What are the red flags during hiring an early employee?
Ash Rahman 🎮
10 replies
Top of mind, I will avoid anyone doing too many things at the same time. Could be a cool hire for late-stage companies but may be not a match for early-stage startups.
What are your thoughts/advice?
Replies
Robert L. Lombardi@robert_l_lombardi
If you think that you can hire anyone and not having any kind of problem with them, think again. Every employee comes with a baggage, an experience and a background. During hiring an employee, we have to be very careful about the kind of baggage that person is carrying.
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Ash, assuming you are hiring engineers juggling with multiple priorities is a good thing for early stage founding engineers. If possible, here well kmown and trusted stalwarts. If you cannot, additionally ensure:
1. Github repo and projects
2. Emotional balance
3. Understands big picture
4. Purpose driven
5. Knows how to release stress
6. Good debugger
7. Mentor
If hiring non engineering:
1. Go getter
2. Resourceful Ness
3. Street smart
4. Good network
5. Thought leadership in their respective domain (finance, sales, product, marketing)
6. Very good social presence
7. Self awareness- verbal and non verbal
Interesting!
Yea, while I believe experience of working in many different projects is great for engineering role but I faced an exception. Hired a guy who was mostly focused on his own project and ultimately we ended up losing 2 months of development.
Everyone writes the same kind of BS and can actually back it up. You need to analyse whether they were indeed able to do it.
They write %. I was able to increase the client by 10%. In percentage, it sounds impressive but in number, it doesn't. Getting 1 client when there are 10 already is a 10% increase in client numbers. Always ask for the initial number.
Whether online or offline, if they are not presentable, that's a huge red flag.
There are many more.
Right, DD matters. During the early stage, most startups are vulnerable. There are many bad actors who take that advantage and claim themselves as experts.
People who aren't able to appreciate a second chance or think that they will perpetually be forgiven for not meeting expectations / goals.
The most important things I look at when hiring an early employee, besides their skill set, is their fit with the company. I look for people who will be able to meet deadlines, are willing to pitch in, and who fit the culture. The most important thing to do when hiring an early employee is to make sure that you treat the role like a job interview.
I look at the personality more and more than the skills as skills can always be developed, personality to fit into the team and being a team player is very imp.
One of the initial red flags in the hiring process is a chaotic-looking resume.
Another important factor to consider when hiring a new employee is the interview.
A huge red flag for me is if they’re too focused on title and how quickly they’ll advance. They need to be passionate about helping make the start up a success, which will in turn deliver great career progression.