photo credit: gbaku

The importance of ‘right’ workforce in a startup can hardly be over-emphasized. You must hire the right people – especially the ‘early employees’ must be perfect.

The hiring procedure of a startup should follow a two-way approach – not hiring the wrong people and hiring the right people (the former is much more important). Hiring a wrong employee can be detrimental to the growth of a startup.

The main confusion arises in identifying the ‘right’ people for your startup. No matter how experienced you are, there is always a dilemma when it comes to hiring for startups. In the following paragraphs we attempt to outline some important points you should consider when hiring for your startup venture:

•    Instead of spending a lot of time going out and finding the perfect person, let the perfect person find you

•    Change the “what can they do for me” line of thinking to “what can my startup do for them?” It’s not only the responsibility of big companies to ‘create value’

•    Generalists and Specialists – both are important for your startups so try maintaining a balance

•    Hire talent, not skill – the talented employee will automatically learn the skills

•    Have a probation period before actually hiring (you should date before getting married)

•    Experience is important but don’t ignore the people with a ‘warrior attitude’. Reminds me of a post by Seth Godin I came across recently.

Your startup is developing in the Information Age so take full advantage and look out for the best talent. Detailed information on this subject is available in the following articles:
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/1278/5-Quick-Pointers-On-Startup-Hiring.aspx
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/185/Startup-Hiring-Why-You-Should-Date-Before-Getting-Married.aspx

I’ve been in the startup business for a pretty long time now.  One of the things that I’ve found hardest to do is find and recruit exceptionally talented individuals.  This is not particularly surprising, I think all businesses (big and small, young and old) have this challenge.