I recently read the tale of a job applicant who gift wrapped his resume and sent it to the company he hoped to work for. He claimed that his skills were a gift to the company, hence his decision to wrap it up. When you have successfully started your business, there will most likely come a time when you will need to bring in one or two faces to help with the venture. Some people choose to call this part “making a hire”.
It is never the easiest thing to do, neither is it the most exciting. You don’t want the useless dwib, neither do you want the overzealous employee…that’s the case for me atleast. I always look to find a candidate who has successfully struck a balance, a good balance. For start-ups there are certain characteristics you should look for in a potential employee, but you should also keep in mind that most times you might not get the best, so you must learn to ‘pick qualities’
Start-ups by new entrepreneurs are typically cash-strapped and lack popularity, so it’s hard to secure the best talents. What you want to do is to look for those talents who match most closely the important requirements. Not every bright thinker makes all A’s in college, some people are not so book smart but it will amaze you just how creative they could be. These might be the sort of candidates you want to look for. To succeed, every start-up needs some creativity and trust me, you don’t have to visit the computer science department at MIT to find someone who embodies that trait.
More than anything, you must look beyond if the candidate had a 4.0 from an ivy league school, if he/she has worked at Google in the past e.t.c. You want to look for creativity, you want guile amongst other things. Here are a few qualities Iwill look for personally before hiring for a start-up:
- The candidate’s background: I say background here and not education because I do not feel one needs a college degree to work at a start-up. I will pay attention to if the candidate has the skills regardless of education. For example, many great computer programmers never went to college but they possess amazing skills. Don’t look for the right things in only the places culture considers ‘the right places’ because you could find them cheaper and better in the less fancied locations.
- Smarts: Please don’t hire a dummy for any reason whatsoever. You might say oh he’s my friend, so we should get him on board…NO! you are still only starting out. You need the brightest and most creative individuals you can get.
- Experience is important. Experience is very important when building a start-up, especially if as a new entrepreneur this is your first venture. Running a new start-up is very different from running an established business. You should bring on board people who have lived the start-up life, seen the pains, experienced the sorrows and reveled in the joy of success.
- Desire: How much does the candidate want to live the start-up experience? You must pay attention to the passion the candidate displays and how fired up he or she is. Passion is important for the success of any start-up and will come in handy when things start getting rough…and they always do!
- They better be resourceful! If you don’t know how to manage the little you have, you are in danger. You must surround yourself with people who know how to make the most of whatever they have as most start-up rarely ever have enough.
These are only a few qualities I look for and advice my clients to pay attention to when looking for employees. I thought I had to share these pointers after a client had asked me yesterday how he was supposed to decide which candidate to sign on. I won’t make that decision for you and no one should, but start-ups can be compared to a fragile boat on a torrid sea, who you bring on board decides whether you’ll stay afloat or sink.
