1. How to Hire for
a
Start-up?

2. When to hire?
⧫ When you need smarter people than you for specific tasks.
⧫ When you have resources to afford that.

3. Depends on the Urgency of Hiring
❖ Urgent/ Quick Hiring
⧫ Pros:
● Dont need to invest too much
● You know the urgent need and can hire according to that.
⧫ Cons:
● High percentage of getting wrong candidate
● Have to select more candidates than needed

4. On urgency of Hiring
❖ Not so Urgent ones:
⧫ Pros:
● You can actually test the candidate pretty well before
● Campus placement may be a very good option
⧫ Cons:
● You need to have a view of at least more than a year on how your
company will be like after 1 year
● Require more resources

5. Attracting a potential Hire
Why should they work for a startup over any other established firm?

6. Marketing your startup to potential
hires.

7. Sell what you already have
Sell Credentials and growth
● Credentials of founding team
● Credentials of early employees
● Growth of early employees
● Company Growth

8. Work culture
● Sell freedom and flexibility of
work
● Flexible work timings
● No steadfast office rules
● Freedom to define your work
● Lack of Hierarchy

9. Appreciation of
work
Sell direct impact and
recognition of work
● Always aware of the big picture
and not just modular work
● Direct interaction with users and
customers irrespective of any role
● There is no small cog in a big
machine; you are the cog and you
are the machine

10. Ok, This is great.
But How do I take these
points to the right people?

11. Make some noise before hiring
● Online promotions and engagements
● Contribute to online media in your area of
expertise
● Establish thought leadership through
surveys, infographics and blog posts.
● Conducts webinars and hangouts in your
area of expertise
● Network or sponsor at relevant offline events

12. Encourage Referrals

13. Know thy enemy
● Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
● See if you can do it better.

14. ● Personal Networks
● Alumnus-College
● Past employees
● Extended networks

15. Now I have got 100s of applications.
I don’t have resources for this.

16. Creating a Task
● Use a task as a filtering mechanism
● Make sure the task is relevant to everyday operations of your company
● Make the task as specific to the job description as possible
Note: This is a good filtering mechanism as most people do not take the task
seriously.

17. Interviewing
● Make a panel of 3 people
● Judge candidates between a strong no, a weak no, a weak yes and a
strong yes.
● Keep a criteria like- No strong No’s and at least two strong Yes’s
Note: The parameters can vary based on your requirements and preferences.

18. Remember to make a good impression as a
good candidate will always have other good
options as well.

19. How to Hold Someone
After Hiring
● It takes time to get used to the culture of a
company
● Don’t accept mediocrity. It sets a bad
influence on the growth of a firm.
● Openly appreciate good work.

20. Parting Notes
● Hiring is easier with a good network
● Go to as many networking events as possible and try speaking at some of
them
● First few members should not be freshers
● Hire fast and fire faster