Hiring: Build Your Process Before You Need It

Why Ad Hoc Hiring Breaks Down and How Founders Can Stay Ahead

This week we are kicking off a new series. Hiring Intentionally: A practical guide for early stage founders to build hiring systems and strategies that scale.

When you are building a startup, hiring can feel like just another (albeit very important) task in a never ending to-do list. But, EVERY hire changes your company. Especially early on.

Hiring fast without structure can often lead to misalignment, missed expectations, and painful and expensive rehiring down the road. We have seen it too many times.

The fix? A lightweight structured hiring framework. One that is built before you find yourself in the position of needing your next team member yesterday.

Why Ad Hoc Hiring Breaks (Even If You Have Great Instincts)

It is inconsistent. You are not tying your decisions to tangible objective criteria and so there is no baseline for "good".

It is biased. Charisma, charm and founder fits can get overvalued.

It's reactive. You end up filling gaps in your team or in skills sets and not thinking about and building for growth.

It slows you down. Your hiring team debates what "good" (or "great") looks like after the interviews leading to a lengthy process (and a terrible candidate experience!).

What a Lightweight (but Structured) Hiring Process Looks Like

• Clear Role Definition

  • What is the goal of the role?

  • What are they going to do to help achieve the company’s mission and vision?

  • What does “great” look like?

• Defined Skills and Attributes

  • What skills and traits actually matter in this context?

  • What skills already exist on the team and how might this role fit within that?

• Simple Interview Plan

  • Who is assessing what?

  • Align questions to interviewers so that you avoid unnecessary duplication.

  • Create a shared rubric so that each part of the process has clear objectives.

• Consistent Decision Process

  • How will hiring decisions be made and by who?

  • How fast will decisions be made?

Start Now Before You Needed Someone Yesterday

If you wait until the need is pressing it is tempting to skip steps. But that is how culture gets diluted, values get lost, you start to weigh decision making criteria differently and ultimately mishires happen.

Check out our ‘Startup Hiring Cheat Sheet’ to set up your framework and get started.

Let’s Talk

If you are building a startup and want to do it with intention, we would love to connect. Reach out to us at hello@excelerate.work and check out our website, www.excelerate.work.

How you hire is one of the most important strategic choices you will make as a founder. Let's make it scale!