Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring for Your Tech Startup
Chances are, you’ve heard someone in a business say, “You can’t get good help anymore.” This saying is often
Chances are, you’ve heard someone in a business say, “You can’t get good help anymore.” This saying is often used to excuse an employee’s actions when their service is subpar. However, the truth is usually more like in line with, “The manager doesn’t want to take the time to onboard and train the help, and monitor them to critique and guide their actions.”
This, along with other common mistakes, is prevalent across many industries. But when you’re a tech startup, these amateur hiring errors can make or break your success. In this guide, we’ll share the typical mistakes many startups make to help you plan for and avoid them.
1. Rushing the Hiring Process
Finding good help as a tech startup can be a challenge. The field is competitive, and not every bright mind wants to work for a company that hasn’t proven itself yet. If you don’t have the budget for the salary and perks they’re looking for, your top candidates may go elsewhere, and that’s okay for now.
Still, that doesn’t mean you should grab the first person who seems qualified for the job and is willing to accept what you’re offering. Slow down and make sure they match your company’s values. What are you trying to build in the workplace? Do you intend to create an atmosphere of diversity and inclusion, or are your roles all independent and remote?
If you’re trying to create a culture of inclusion and allyship (explained more in this article by Obsidi®), it’s vital to dig deeper than the experience and qualifications of an applicant. Will they fit in with the rest of the team? Will they feel safe and valued?
A new hire who isn’t satisfied or doesn’t feel like they fit in is likely to leave the company quickly. Employee turnover costs you time and resources spent on onboarding and then repeating the interview process.
2. Not Using Metrics
Numbers don’t lie, and when you use them to understand what’s going on with your startup hires, they can actually tell you things you didn’t realize. When you use applicant tracking systems (ATSs), you can monitor your hiring process to watch for things like how many people have applied, which stage each candidate is at, and how much money you’ve spent trying to fill a job position.
Metrics teach you how effective your hiring is during each stage. Right now, this may not be helpful, but it will guide you later as you learn how to tweak your interviews to include better lines of questioning or to focus on advertising positions on certain platforms where tech candidates are more likely to source work.
3. Showing Bias In Hiring
How do you determine whether a candidate’s answers are aligned with what you’re looking for or if you just like them because they seem like someone you’d get along with? This is a challenge for every hiring manager. Although a candidate might have similar traits and interests as you, that doesn’t mean they’re the best person for the job.
As a tech startup, it’s important to be completely unbiased in your interviews and hiring steps. Perhaps you get along well with an applicant and appreciate their personality. That could mean they’d be a good friend but not necessarily a strong employee.
Look at how they respond to your questions. What kind of experience do they have? How do they handle conflict? What do their responses show about their ability to work well under pressure or be creative and innovative?
Consider preparing a rubric with traits that you can use to rate responses without bias. Excitement, passion, and shared interests are wonderful skills to have on your team — if they have the hard and soft skills to go along with those characteristics. Otherwise, add them to your social media friends list, and keep searching for your next candidate for the job.
Conclusion
The tech sector is full of trial-and-error work, but that shouldn’t be part of the hiring process. As a startup, every dollar counts, and onboarding the wrong person can be costly in terms of time, effort, and money. Avoid these three common hiring mistakes, and you’ll find you can put your focus on things that matter instead of dealing with issues created by an employee who doesn’t fit with your company’s vision and values.
