How do you balance hiring speed and quality for your startup?

One thing I have found in my journey of building a startup is that the hiring process has to mature at the same pace of the organisation. Some roles are easier to hire for due to the law of demand and supply. For example, my company opened up a role for a front end engineer and we got over 700 applications in 2 days due to the influx of people wanting to get into tech but we found hiring for a resident hair stylist harder. These two disparities makes it hard to make hiring decisions and benchmarking it on quality is even harder. Key thing from me is to choose which roles you’re willing to upskill people in and which ones you’re not compromising on.

Talking about hiring in startups: Company culture is crucial; candidates must align with it. Transparency and clear expectations are vital from the first round. A dynamic personality should be a checkbox. Two to three rounds suffice for hiring non-tech personnel. Schedule one round early morning, one late evening, and optionally, one on short notice. For remote jobs, check candidate machines.

This is a classic example of preparation meets opportunity. When you’re prepared in hiring you’re always ready and sacrifice nothing. Hiring is the most important job of a leader and company and quality should never be compromised. You should always be in a hiring mindset and know who to hire. To be prepared in hiring, means that you’ve understood the business problem that the hire will solve, you’ve invested in tools to enable speed and quality hiring and you’re prepared to hire well. Speed doesn’t mean a lack in quality. In fact, most companies waste 95% of their time on unfit candidates instead of the task at hand. Happy hiring.

With startups they tend to be more risky. More senior talent tend to gravitate to more established roles unless they are career startup professionals. Startups have a lot of success collaborating with new talent or talent with transferable skills. With personality tests, I find that most people try to answer the way they think the employer wants them to answer. This skews results and you miss out on people that may have answered more conservatively and honestly. The best thing to do is outline the interview timeline and explain what training and collaboration look like at the company.

Balancing hiring speed and quality in a startup involves careful planning and adaptability. Prioritize roles critical to the company's immediate growth and focus on swiftly filling them with the right talent. Simultaneously, maintain a commitment to quality by thoroughly vetting candidates through structured interviews and assessments. Implement efficient processes such as streamlined interview panels and clear job descriptions. Regularly assess your hiring strategy's effectiveness and adjust it as needed to strike the right balance between speed and ensuring each hire aligns with your startup's long-term vision and values.

The recruiter building a relationship with the candidate is key. You should always outline the interview process during the screening call and give an update 24-48hrs after each steps and before the weekend. A long interview process could cause you to lose a candidate that is actively interviewing at multiple companies so the recruiter needs to have a good enough relationship to know if their candidate is actively interviewing.

In my experience - startups love lengthy processes. In no circumstance should an entry or mid level candidate be forced to meet with 7 different BP’s. It’s a drain for the team and the candidate. Three interviews - Phone Screen, Hiring Manager, Member of the Team - outside of that, not everyone needs a say in the hiring practice. Hire who has the most experience and competency for the role, not the candidate that can stick through 7 interviews.

With 15 years of recruitment experience behind me, I can tell you that no matter which country I worked in, in which position, it was pretty much the same situation, which only took time but did not give results. - The hiring manager only figures out what he needs after the first 5 interviews - The hiring manager had unrealistic expectations, but no one wanted to tell him that it wouldn't work - Too much time had passed between the two rounds of interviews. - The hiring manager found the perfect candidate, but still wanted to look at other candidates because there might be a better one.

Employers who get back to candidates within 24-48hrs will see the most success. If you won’t have time to review applications, wait to post the role until a week where you have more free time. According to FindWRK, most job seekers take the first offer they receive so time is of the essence!

Not necessarily. I beg to differ. Quick processes are good but to me it's more important to understand the intent of the candidate, how/her dedication, passion, behaviour and kindness. And it takes time to understand that. We focus more on co-curricular activities, psychometric assessments, long assignments to understand if the candidate is willing to put in time and complete it. This is the first step which shows how important this role is to the candidates and helps us shortlist them immediately. And of course a process that is longer than a month is of no use, neither for the candidate nor the employers.

Although sometimes controversial, I advise startups to focus on hiring for potential vs narrow skills. You can do this effectively if you build a structured interview process that screens for grit, intrinsic motivation and drive. Combining this with a core skill (like coding) will allow you to hire for more than one core skill and set your company up with talent that is willing and capable of solving problems in more than one area. As your company scales it much more valuable for you to have people on the team that can wear multiple hats vs siloed, narrow focused talent.

Absolutely agreed. Skills, attitude, intent is much more important than nice to have qualifications. While hiring it's important to focus on the best available match and to start the work.

In the early stages of hiring for a Start-Up, try focusing on the culture you would like to build and have. Think outside the box on transferrable skills and don't get too hung up on qualifications. It will help you more if you find someone who is entrepreneurial, determined and has the same vision for the future. Think ahead of who you may need in the next 12 months and see if you could get a more senior person now on a hybrid role. An example - If you want a Business Development Manager now you are likely to need a Customer Success or Account manager in the future so maybe look for an experienced BDM/AM that can cover both functions as you grow

Your target candidates often reside in different places, similar to your target audience for marketing and sales. Is there a certain group or community they spend time, both in person or virtually? Ask your current talent for advice as well.

Marketers don’t market products and events through one channel - same thing applies with hiring. Tapping into multiple sourcing channels is a great way to connect with talent.

Job seekers are experts in their respective fields. They are not experts in applying to jobs which is a job in itself. Not every candidate has a Linkedin or knows about your job posting. Go where the talent is! I have sourced and placed people from Facebook groups, job search engines like Indeed and ZipRecruiter, people emailing me directly after seeing a post of mine, referrals etc. A recruiter's job should be not only finding qualified candidates but also making job seekers aware of the job you are recruiting for!

Working with SMB groups with their TA needs, I see common mistakes among leaders across various industries, sizes, and ages. Most leaders tend to put themselves in a frame regarding change. Rather than exploring, they choose to be safe with what they know that worked in the past, which hurts them as the TA industry is ever-changing historically, and anyone can be out of the race. For example- the Pandemic, Remote revolution, and Back-to-office policy all within 3 years. Experiment- Under a controlled environment with low risk Research- reduce your uncontrollable by case studies and learn about different ideas The goal of using multiple sources is to have a realistic approach to a creative strategy based on data and experiences.

Just like you need multiple customers to build your business, you need multiple sources to build a talent pool. Very important to include recruiters in that mix as we have access and relationships with talent that entrepreneurs likely don't.

Getting help from your team is only effective if you as the hiring manager own the process and effectively delegate tasks with clarity to your team. For example, asking your team for referrals for a software engineer role with little to no context will result in poor referrals. Similarly, asking your team to help interview for this software engineer without giving them a focus area to screen for will result in poor data on the fit of the candidate. I advise having a kickoff with everyone you want involved before you go to market for the role. Let everyone know what their role is and how it stacks with the other team members to build a scorecard for the candidates.

Identify the key skills and qualifications needed for the role. This helps streamline the search and ensures you’re focusing on candidates who meet core requirements, which speeds up the process without compromising quality. Use tools and techniques that make the hiring process more efficient. This can include automated screening, structured interviews, and clear evaluation methods to quickly assess candidates while maintaining a high standard. Ensure that each candidate is thoroughly evaluated, but do so in a way that doesn’t slow down the process. Effective assessment techniques, like focused interviews and skill tests, can help you make informed decisions swiftly.

This is the ultimate dilemma that hiring teams face! 1. Don't let your bandwidth get in the way of running an effective interview process. Leverage technology and creates processes that remove bottlenecks. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is cutting corners because of their availability. 2. Engage hiring managers as an extension of the talent acquisition. Not only for the extra bandwidth, but also as a key collaboration partner in attracting the right hire. 3. Hiring will move faster and quality will be better if you create a gravitational pull around your employer brand. Put helpful resources about working for you front and center so candidates are more bought in. I'd expand on these, but running out of characters ??

Balancing hiring speed and quality in a startup means having a smooth process, checking candidates well. Clear role criteria and open communication help find the right balance. Keep reviewing and improving the process for quick but quality hires.

If you're overwhelmed and busy running your business, consider hiring a recruiter to do the heavy lifting for you. Diverting your attention can be costly and recruiting can easily become a headache. Just like you hire a plumber to fix leaking pipes, recruiters can help fix your talent gap.