Hiring is one of the hardest things an entrepreneur does on a regular basis. The actual act of hiring isn’t hard, rather, it is the difficulty of hiring the right people for your team. Building a great team is the number one priority of an entrepreneur. Here are a few tips that we’ve found to be successful for us during the hiring process:
- Have an essay portion of the hiring process whereby the candidate has to answer five short answer questions that are specific to your industry
- If you’re a software company, have an exercise for the candidate to complete certain tasks in the application and demonstrate technical proficiency
- If it is a very senior position, go out to dinner with the candidate and his/her spouse so that you can see how they interact with their significant other
- If anyone on your team objects to the candidate, immediately discontinue the process and move on — everyone needs to be on board 100%
Hiring the right people is incredibly difficult. I hope these tips help.
David Cummings on Startups 