up a remote fellowship with Wasoko through Venture for Africa.
Currently, she is the Admissions Lead at a tech accelerator that invests in early-stage startups across the African continent called The Baobab Network. She is also a founder of Heels & Green, a networking platform for young professional women in Africa. She has shaped their hiring process in a way that reflects what she believes are efficient hiring practices. Let’s dive in!
Identify transferable skills and attract non-traditional talent
In early-stage hiring, it is essential to identify transferable, more general, skills that can be applied to different roles vs a very CV-driven approach which assumes that past ability (and alma mater) guarantees future success — and specifically success for your business, within the culture you’re hoping to build. Founders need early team members that can help drive their vision, aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty with whatever needs doing and know how to hit the ground running — or figure it out.
Early-stage startups require individuals who can wear multiple hats and can manage various tasks while bringing helpful perspectives to the table. “The recruitment process needs to be designed to identify those skills as opposed to a CV-driven approach which I’m not really a fan of,” says Wanjiku.
“CV-driven hiring is like a path dependency which assumes that being able to do something in the past guarantees being able to do it very well going forward, in various environments, which is not always the case” — Wanjiku Kimani
For instance, a tech lead who can communicate with customers is valuable as they can better understand the customer’s needs, which can help build a better product. Hiring based on these skills allows startups to identify talent that other people overlook and helps in building a more flexible and adaptable team.
“CV-driven hiring is like a path dependency which assumes that being able to do something in the past guarantees being able to do it very well going forward, in various environments, which is not always the case,” Wanjiku says. “Especially in an early-stage startup, you need an employee with a flexible mind and the ability to build and inspire a team.”
Balance Culture Fit and Skillset Check
“A question I find that founders who are looking to hire ask themselves is ‘Okay, this person is really good at what they do, but do we think that they can fit into our culture?’” Wanjiku says. Many early-stage startups tend to hire people who are like themselves. Yet, you might rather need someone with a different perspective to support the company. While focusing on culture fit, especially for the company’s mission, is essential, the order in which the culture check and skillset check is done is important.
“I think the order here is super important because doing culture calls at the beginning of the interview process can introduce biases that might cause you to miss out on amazing talent — or to move someone forward based on the fact that you have some things in common, even if they’re not the best fit for the role. It’s possible that someone doesn’t do very well in interviews, for example. But that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of the job,” says Wanjiku. “I’ve seen founders do this a lot by hiring people who are like themselves, but you may also need balance — someone, that can support you, challenge you, cover your weaknesses and provide checks and balances. In the end, you might shoot yourself in the foot by focusing too much on culture fit at the beginning of the hiring process. However, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t play a role. That’s where the order matters.”
Focus on Creating Structures that Enable Growth
Wanjiku believes that at the growth stage, startups need to shift toward recruiting people with a proven track record in the area where they need support. “Here, past dependency is not an issue because a lot of the company structures have been already built,” Wanjku says.
“So I think at the early stage you need more generalists, and then at the growth stage, it becomes important to actually find experts, people who’ve done what needs to be done before. In Fintech, for example, if you’re growing and you need a license, it would be really great to get someone who’s gotten a license or gone through the process of getting a license before,” shares Wanjiku.
However, before making an external hire, Wanjiku noted that early-stage startups should consider whether it makes sense to promote employees who have grown professionally and can take on new leadership roles. This strategy helps retain valuable employees and motivates them to grow professionally with the company.
“That said, I think for morale, retention, and business continuity, it really helps to promote from within as well,” she concluded.
Be Transparent About Salaries
We asked Wanjiku what she would do if she were to rethink the way companies today hire. One of the points she stressed is that startups should be transparent about salaries and put salary ranges on job descriptions. She explained that this is important because it creates a salary consistency that can be exposed or speculated through discussion between team members, which can affect team morale.
This practice helps reduce the chances of losing candidates who only go through the entire interview process to know the salary being offered. “I think having salary bands visible on job descriptions should be a given. It just makes the process easier for you and the candidate,” Wanjiku says.
Use Innovative Ways to Identify Skill Sets
One common challenge that we hear from startup founders is that there is a shortage of high-quality talent on the continent. However, Wanjiku offers a different perspective on this issue: she believes there is untapped talent that is consistently filtered out by the traditional recruitment process.
“Companies are very stuck in their ways of hiring,” Wanjiku explains. “They overlook non-traditional talent that doesn’t fit the mould of elite-school-educated individuals because that’s what everyone wants.”
To combat this, Wanjiku took a different approach when hiring for a recent role at her social enterprise. “I want people who are determined to self-select,” Wanjiku shared. “The traditional recruitment process is inefficient and optimized for people who are good at selling themselves. This leads to many candidates mindlessly applying to high volumes of jobs, without ensuring that they actually possess the required skill set.”
“To counter this, I don’t look at CVs or cover letters. I just want to see if this is a role you can do. I ask applicants to write down what they would do if they had the job, and assess their suitability based on that,” Wanjiku says.
Two other innovative options for hiring managers to identify skill sets beyond the traditional resume and interview process are video interviews and group interviews. For example, asking candidates to submit a video pitch can help assess their personality, energy, and suitability for client-facing roles. For group interviews, one strong recommendation is that your interviews should closely mimic what a typical day might look like on your team or what typical tasks your team works on. This gives you a bit of perspective on what it might be like to work with your potential hire.
An alternative for the group interview is to have finalists work with your team on a live project before you hire them. However, going this route means you’re ready to pay a small stipend for whatever work they do during that period. This truly “trial-to-hire” situation is what we’ve modelled the fellowship at Venture for Africa after. Companies gain access to experienced talent and can better assess their abilities by having them work on actual deliverables. Talent, on the other hand, gets to experience what it’s like to work with the company beyond what’s obtainable through desk research or speaking with current employees. This ultimately enables both parties to make more informed hiring decisions.
“Companies are very stuck in their ways of hiring. They overlook non-traditional talent that doesn’t fit the mould of elite-school-educated individuals because that’s what everyone wants.” — Wanjiku Kimani
Key Takeaways
Early-stage startups need individuals who are self-starters, require minimal supervision, and possess transferable skills that can be applied to different roles.
Here are four recommendations to set you on the right path towards unearthing better talent for your team:
- Identify transferable, or more general, skills rather than relying solely on a candidate’s educational background and past experiences.
- While focusing on culture fit is important, it is essential to avoid introducing bias into the hiring process by conducting culture calls at the beginning of the interview process.
- Offer transparency about salaries and put salary ranges on job descriptions to create salary consistency across the company.
- Consider innovative approaches such as video interviews and group interviews to identify untapped talent that is consistently filtered out by the traditional recruitment process.
At Venture for Africa, our mission is to bridge talent gaps at the continent’s fastest-growing companies. We achieve this by helping startups rethink how they hire.
If your company is looking for a sustainable pipeline of quality mid- to senior-level talent, becoming a Venture for Africa partner gives you access to skilled professionals who can deliver key results from day one.
Check out our website at http://venturefor.africa to learn more about how we can help you bring experienced non-tech talent to your company.
