[eastbound]

Another startup founder here. I regret not working early enough with an HR expert. It takes forever (any many relationships and many tries) to find the correct one, but:

- They’ll help you profile who you need. Questions you would never have dared asking, like “Tell me a situation when you reacted to xyz”, not only they filter the person, they also change the attitude of the relationship, the person itself goes from “it’s just a job” to “let’s put the extra neurons in, to make a product people actually love”,

- And they’ll give you weight in negotiation, asking questions you never dared asking.

It’s expensive, but recruiting more than one guy will be expensive anyway. And the engineering coming in, will feel safer that it’s a microstartup but it already has the structure to manage them, starting with HR.

And I say that as a person who only saw HR as the legal goon of the boss in the past. Don’t hire those, hire a consultant in recruiting.

[wizhi]

How would me answering how I once "reacted to xyz" make me any more likely to "put the extra neurons in"?

[strgcmc]

Those types of questions are likely to engage "problem solvers", aka people who don't just wait to be told what to do, but who actually demonstrated proactive critical thinking by reacting to a challenge. Those types of people are more likely to put extra neurons in for future problems (contrary to stock markets, past performance is actually a strong indicator of future success, when it comes to hiring).

If you don't have any scenarios from your work experience where you can demonstrate being a "problem solver" who reacts to stuff, then you probably aren't someone to likes to fire up the extra neurons, and hence wouldn't be a fit for the parent comment's desired team/org profile.