The red flag scenarios to avoid when hiring for your startup

Hiring for a startup that’s growing rapidly can be a juggling act. 

It’s easy to fall into common traps such as scrambling to fill roles only when faced with an urgent need, or inevitably drawing out the interview process longer than necessary to find the ‘right’ person. These faux pas can halt organisational growth before it even begins, and lead to potentially disastrous consequences.

Luckily, there are a manner of approaches that will help you to think strategically to avoid these recruitment pitfalls and hire efficiently and effectively for your business.

Miss No.1: Making emotional or rushed hires

It’s likely that somewhere along your startup journey you’ll come across scenarios like the two below:

Your books are out of sorts, and you need funding. Your sales may be lacking.

Your solution? Hire a full-time chief financial or revenue officer.

Instead of hiring a full-time chief financial or revenue officer, perhaps ask yourself; is there really a leadership gap? Or is there simply an enablement gap?

Could you promote internally instead? If you do need a senior leader, why not hire on a fractional basis until the business can support a full-time employee – think of it as trying before you buy.

Placing the wrong person in a leadership role – or any role – can derail the train entirely.

Your product is falling short. 

Your solution? Bolster your development team with fresh engineers.

Similarly, it’s worth viewing this example scenario with the ‘build or buy’ mentality. In the scope of business, people are the #1 cost. Do you need more developers, or is it smarter to partner with a services company that can provide on-demand support instead?

Assuming you already have a solid product and engineering leadership team, perhaps think about cost-saving and focus on fractional support first. Then you can hire on a full-time basis when your ongoing fundraising and revenue allows.

Waiting to hire until you absolutely need to may seem logical, the right thing to do even. But this approach carries a huge risk. If you only look for food when you’re hungry, eventually you’ll starve.

Likewise, if you wait until there’s an emergency to hire, you’ll end up negatively affecting the company culture and risk collapsing your business. 

Miss No.2: Excessive-stage interview processes

Complete consensus won’t turn your organisation into a unicorn, it’ll turn it into a cow with a foam horn glued to its forehead. Too many interview stages will place stress on the candidate and lower their excitement levels around the role.

A good general rule of thumb is to have 4-5 stages for leadership roles, and 3 for more junior roles.

The most important thing to ensure is constant communication throughout the interview process between both the candidate and the internal stakeholders. If you absolutely need to interview a junior candidate more than three times, explain the relevance and importance the meeting carries to both the candidate and the business.

Ensure you are your organisation’s hype-person. And always remember – there’s a fine line between impactful interviews and grossly wasting someone’s time.

Miss No.3: Assume the grass is greener

Of course, you want to hire the best candidate for your business, but the truth is: 

Speed = excitement = confidence = quick impact. 

As a leader you are charged with making decisions quickly and changing your mind slowly. If you move without urgency and force good candidates to wait, you risk losing them and finding yourself back at ground zero.

In a startup environment, the person you employ will impact the business in a big way – so get it done. There are risks, as always, when moving decisively, but consider the below to mitigate these:

• Have a clearly defined scope of what ‘great’ looks like for the role you’re hiring for. Ensure you’re interviewing to this standard.

• Know your culture inside and out and define the type of personalities that would best fit your organisation. Make sure culture fit is a priority in your interview process.

• Define your hiring process clearly, structuring each interview stage with desired outcomes. Communicate this process to candidates and company stakeholders. 

Keeping an eye out for these potential red flag scenarios and reframing your hiring strategy will not only help you to make smarter decisions for your organisation, enabling you to scale effectively, but will also improve employee retention rates and boost morale. Wins all around.