| The author doesn't mention much about how to position yourself to be attractive to your candidates. Here's what I look for - and what I learned when we were hiring people of our own(not a startup but a dev shop of two...now seven). If you want good candidates to pick you, you have to show them (much like investors) that you know what the hell you're doing, otherwise the smartest will walk away. 1) Look legit, as much as possible without spending mass $. Marketing is key for startups, again try look like you know what the hell you're doing. Most people will walk away if you don't have a solid website. Have a company Linkedin, Facebook, and GMaps listing as well. The more results in google search the better, try to fill the front page for your name with random things like an actual company would. As long as your name isn't stupid this is much easier than it sounds, you can make a lot of noise on the interest for free. Have a working phone number with a phone tree, best if it's an 800 # but local area code is better than nothing. A few company shirts helps even if you only wear them while interviewing. If you have an office on top of it you're set. Whatever you do try to avoid meeting at public places like coffee shops, a lot of scams are doing this nowadays and candidates will be weary. If you don't have an office your home is probably best. Another thing, use something like Workable to manage candidates and have a real financing and benefits system setup like zenefits + freshbooks. These things will be visible to prospects and new employees quickly and again shows that you know how to run a real company. 2) Cut all the buzz and BS in job listings. Don't try to make it sound like a difficult job to land. Make interviews easy and fast to get, LOWER the bar. Emphasize lax rules and freedom. These are your only advantages. Remember who you're competing against. Good candidates will have many choices of where to work and you don't have anything against their brand appeal, pay, benefits, and overall attractiveness. Don't pretend that you do, your selling points are as follows:
Be your own boss, loose rules and freedom to build something as they see fit will be the main drivers for most of your early hires. You may get wannabe CEO types, and don't be afraid, these are the people you want. Be afraid of the ones in it solely for money. There's much better ways of making money than joining a startup...these people are probably stupid or naive. Most good candidates will end up with more than one offer. You need to make the process faster than any other company so that you can short circuit some of these people before other companies have a chance. You're small enough to be quicker to the draw than larger companies, use that to your advantage. To make the process faster, you need to do more thorough initial screenings so that you hire more people that come in the doors. Bigger companies don't want to waste the time but you can afford to. Most companies have an "offer lag" of about 1.5-3 weeks from initial contact, so you should be hiring people by Friday if you meet them Monday. The "culture fit" is really important in super small companies. Try to make friends with the person you're interviewing. Is it someone you would chill with? Look at your current employees. Do they like to go out an party on the weekends? Play sports? Video game nerds? Try to hire the same at first. People not getting along at huge companies doesn't matter much, but when you're forced to work together all day it's important |
I see this to an extent, but it's not stupid to refuse to work for a low salary. There seems to be an idea floating around that magic startup pixie dust somehow makes it possible to hire good people for little money. I'm not so sure.