Hiring for startups

Posted on April 28, 2008 by Ruchit

This morning i was having discussion with my friend Sumit on hiring strategy for startup. Primarily discussion was on whether to hire experienced folks or a fresher out of college.

My answer was its going to be mix of both experienced and freshers (all size doesnt fit in here) and depends on various things.

It depends on:

  1. What role & responsibility are we talking about ?
  2. Is that profile available in market ?
  3. Importantly, Is that profile ready to join the startup?
  4. Can we afford that ideal profile?

All of the factors varies with the grwoth of the startup. With its growth, there would be different set of responsibilities/role requirement in the company, Awareness about the startup would be more ( idealistically) and hopefully if there are lots of fundind/revenue happening, you may afford a bomb.

There would always be  situations where in you will have to compromise with this (and more), because its not the ideal world. What as an enterpreneur you have to design is, design the jobs/kind of reporting structure, which would optimize your resources.

So what can you do to find good hires? Alot! Checkout tips to attract talent by Vijay 

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  • purpleblade

    I think the way of the new world lies in the ability to being “flexible”
    without losing your “form”. By “flexible” I mean always looking for
    different (better) ways to handle situations and not being fixated on a particular process just because it is a process.

    By “form” I mean, the core principles that one believes in. Those values and conducts that makes you who you are.

    I have interviewed many people at various levels during my career and I have always looked for “flexibility” and “form”. These do not directly apply to all cases but one can draw analogies.

    For a programmer

    “Form” might mean his/her strong understanding of data structures, algorithms and logic and even things like commenting code and “flexibility” might mean not writing the same sorting code for all possible scenarios.

    For an artist
    “Form” might mean his/her strong ability to understand color theory
    and “flexibility” might mean his/her willingness to learn a new tool to
    get desired results.

    For a manager
    “Form” might mean questioning assumptions, being transparent, being brutally honest, having multiple plans etc. and “flexibility” might mean ability to move from one software life cycle process to another based on current needs.

    That said, the fact is

    In general “form” comes at the cost of “flexibility” – Experience gives you form and take away your flexibility. Whereas a fresher might have all the flexibility but no form

    I wish I could have come to a magic formula which calculates this form and flexibility, but I know it does not exist as the formula itself is flexible :)