024. @jenistyping’s Rules for Startup Scaling, Part 2: Recruiting Edition
Pithy Principles from your People Princi-pal
(Part 1 is here.)
The most common pitfall of startup hiring is to equate “hiring” with “interviewing.” This is an understandable mistake. Interviewing is the most “visible” part of the process, and saying “I interviewed 12 candidates this week” feels productive. But great hiring encompasses far more than direct interactions with candidates, there’s a lot more backend work – This post is about that.
Below are framed as principles. But knowing principles is just the first step, the hard part is implementing them into the specific context of your environment. Each of these bullets could be expanded into a whole post with stories, strategies, pitfalls, etc. from my on-the-ground building experience with Workflow’s clients – yes, yes, I will eventually write a book 😇 But if you’re at a startup that wants to start building now, reach out!
And a final note: The below list not meant to be comprehensive, simply top of mind as I write this draft :)
Companies that are bad at hiring approach it as a set of disconnected steps, resulting in a halting, stop-and-go process. Companies great at hiring approach it as a system, with steps fitting together like a well-coordinated dance.
Companies that are bad at hiring also try to work on it as little as possible or only when they have to, like going to the gym for a week every new year. Companies that are great at hiring treat it as a muscle to be built and continually exercised, like building a consistent gym routine.
This is the fundamental difference between Corporate vs. Startup Recruiting. Corporate Recruiting: High-volume, low-touch. Startup recruiting: Low-volume, high-touch. (more here)
Do not mistake a high quantity pipeline for a high quality one. Volume keeps you busy, but the north star goal is simple: hire great people.
Most companies are too worried about false positives (mishires) in recruiting when they should be just as concerned about false negatives (great candidates that should have been hired, but slipped through the cracks). Better to hire one superstar and have to manage some folks out, than to hire only mediocre people.
A corollary: Most companies’ hiring processes are optimized for mediocre talent – too occupied with “keeping the wrong candidates out”/gatekeeping and not enough with “attracting and converting the right.” This leads to a hiring process that results in “people willing to put up with your process,” not your ideal candidates.
Most founders will have an anxious attitude about hiring (overly controlling, unreasonable expectations for candidates and the “bar”), avoidant (cannot commit to following through on tasks, looks to minimize or outsource as much as possible), or both. This is bad!
This isn’t the founders’ fault necessarily – possible reasons for these attitudes: 1) Have never seen what “good” looks like 2) Some combination of control issues/low EQ/fear of collaboration 3) Not having enough systems of support/true educational resources to level up. Although it may not be their fault, great hiring is still the founder’s responsibility.
One reason startups struggle with recruiting is because so much of the work is actually emotional labor: Managing multiple stakeholders, juggling a million details, reading people and situations correctly, aligning goals and driving decisions, creating/facilitating spaces for deep convos, etc. etc. And tech does not yet know how to value emotional labor.
Recruiting is a team sport. It’s best played as a partnership between a strong hiring manager (the functional expert) and a strong recruiter (the process expert).
Recruiting is also a system – meaning, different players must play by clearly defined roles and responsibilities, e.g. Recruiter, HM, Interviewers. With lack of clarity, things start falling apart and the companies start losing great candidates (false negatives). Recruiter + HM share the job of establishing these roles and holding the players accountable.
Most corporate recruiters will not cut it in an early-stage environment.
The senior recruiting talent pool is extremely scant, for a few reasons: 1) Traditionally, the best and brightest have not chosen to enter a career in HR, though this is starting to change. 2) The Recruiting career ladder is incredibly leaky– many great startup recruiters end up transferring out to other functions/industries. 3) Because recruiting is fundamentally collaborative, it’s difficult to isolate causes, meaning great recruiters are often unrecognized while ineffective recruiters fail upwards. 4) The trauma of the last few years since 2020 – has led to many experienced recruiters dropping out of the job market, to focus on flexibility and healing, not ambition and building. The lack of experienced senior talent pool has led to title inflation, and screwed up standards.
The more you frontload the work to the early stages of the hiring process (e.g. planning, JDs, calibration interviews), the better your results. When companies realize they need to open a role, the temptation is to jump to talking to candidates as quickly as possible – but most times, spending at least a couple of weeks on internal definitions, alignment, and strategy is massively advantageous.
Overrated: Metrics. Underrated: Employer Brand.
Selling candidates is an entirely different art form than selling VCs (aka fundraising). Optimistic projections don’t cut it, the most in-demand candidates know to look past the hype and evaluate the quality of your hiring, People, and management processes as an indicator for success.
Almost no one does interviewer training well. But it is possible and incredibly high ROI.
HR tech is mostly a distraction. You just need the basics, don’t worry about the rest.
Most recruiting agencies / consultants are… not very good, but the ones that survive are good at sales. Cases of “bait and switch” are all too common. Beware.
Diversity is the result of great hiring/org practices that allows companies to hire and retain the best talent. Trying to increase diversity numbers without a hard look at internal processes is a waste of everyone’s time.
Many of the industry best practices are outdated – hiring in 2024 is a different game than hiring in 2022, 2020, and so on. Approach hiring as any other business initiatives – be strategic, pay attention to feedback, and adapt.
Few have seen what great hiring truly looks like, but those who have, know that it is the foundation of an amazing, impactful organization and worth the effort.
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Jennifer Kim is the CEO/Founder of Workflow, an education and consulting company that trains the next generation of startup leaders on all things Recruiting, People Ops, and DEI. Through its flagship program, the HireEd Accelerator, Jen and her team have taught hundreds of startup leaders to make hiring a competitive advantage. Previously, Jen was Head of People at Lever and advised dozens of top startups. She is known for her hot takes on tech industry and culture as @jenistyping.