While I’ve posted about hiring a few times on LinkedIn this past week, I’ve been procrastinating my own hiring process. Like some of you, I wish someone could do it for me:
- Hiring is time consuming.
- Doing it well requires attention to details. (details wear me out!)
- I don’t hire often and every hire is for a different job. So each time I hire, I have to relearn how to do it.
Sound familiar?
As much as it pains me to say it, hiring can’t be outsourced. In a startup, those first 5, 10, 100 employees are the core of the company who will lay the foundation of the company identity, ethos, and work ethic – aka the company culture.
You can, however, take steps to make it easier (and I’m talking to myself here):
- Standardize the process.
- where you search for candidates
- a job description template
- the workflow for incoming applications
- screening questions
- basic interview questions (can fine tune for each position)
Create checklists and automate as much of the above as possible.
- Hiring outside your area of expertise? Get help.
- Ask your network where and how to post.
- Ask advisory board members to participate in interviews.
- Spend 30-45 min on Google familiarizing yourself with top issues in the candidate’s field.
- Keep the big picture in mind.
- This is an investment in your company’s future, NOT an administrative transaction.
- Engagement and retention BEGIN with the hiring process.
- Embrace it as a learning opportunity.
- Interviewing is an indirect way to gather market intelligence
- Candidates’ responses could trigger your own creative thinking.
- Capture any Lessons Learned.
- Tweak your process.
- Refine your questions.
- Make note of anything that worked well.
This will allow you to start in a different place next time.
[NOTE TO SELF: Follow my own advice and get started hiring already!]
What advice would you give to first time founders (or seasoned founders who may be a bit rusty) about ways to make the hiring process more efficient and effective? Drop me a note via the Contact page.
