How to find the right candidates when recruiting for your startup

When I began my first business in 2003, I didn’t think about employment. I used to be so focused on making LSAT prep courses accessible that I neglected to consider the best way to expand my reach: getting help. Doing all the pieces on my very own had a huge impact on my ability to grow and even how passionate I used to be able to remain over time.

Since then, I’ve worked with tons of of small business owners to start and scale their firms, and I’ve seen this occur time and time again: Entrepreneurs often delay hiring or growing. And I understand why.

Hiring staff may be stressful and complicated – from screening potential candidates to sharing control and responsibility – and if you are used to working alone, it’s a big change. But the reality is that if business is going well, at some point you will want to hire. The excellent news is that now is a great time. With loads of talent looking for recent opportunities, this is an employer’s market.

But how do you know if you possibly can afford the investment? And how do you make sure you are hiring the right person? After ten years of hiring tons of of team members, I’ve learned that nothing is more essential than taking the time to recruit the right people. Here are 4 things I like to recommend you do to improve your probabilities.

Do the math

Sometimes you simply cannot afford not to hire. However, before you post a job ad, you wish to calculate whether you’ll actually give you the option to cover the salary plus recruitment costs, taxes, training and advantages. This all applies to table stakes, but your calculations must also go beyond the obvious.

I like to consider the ROI of an item in terms of the value it would create. For revenue-generating roles like sales, the math is easy – just hire someone who can handle more sales calls than you. However, for non-revenue-generating positions, it’s best to also evaluate whether the recent worker will liberate your time for higher-value tasks. If reducing administrative tasks allows you to take on 20 additional customer hours per thirty days, hiring an administrator may make financial sense, even if the role does indirectly generate revenue.

Even if there is no direct financial connection to the position, I encourage entrepreneurs to prepare an ROI spreadsheet. Consider all costs and advantages and assign annual dollar values. Then answer the following questions: Do you get hours of your time back every week? And will you give you the option to earn more thanks to it?

It’s also price considering this: being a great leader means hiring individuals who are great leaders higher at his job than you. So when deciding on seniority for your first worker, consider whether he or she needs to be a profitable contractor, an intelligent and hungry junior, or an experienced skilled. The alternative will depend on the work you wish to do and your ROI spreadsheet.

Give away your Lego bricks

Whether you are first hired in a generalist or specialist position, you’ll eventually have to leave a job you like. I like to call it gifting away Legos – stuff you love but need to donate to scale.

For me it was accounting and finance; I like building financial projections and budgets and it took me a while to let go of this task. Now I have a team that does it a hundred times higher than me, and they have made my company exponentially more successful than I could have been without them.

Skill and intelligence are at all times essential, but consider hiring individuals who contribute in other ways too – decent individuals who bring different backgrounds and views to the mix. Research has shown that such a diversity will exist strengthen your company in a way that simply can’t be measured.

Do your due diligence

Hiring decisions are often made based on the interview process, but I have found that this process does not at all times provide an accurate background on the candidate. Anyone can learn the trade and prepare thoughtful responses – but do they really have the experience you wish?

At my company, we created a scorecard that permits us to evaluate candidates based on their actual performance, not only their responses to hypothetical scenarios. We examine candidates’ work experience to determine their performance, then confirm this with thorough reference checks.

This may be time-consuming, but I do not recommend skimping on homework. If designing an effective recruitment process seems too burdensome, try using an AI tool as a thought partner to aid you shape your interview strategy and questions. You may even use it to conduct job interviews, but don’t delegate completely – it’s up to you to make sure the final result is something you are happy with.

Set them up for success

You’ve been hired – congratulations! Now it is extremely essential that you just take the time to ensure their success.

Here are some things I find effective:

• Give them clear feedback on the strengths you hired them for and any concerns you had during the interview
• Make sure you have a clear written statement of what success will seem like in 30, 60 and 90 days (your best employees will do this for you).
• Check in with them commonly – especially in the starting. Review this success document
• Ask what they need to achieve success and make sure it doesn’t stop them from being successful.

Your first hire – and every one after that – will have a huge impact on your company’s ability to grow and your ability to stay engaged. It’s price taking the time to get exactly what you are looking for. If you make the right decision, that call will shape the way forward for your company and push your vision forward in ways you could not achieve on your own. Make this hire count – your future self (and sanity) will thanks for it.