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Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

m.brianmcmanus.org

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Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#21

Post by Clubber »

stemuk wrote: post #16
throwawasiudy wrote: post #11

The author doesn't mention much about how to position yourself to be attractive to your candidates. Here's what I look for - and what I learned when we were hiring people of our own(not a startup but a dev shop of two...now seven). If you want good candidates to pick you, you have to show them (much like investors) that you know what the hell you're doing, otherwise the smartest will walk away. 1) Look legit, as much…

Very good points! However I feel like if you speed the hireing process up too much many candidates will walk home without the impression of having to achieved something bigger. Shure, you should not waste too much time, but greater upfront effort will make the candidate feel like he has actually achieved something if he gets the offer. And this in return may increase the likelyhood of him or her accepting the job. Th…

IMO, this isn't good advise, it sounds like dating advise (don't call her for 2 days!).

This is how I prefer it:

1. Recommendation from a friend. 2. Sit down over lunch or something and chat with the boss. 3. Decision to offer is made, start date and compensation is set. 4. Done.

Any lingering, any delay only increase the chances of it not working out.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#22

Post by Clubber »

adwww wrote: post #3
avitzurel wrote: post #2

Here's my perspective. (I am writing in a snarky way to convey a message) 1. If you're using recruiters, you're already losing. Especially if those are recruiting agencies that "hide" the name of the companies. The cold emails are just ridiculously hideous. 2. Use as little hyped up words as you possibly can. You might change the world, but everyone else is saying the same thing and people are getting sensitive about…

I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle. They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test. Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that sa…

I'm the same way. A full day interview is just silly, multiple day interviews, no way. Look at my resume, meet me, decide, make an offer. If it doesn't work out, fire me, but don't play this silly game of multiple interviews with multiple people that don't really talk to each other or coordinate. It makes the company look like they don't know what they are doing and/or are indecisive. You can keep that.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#23

Post by tokenadult »

Most hiring by most companies is not based on research. There is a huge body of research on how to hire effectively, part of the filed called industrial and organizational psychology, that goes back a full century all over the world. There is also a lot of legal regulation about what can be done and what cannot be done in hiring procedures. I wrote a FAQ about this issue a few years ago that lives on as a well liked Hacker News comment[1] that I welcome you to check. The FAQ links out to a lot of useful online resources about the research and law on hiring procedures.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613413#4613543

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#24

Post by georgespencer »

I'm absolutely amazed that there isn't a single mention of referencing in here. It's by far the most important thing we do in our hiring cycle.

Here's what we do, which is a little different:

1/ We'll spend in the order of 5-6 hours with a mid-to-senior hire before we recruit them. We pick one topic from their CV (the project they're proudest of or happiest with), and dive into it in huge detail: everything from the people involved to the outcomes and recognition of success. It helps to illustrate what the person is truly like.

2/ Where it's possible, we'll pay the person a pro rata salary equivalent to spend a day with us actually working in the role. I know a couple of other companies doing this and it's really great.

3/ If we like the person we immediately throw out whatever references they provide and spend a few hours dredging up people they worked with from our networks. We also look at the people they named in the project example. Once we've got a list of 6-10 people, we ask the candidate if we can reference using those people.

4/ Typically at this point we've decided that on paper we want to make an offer. Referencing is the last opportunity we have to really assess the person's ability to cope under pressure, how quickly they drop their "new job" act and get into being themselves, and crucially what "themselves" is like. I nearly always only ask questions which could be perceived as negative at this point -- what makes them throw their laptop across the room? What stresses them out? How do they communicate when under pressure? What are the things you told them they need to work on in their last review?

Referencing probably only accounts for 10-20% of the time I spend on a candidate, but the weighting I give it is huge when it comes to working with and managing that candidate when they're on the team.

A million different ways of doing things -- but referencing is so often overlooked and I've never understood why.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#25

Post by d3mchi »

Clubber wrote: post #22
adwww wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle. They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test. Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that sa…

I'm the same way. A full day interview is just silly, multiple day interviews, no way. Look at my resume, meet me, decide, make an offer. If it doesn't work out, fire me, but don't play this silly game of multiple interviews with multiple people that don't really talk to each other or coordinate. It makes the company look like they don't know what they are doing and/or are indecisive. You can keep that.

I feel that a multi-day interview or a longer process helps weed out those who aren't interested in your company, just interested in a job, but I can agree some companies overdo it. As for meeting with multiple people who don't talk/coordinate, that sounds more like something that takes place in a larger company, whereas this article was about new startups, where I imagine communication would be stronger.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#26

Post by avitzurel »

Clubber wrote: post #22
adwww wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle. They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test. Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that sa…

I'm the same way. A full day interview is just silly, multiple day interviews, no way. Look at my resume, meet me, decide, make an offer. If it doesn't work out, fire me, but don't play this silly game of multiple interviews with multiple people that don't really talk to each other or coordinate. It makes the company look like they don't know what they are doing and/or are indecisive. You can keep that.

That's how I moved jobs in my last 3 positions. Find me, meet me (coffee, lunch), meet the team for some ideas/brainstorming. Make me an offer I can't refuse.

Screw the rest, seriously, it's just not worth the trouble.

A couple of weeks back I saw a repo on Github. Preparing for an interview @ Google. It was a mile long. Never doing that.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#27

Post by felixgallo »

adwww wrote: post #3
avitzurel wrote: post #2

Here's my perspective. (I am writing in a snarky way to convey a message) 1. If you're using recruiters, you're already losing. Especially if those are recruiting agencies that "hide" the name of the companies. The cold emails are just ridiculously hideous. 2. Use as little hyped up words as you possibly can. You might change the world, but everyone else is saying the same thing and people are getting sensitive about…

I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle. They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test. Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that sa…

On the downside, then you're working at a company that hires its staff by bar conversations, rather than by attempting to determine competency and mutual fit.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#28

Post by privacyfornow »

tresante wrote: post #4

Great advice. I was wondering if anyone out there has experience of sourcing technical leads when what's primarily on offer is equity for a founding/lead role at a bootstrapped startup with an early product. Clearly you need to have a compelling vision, show potential and find people in the right frame of mind/stage in their career but I'm wondering if I'm missing any important channels? So far here are a few I've tr…

Meetup is my vector as well. I am organizing my first meetup on the topic of mechanical sympathy and low latency microservices with focus on low level details like dedicating cpu cores to interrupt request handlers, call routing within service discovery and so on. Only 5 people have confirmed but these are the folks I am interested in talking to and hearing from. It can be quite rewarding both personally and professionally.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#29

Post by avitzurel »

d3mchi wrote: post #25
Clubber wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same way. A full day interview is just silly, multiple day interviews, no way. Look at my resume, meet me, decide, make an offer. If it doesn't work out, fire me, but don't play this silly game of multiple interviews with multiple people that don't really talk to each other or coordinate. It makes the company look like they don't know what they are doing and/or are indecisive. You can keep that.

I feel that a multi-day interview or a longer process helps weed out those who aren't interested in your company, just interested in a job, but I can agree some companies overdo it. As for meeting with multiple people who don't talk/coordinate, that sounds more like something that takes place in a larger company, whereas this article was about new startups, where I imagine communication would be stronger.

It weeds out everybody who isn't desperate for a job and taking those multiple days interviews with anyone that offers them.

Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup

#30

Post by avitzurel »

felixgallo wrote: post #27
adwww wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle. They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test. Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that sa…

On the downside, then you're working at a company that hires its staff by bar conversations, rather than by attempting to determine competency and mutual fit.

I'd go work for that company over a multiple days interview any day. If you talk about the right things, it beats any interview (IMHO of course).
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