Making your first hires is an exercise in doing things that donât scale. What intuitively feels like the ârightâ approach to hiring is probably wrong.
Look for the shortest and most direct path to hiring. This is typically hiring from your network and applicable forums first. If you can hire someone you already know and quickly assess for aptitude and potential, you will hire good people faster. Donât batch hire. Focus on filling your highest priority role and move on to the next once you have filled that role.
Recruit from your network first
Begin your talent search within your professional network. This approach is particularly valuable for finding exceptional raw talent before they become "proven" in their careers. These individuals are often more motivated, less expensive to hire, and have tremendous growth potential. When evaluating these candidates, optimize for aptitude and slopeâtheir natural abilities and how quickly they can learn and improve. Ask yourself:
- Who are the smartest people Iâve worked with in the past?
- Who were the smartest people I went to school with?
Leveraging your network creates a dual advantage: it expedites the recruiting process because you have privileged insights about these candidates, and it streamlines interviewing since you've already established their competence and compatibility with your working style.
Hiring early engineers
First hires are almost always engineers. Here are a few specific attributes to screen for when hiring early engineers:
- Product-driven versus working on interesting technical problems
- Can operate in an environment with high ambiguity
- Proactive and independent in managing their work
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