Assembling the A Team

Re-thinking the hiring process for early stage ventures

As a start-up, you are highly dependent on a small number of people to really deliver. The large companies of the world can afford to have people not pulling their weight as they have hundreds of employees. At a start-up, one person not pulling their weight has a crippling impact on progress. Competing with incumbents will require you to assemble a high performing team.

This is why it's imperative to get hiring right. This article will be outlining some principles for hiring success, as well as debunking some current 'best hiring' myths.

Know who you are trying to hire

Before you even begin putting pen to paper (or keyboard to Notion) on a job ad, you need to know exactly who it is you are trying to hire.

This can be tricky for Founders, as you may not be a domain expert (hence the need to hire), so I'd suggest reaching out to your network or asking for advice on Twitter/Reddit if you're not 100% sure. You certainly don't want to hire someone who comes across as a great resource in that domain, when they've really just misled you throughout the process.

Knowing what skills the candidate needs, what benefit they will bring to your company, and what a reasonable remuneration package would be, are all things you need to know before you get started. Otherwise you run the risk of changing things up due to the original thinking being incorrect, as well as wasting candidates' time (whilst they may not be the right fit for the current role it's important to keep relationships for when you scale).

A few questions to consider at this stage:

1. Do you need this hire?

2. If yes, why do you need this hire?

3. What does success look like for this hire?

4. What type of remuneration package can you offer this hire?

5. What skills and/or attributes would be good for this hire to have to provide balance to the existing team?

As outlined by Anthony Horowitz in his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, you are hiring for the next 18 months, not the next 10 years. Hire for the short-term, not the long-term. You can always bring in new faces who have experience at later stage ventures when the timing is right.

The Job Ad

Whilst for certain areas experience is important, start-ups should prioritise this far less than large companies. When you are hiring early employees they will need to be generalists and able to not only strategise but to execute. This can rule out a lot of senior hires, who are used to strategising and managing a large team, but may not be used to spending time in the trenches. To be clear, I'm not saying hire people with zero experience, I'm just saying that putting large barriers to entry on the job description whilst not being able to pay as much salary as the Googles of the world, will narrow the pool of candidates and therefore limit your chances, particularly if you're not stumping up a decent equity stake.

I've also recently been reading Range by David Epstein, which shows that deep specialism in one field isn't conducive to skill and success in most fields. As a result, consider lateral thinking to be a key skill to search for, and do not discount candidates from other fields. You can test for this in the interview stage through structuring a written exercise to allow for ideas from other fields to help candidates get to their answer, for instance. In the job ad, it's important to draft it openly, and encourage candidates from other fields to apply, to encourage a diverse range of candidates.

There have been a few viral Twitter threads where companies have asked for things like programmers with 8 years of experience for a programming language which has only existed for 5. This is a quick way to not get any good talent as it instantly gives off an impression that the company doesn't now what it's doing. First impressions are everything, so do take the time to get this right.

Hiring is time consuming, and has a high opportunity cost. So it's in your best interest to add key details to the job description. Yes, this includes the salary banding and yes, this includes whether equity is on offer. Make it as easy as possible for candidates to decide yes/no prior to the initial application, as this will streamline your process and ultimately give you the best candidate for the job.

A few words on interviews

Interviews, like all things in life, are about balance. Balance in the discussion (it's a two-way street), and balance in the length of the process.

Due to the importance of hiring great people, having one single interview is certainly not enough. At the other end of the spectrum, I've heard of scale-ups recruiting for non-technical roles who have seven different interview stages, all of which are around an hour in length. This is overkill! Find a balance between testing the skills you need to and valuing the candidate's time.

My suggested interview process is:

1. Blind application with no CV. This manages unconscious bias and may surface some hidden gems during your recruitment process.

2. Initial screening call. Around 15 minutes in length, this allows both parties to cover off what they're potentially signing up to, ensure remuneration is in line with expectations and you can get detail on why they're wanting to leave their current role.

3. First interview. Go into detail on the candidate's motivations and suitability for the role. I recommend a colleague or two join you for this interview, so you can get a range of opinions on the candidates.

4. Second interview - skills testing. This should be some form of real-life task to evaluate how well they will perform in the role. This is NOT to be confused with free labour. There have been some horror stories on Twitter where candidates have completed a full day's work to then not get the role or any form of compensation for their work. The recruitment process shouldn't be a way for companies to get ideas and proposals for free. I'd ask for the CV at this stage, in case it helps decide any tight decisions between any two candidates.

5. Final interview - meet the co-founders. If your start-up is very early, then this stage is moot as the founding team will be performing steps 1-4 above. If not, then it's important for candidates to get exposure to the founding team early on, as it will give them a true sense of the company culture and direction.

The traditional interview model has recently had some innovations by certain companies, including Koru Kids, where they don't look at the CV until late in the process, eliminating the potential unconscious bias that could occur, as well as reducing the importance of 'logos' on CVs, which are typically reserved for those coming from privileged backgrounds. When crafting and iterating your recruitment process, think carefully around the format and desired outcomes. This can give you the opportunity to discover up-and-coming talent, which is perfect for an early stage venture.

Interviewers should try to build a rapport with the candidate and make them feel comfortable. Some great hires may not perform well in interviews under pressure, so giving them the opportunity to showcase their personality and attributes is important.

In Epstein's Range he discusses Abbie Griffin's book, Serial Innovators, saying:

"Griffin's research team noticed that serial innovators repeatedly claimed that they themselves would be screened out under their company's current hiring practices. 'A mechanistic approach to hiring, while yielding highly reproducible results, in fact reduces the numbers of high potential [for innovation] candidates.' they wrote."

This would suggest that, for innovative candidates, and for 'diamond in the rough' candidates, the typical hiring process isn't working.

Culture Fit

Being open and upfront about culture is incredibly important. This ensures that all parties know what they want from the other.

Far too many companies say things like 'great work-life balance', and 'opportunity for progression', just because they feel like candidates want those things. Whilst that is certainly true for some candidates, don't con them into the role. Some people will prioritise participating in a hyper-growth scale-up at the expense of their work life balance, and vice-versa.

For example, Revolut's culture values include the following:

1. Dream Team - making it clear that "If someone falls short of perfection, we deliver honest feedback respectfully, in a non-personal way, even though it might hurt sometimes" and "We help those who might be good but not the best to leave gracefully".

2. Never Settle - "Being mediocre is not an option - never settle is a lifestyle that we choose."

3. Think Deeper - "It is nothing personal even though it can be emotional."

4. Get it Done - "We stopped listening to excuses a long time ago - we care about results."

5. Deliver WOW - "Any internal product or process across Revolut must be sleek and relentlessly focused on experience and efficiency."

One of the spaces in Revolut’s London office, highlighting the culture.

What I like most about Revolut's values are that they seem honest. Reading the above makes it clear that there is not clocking off at 5pm culture, and that it's a highly competitive, highly aggressive internal culture, where if you don't perform you'll be out without a second's hesitation. The reason this is valuable is it will instantly reduce the number of candidates by a significant percentage, as some may want a more chilled working existence and as little stress as possible, even if that's at the expense of growth. This honesty streamlines Revolut's recruitment process.

Contrast that with most culture pages on company websites and you will probably struggle to really get a read on their culture. Putting yourself in the prospective employees' shoes, and they'll likely want to interview to then ask about the culture, potentially wasting both your time and the candidate's time.

So if you are a growth business or a lifestyle business, or a hybrid of the two, own it, publicise it, and embody it.

Employee On-Boarding

For me, this separates the wheat out from the chaff. You can wax lyrical during the interviewing stage, but what is your on-boarding process? At a minimum, this should include:

1. Itinerary for the first week (at least) - this gives the new hire an idea of what they'll learn, when and from whom.

2. A welcome pack. This should include essentials like their laptop, mobile, etc. but also 'welcome to the team' gifts, like company t-shirt, a book, or other thoughtful gifts to make them feel appreciated on day one.

3. A social element. In normal times maybe this is a team meal post-work one day, or perhaps in a distributed-first world it's a virtual happy hour with a few team activities. This allows the new employee to start bonding with the existing team early on.

4. Explain to the employee what success in their role looks like and be clear about your expectations from them.

5. Schedule in 1-2-1 meetings for at least the duration of the probationary period, allowing the employee an opportunity to feed back on how they are finding it and air any early concerns.

Thinking that the hiring process stops once the offer has been made is mistake. It'd be like purchasing a car but not filling it with fuel. You need to attract and retain top talent to compete and grow your start-up, so ensure you're delivering a stellar on-boarding experience.

Parting Shot

The traditional hiring process is worn and it isn't fit for purpose. One of the many exciting things about establishing and growing a start-up is adapting your business' process to suit your objective. Think differently, plan differently, find talent that adopts the same values that truly suit your business and you'll get the people you need to be the life blood of your business. Find the diamonds in the rough.

Finally, above all else, be honest in the job spec. What is the role, what is your true culture, what is your remuneration package and what skills can't you live without?