What tells a successful startup apart? Its people. In the beginning, a startup is nothing but a lean team working on a business idea. It is obvious that a team plays a crucial role in the success or failure of a startup. And at the initial stage, teams can either make or break the possibility of a successful startup in the near future.’
It is the team that makes the idea a reality. Great teams instil great values and set high standards for integrity and commitment to the idea that subsequently transforms into a grand vision. The initial team is responsible for creating a culture that can either get the startup going for decades or make it fragile as and when people join and leave. Here are some key points that successful startups consider while hiring their teams.
Attitude over Skills
It seems rather easy to read impressive CVs and line up candidates for interviews. But at the interviews, are you going to ask the same things that are there on the CV? Early-stage startups don’t need academically qualified people as much as they need the ones with the right attitudes. Skills can be trained for. Bit, attitude is innate and takes decades to develop. So if you can spot people with great attitudes towards their work, ethics and passion in an interview, you’ve nailed it as a founder or employer.
Hire for the Future
In a growing startup, the need for talent keeps renewing. Growing startups demand teams to keep upgrading their roles. One may hardly find themselves doing adequate justice to their role. To tackle situations like these, the founder or employer needs to account for the skills that will be required in the near future. employers should be fulfilling the talent needs of the future. All startups find it difficult to keep up with their human resource and skill requirements, but the successful ones still take it up very diligently.
Successful startups prepare the new recruits for the roles of the future. They apprise them of the possibilities that they have to materialise. Therefore they hunt for challenge seekers, risk-takers, go-getters. Such traits can be recognised in the recruits by asking them about their experiences in the past.
Go for the Jack of all trades
Undoubtedly, expertise is important. But that does not excuse one to be weak in other areas. Being mediocre in other areas is imperative. Many employers assume that a particular candidate will be responsible for a delineated role in the startup. But a startup seldom operates that way. In a startup, you’re required to play a blended role or many roles. For example, marketers have to walk the extra mile and make a sale. Engineers have to research the market and identify a potential use case and so on. Therefore, hiring pure specialists would be fatal for a startup. Moreover, employees should ideally have a “do it all” spirit because they need to step up, left or right when opportunities keep knocking from different doors.
Check for Culture Fit
Hoping to find a candidate who will completely fit in the culture, is like finding a live fish in a desert. employers can never find the perfect candidate who will effortlessly fit in. But employers must find those who are mouldable and flexible. Those who adapt to new and ever-changing environments. employers see the commonalities between personalities and the tone of the startup’s vision. Their attitudes need to be aligned with the values of the startup. Many startups try to induce personalities into the role itself, like a growth hacker for a salesperson, an officer of first impressions for a receptionist. But these practices will only be successful if their true personalities match up to the role. Therefore startup employers develop rigorous exercises and aptitude tests to gauge the personalities of their potential employees.
People and ideas make a startup. And especially, the people propel the startup in the direction towards success. If you’re a startup founder, choose your team like you’d choose the most polishable diamond in a mine.
Besides, if you’d like to discuss this further, write to us at hello@turbine.mu
