I’m Steve Bartel, the co-founder, and CEO of Gem. Welcome to Startup Hiring 101 the place we’ll cowl all of the fundamentals of startup hiring, together with step-by-step directions, instance templates, and finest practices.
Earlier than we leap in, for those who’re a startup founder and also you’re not utilizing Gem, you might wish to test it out — it’s free for startups for you and your whole founding group for 2 years.
Who is that this hiring information for?
This information is for early-stage startups who’ve raised sufficient cash to rent their preliminary group, (e.g. a $1-5M spherical). It’s meant for founders and founding groups with little to no data about hiring.
Should you don’t have the cash to rent, you shouldn’t waste time recruiting and hiring. Increase cash first, then rent. Should you’ve already employed your first recruiter and wish to scale your hiring, or for those who’re a recruiter, sourcer, or expertise chief, the Gem weblog may have extra content material which may be extra tailor-made to you.
Components of this information might also be useful for hiring managers at fast-growing corporations who’re carefully concerned with recruiting. In some methods, enjoying a extra lively function as a hiring supervisor is quite a bit like hiring for a startup inside a bigger firm, particularly for those who don’t have as a lot help out of your recruiting group.
Why do you have to care?
Hiring is essential. Within the startup world, concepts are free, so constructing a powerful group is every thing. When you’ve raised cash, hiring turns into your primary precedence and can stay your high precedence as your organization scales. Hiring is the way you get leverage as a founder to scale the work you’re doing and can speed up your organization way over placing in 80-hour weeks.
Hiring the proper group is crucial. Not solely does having the appropriate group enable you transfer sooner, but it surely additionally units the muse for everybody you rent shifting ahead. Each as a result of potential expertise will wish to work along with your group, and since the folks you select to rent will know different proficient folks, so hiring the appropriate staff will make it simpler and simpler to proceed hiring the appropriate folks to your group.
Hiring isn’t straightforward. As a startup, you’re a totally unknown amount. You haven’t any present expertise model. You’ve got little to no validation. You’re tremendous dangerous. You most likely can’t pay a excessive wage. And other people you wish to rent have tons of choices for the place to work.
To make issues tougher, most of us as founders haven’t any clue the place to begin. Even if in case you have years of expertise recruiting at high corporations, you possibly can nonetheless make rookie errors in relation to constructing the appropriate group to your new startup. And sadly, there aren’t many assets on the market for founders seeking to rent their early group.
However don’t let all of this discourage you — mastering hiring and constructing a fantastic group is a big alternative. Hiring your early group will probably be plenty of onerous work and require studying by doing, however there’s a science to it, which this information will stroll you thru. Performed proper, hiring will grow to be your aggressive benefit, propelling you previous your rivals towards escape velocity. Not solely is the chance huge, however placing collectively a world-class group you wish to work with each day is without doubt one of the most rewarding elements of constructing a startup. At the very least it actually has been for Gem.
Who am I and why did I write this information?
I’m Steve Bartel, the co-founder, and CEO of Gem. At Gem, we construct the main all-in-one recruiting platform, so, naturally, we spend plenty of time eager about hiring given the product we construct.
I even have a ton of hands-on expertise with hiring, and listed here are just some highlights:
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Should you’re studying this, I’ve been in your footwear very lately. We began Gem in 2017, and have constructed an unimaginable group rapidly — rising from 0 to 7 to 25 to 75 in lower than three years.
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We’ve discovered from working carefully with hundreds of the most effective recruiting groups at high tech corporations (Gem clients) over the previous few years.
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Whereas at Dropbox, I spent a ton of my time hiring over the course of 5 years as the corporate grew from 25 to 1500 folks. I had the privilege of working with a number of the finest recruiters and sourcers within the business and discovered quite a bit alongside the way in which
Given my expertise and the product Gem builds, plenty of founders attain out to me each month for recommendation on early-stage hiring. These are usually mates of mine beginning corporations, corporations I counsel and/or put money into, or intros from expertise companions and buyers seeking to assist out new portfolio corporations. At this level, I’ve helped lots of of early-stage startups rent their groups.
Personally, although, I’ve obtained a lot startup recommendation over time from our buyers, YC, and unimaginable go-to-market operators. However I’ve at all times discovered it uniquely precious to get recommendation from founders who’ve been in my footwear. Hiring is without doubt one of the areas the place I consider I’ve gained some distinctive expertise, so I see this as a chance to pay it ahead and attain a fair broader set of founders and corporations. I hope it’s useful — and whether it is, I hope you’ll pay your startup journey learnings ahead at some point too.
Up Subsequent
In my subsequent installment within the sequence, I’ll cowl how recruiting is similar to a gross sales pipeline, how one can make the most of a gross sales mentality all through the hiring course of, and what a typical early-stage hiring funnel seems like.
Within the meantime…
