#GirlBossNotes: Hiring for Start Ups
Hi guys! Your #GirlBoss is back with some #GirlBossNotes to share.
Have you watched a movie with Robert De Niro, The Intern? If not, you definitely have to. I totally love this film, for the first time I watched it was in the class during the Leadership course. This piece touches many topics: love, friendship, the conflict of generations and etc.; however, the main idea is centred on entrepreneur hiring the right person for the available position in her company. Although, Anne Hathaway’ character runs quite large organization (220 employees), you will see how one person can make a significant difference.
Overall, the hiring process is challenging, it is like trying to match a tea cup with a saucer.
Think about it this way, you have a huge cupboard, with many different cups, in different sizes, various colours and designs, and finding that one and only, which will make a perfect match with the saucer you already have, sounds like a mission impossible.
Now, imagine that for a person who is an expert in tea cup sets, who has enough time and money, it would be much easier to find the right cup; whereas, for an individual, who might be new to the whole tea culture, might not have that many resources and the process becomes a painful act.
The same is for entrepreneurs. I strongly believe the core of every business are the people working there. Human Resources is one of the most (if not the most) important asset of the organization, especially for a start-up. Think about it, your employees can either make your business prosper, or destroy it completely. If in the large organization the effect of each single person might not be that considerable, in a start-up the impact is significant.
skills can be obtained, but personality and attitudes cannot be taught
Furthermore, for entrepreneurs, hiring process is very challenging, on one hand, they have scarce resources (hiring is expensive), on the other hand, in order to scale their business, they have to hire the skilled force, which requires resources; total cognitive dissonance. That is why, you have to choose your employees, as you choose your life partners: mindfully.
Believe me, it is not an exaggeration, my experience with our first employee proved that to me. Our first Chef had good industry background, knowledge and was really fast, that is why we hired him. After a while, we came to know, he has filed a case against his previous employer, and he did not inform us about it. Additionally, he started coming late, explaining it with ridiculous excuses. There was one major point which was the main indicator to me that we made a mistake; he had totally no interest in the job. He was dispassionate, passive, and even when I proposed something (which was his job to do); his response was “it is very difficult”.
Some stuff, unfortunately, you cannot test, check and predict; but you have to be thorough in your choices, I mean, I would not go on a second date with a guy, who came late for the first one; and I would not be in a long term relationship with someone who does not care about my passion; so shouldn’t candidates be treated the same way?
Potential employee has to have a clear vision of what they want to achieve together with the company
Meaning, before actually hiring a person, understand whether he/she is passionate about what they are doing. Passionate individuals will be eager to innovate, generate new ideas and execute them, for the benefit of the company. Also, monitoring their social media might be a good way to understand the candidates, and consider them not purely as a skill set, but as an individual, who has values and personality. I got this tip from one the top market recruiters, he said that social media reveals the inner self and helps to understand the personality and even attitudes, which works as a perfect addition to the CV.
At the end of the day, skills can be obtained, but personality and attitudes cannot be taught and if there is no match in those, you are in a trouble. Moreover, it is important to remember, why you decided that you need to hire someone in the first place, perhaps because you want someone who is an expert to take the position, rather than doing it by yourself; which means you have to put your entrepreneur’s ego aside and let the candidate to express their thoughts about the improvements which can be done.
At the end of the day, your candidate will have personal goals, but they have to be aligned with the corporate goals in every possible way.
Sounds na?ve?
Not for everyone the ultimate goal is money. Potential employee has to have a clear vision of what they want to achieve together with the company. So, for instance, if ABC Business Academy would hire on and hire someone who is not an ex participant, they would want to recruit someone, who is at least passionate about the education and learning and whose goal is to change the perspective of the education viewed by the students; proving that learning not only can, but should be exciting and fun and that their business summer school programs in some ways deliver more value to their participants, than probably universities do, and etc.
Let me know in the comments below, if you would be hiring for your start-up, what you would be looking for in a candidate?
Cheers,
Your #GirlBoss