Getting the right guy for your venture

In my previous post ” Hiring woes for startups” I had covered a few areas where entrepreneurs often face problem in hiring. One of the major problems has been meeting the salary expectations.

When you begin hiring , the first thing to be done is framing the job description. You need to identify the “Person” you want to hire. And when I say a “person”, it includes all desirable attributes . Well it seems like an easy task , but it’s here where often the first mistake is committed. I have seen a lot of Job descriptions and they seem to demand for super-humans actually. Please pardon me if I sound cynical, but that’s true. Be practical is what I would say. My word of advice will be, spend some time on doing a bit of your own research.

Firstly, decide the skill sets and be realistic about it. Don’t expect the guy to know everything , trust me I have seen loads of JD’s where people try to cram in a lot of things.If you have to ,put it in under different headings like “Must have” and “Desirable”. It makes things easier for your recruiter also. I have come across of tech startups who always want an Computer Science graduate from IITs and top NITs only. Do demand one if you are going to put the guy to good use, otherwise don’t.You might end up with an expensive , under-utilized resource in hand. And apart from the technical skills , you obviously need a team guy ,should have good communication skills and a great attitude towards work.

Coming to the compensation part, do conduct a research on the prevailing salary levels. Now since you know the kind of person you want to hire , so go and check the salaries for such resources. And please set your expectations right. If possible get someone to do a salary survey for you. I have met a large number of startups for whom salary was not a concern and when the time came to make an offer , they were not able to meet the expectations. You might meet some candidates who are very impressed with your venture and are keen to join you. They want to get into a startup for the exposure and learning , but that doesn’t mean they will come for a lesser salary. The reality is people tend to ask for higher salary as a trade-off for the risks associated with startups. You have to accept this and work around it. So when you are doing your budgeting , do account this too and do it before you kick-start your hiring process.Convey your salary budgets well in advance to your vendors. It saves their time and yours too.

Lot of candidates don’t value stock options and would rather prefer to have a bigger base salary. You actually can’t blame them. The ecosystem has yet to mature. How many people have really seen the gains out of stock options. As an entrepreneur you may appreciate the value of equity and stocks but to expect it of every hire may not be possible. And with Fringe benefit tax on ESOP they are less appealing. So use ESOP only for a person who would appreciate it well. A better thing would be to come up with a good combination of fixed and variable salary. Catch hold of someone who can do it for you, it will be worth the effort.

And as I had mentioned in my previous post, start with your network to identify the hires. Ask your friends for references. Apply your planning on them first and keep improvising always. It is advisable to get the first few guys through reference. A smart idea would be to rope in a few guys you have worked with previously.

While planning your venture you would have thought of backup plans for various eventualities . Do the same for your hiring also and include plenty of buffer everywhere. With the jobs chasing good folks, people do accept multiple offers and pick one finally. Make sure that if you have a decline at hand , you have a replacement ready. So even if you have picked a great guy, keep looking for more.

And finally if someone wouldn’t join you because your office isn’t a great looking one or you don’t have a company transport, don’t bother at all. Thank your stars, because you just saved yourself of a wrong hire.

Hiring woes for Startups

Hiring the right fit is always a challenge, particularly for startups. While browsing through blogs of entrepreneurs trying to hire for their startups , I somehow find them all to be very similar. Inadvertently there has to be one post which is about hiring woes . They all go on and on, why it is so difficult to hire. A few reasons which seem to be in every post is

• ” The office which is not snazzy enough”
• ” The salary is less”
• ” There is no company transport” or
• ” Stock options are fine, I am looking for little higher fixed salary “
• And finally ” Any on-site opportunities ?”

With all the constraints of starting up I completely agree with the fact ,that hiring is no easy task. Since you have to hire to grow, an entrepreneur will have to spend a lot of time and effort in identifying the right people. The most unfortunate thing ever to happen to a startup is inability to scale up at the right time. And in order to be successful you have to handle the entire exercise in a different manner.

The first word of advice,”Be prepared to hear all variety of reasons ,few insane ones also, on why your startup is not exciting enough”. I remember a particular guy who was working with one of the big Indian IT services firm and he had an offer from an networking startup.He was a computer science graduate from a premier NIT He finally declined the offer and the reason he put forth was hilarious. It seems his father was against this , because first place ,he had never heard the name of this startup before and secondly he felt that being in an unknown company will hamper his marriage prospects. I am sure many of you would have a variety of anecdotes like this to share. Would appreciate if you can share some here.

Secondly remember this is a job seekers market and you are the seller. You have to sell your story to the candidate. Sharpen your sales skill, you would be needing it a lot. Since you are already on with your venture so I am sure you would be confident about the success of it. The same confidence has to replicated in every interaction with your potential hires.Communication is the key here.

Appreciate the candidate and his abilities and most importantly his time. You might be having a hectic day with meetings stretching beyond the stipulated time. However make sure your telecons happen on time or you dont’t make the guy wait in the reception for long. And if possible avoid last minute cancellations. In the worst case if you have to , better you convey it yourself rather then asking your recruiters to do it. Ask your other team members to also follow this. The impressions being created here are of the company so every person will have to play ana active role in this.

When you are selling a job , remember you need to showcase a certain aspects about your company. Namely the venture concept, business domain , the founding team and if you are funded, highlight that as well. And if you are not funded yet, be frank about your plans. Tell your hires how you plan to take care of the money part. Preferably start off your hiring process with a general discussion round. You can guess a lot of things about person over a cup of coffee,so do that.

This post is turning out to be a long one and I will take a pause here. I will try to cover the salary aspects in the next post and also a few things on checking fitment . Do drop me a mail if you have any queries or some ideas on managing the hiring process. I can be reached at asutosh@gmail.com. Before closing off, tap your network for your first few hires. The referral hires work the best, they come for free and they are quite often more stable.