What is missing? It is crucial for you as a Founder, to understand what skills & experience will take your business to the next level. Do you need more users, do you need to develop a better product, do you need operational help to keep up with demand, do you need financial help ahead of a fundraise?
Whatever your next milestone, it is essential to review the skillset of the current Senior Leadership team and your own strengths as part of the Founding team, to assess if you have the experience required to help you grow.
When deciding upon new talent, it is important to consider a few parameters; will your role offer progression, future potential to move into other areas or is this just an interim requirement?
Remember, talent will equally be assessing you and your business to understand if it is a good fit for their future, so it is important to consider a candidate’s perspective before & during a recruitment process.
How to find it? Now you need to establish, how you are going to identify this individual and this ultimately is very dependent on the type of background required. How broad does their skill set need to be, how important is it that they are a functional expert, do they need specific industry experience?
The next question is, how well networked are you in this area and can you be confident in identifying a best-in class individual. Clearly this is the first place to start if you have the network and time to manage the process of hiring directly.
If you do not have either the wider network or time, then it is a case of using a specialist recruiter who can approach a target list of individuals with desired experience & skills required.
What does a good hiring process look like? Firstly, in doing steps 1 & 2 you should have a clear understanding of who you need for a well thought out and specific requirement. We regularly hear of elongated hiring processes because of hiring managers changing the scope of the role and thus, the specific individual required, midway through the process.
It is essential to go into a hiring process with a well-crafted job description, as this demonstrates a level of professionalism and commitment to finding the best person. Strong profiles will be attracted to your opportunity if you have taken time to provide a candidate pack filled with business insights, clearly defined areas of ownership and interesting projects / improvements to implement.
The job description is your chance to highlight what is great about your business & how this opportunity can take the business to the next stage. If you want to go the extra step why not record a video clip that can be sent alongside the job description.
Once a strong shortlist has been crafted, the next step is to assess the individuals comprehensively to ensure you are not just focused on what they have done in the past. Clearly it is important that a successful candidate has a high percentage of the experience required but it is more important to hire someone with the right values, drive, character and long term vision for the opportunity, than just looking at previous experience. Also, always assess career logic — does your role make logical sense for that particular candidate.
We suggest building an interview process that brings candidates on the journey, enabling them to assess whether it is a good fit for them as well as them for the business. It is a good idea to include a project within the interview process where candidates can work alongside members of the business, turning it from an interview process into more of an everyday working situation.
Finally, make sure you include the CEO or Co-Founder as part of the process as this can be instrumental in securing your first-choice candidate. Don’t just email them the offer, video call the candidate providing all the details and answer any questions they may have straight away. This is another chance to pitch your opportunity, remembering the candidate’s main desires for their next role / company.
It is highly likely that the preferred candidate will have offers elsewhere, so ask if they have any other offers and how your proposition compares. Follow up with a detailed email highlighting the business vision, values and offer details making sure to highlight what the candidate will achieve and learn in this role and where they will be in 12 months. Offer a follow up call or coffee to meet with the candidate again and provide a sensible deadline to come back with a decision 😊
When does onboarding start and finish? In my opinion on-boarding starts as soon as an offer has been accepted, as it is at this stage that a candidate can truly measure how an employer plans to treat them. Too many times employers do not make regular contact in-between an offer being accepted and the formal start date.
A lot can happen in one month let alone in three or even six months, so see this period as an opportunity to get to know each other, answering any questions employees may have and building a strong relationship in advance of the official start date. Keeping in touch should not be seen as a chore and continually remind yourself of the positive impact that building a strong relationship will have in retention & hitting the ground running.
Every business will have a different onboarding process & timescales, but I would encourage reviewing these regularly to ensure they are having the desired outcomes. Talk to employees who have recently concluded on the first three or six months to ascertain what they liked and disliked about the on-boarding process.
Now what? Clearly this is highly dependent on the level of seniority and functional area that an individual sits in but there are general rules that should apply across the board.
Following a structured and thorough interview process, it should be clear what the individual needs to do in the first 12 months to make their role a success but make sure you set them up to succeed with the resource, time & tools needed in the first instance (3–6 months). This means that they have been given the opportunity to fully understand the inner workings of the business such as the revenue model, customer base, growth strategy, pricing offerings and the relevant meeting structures etc.
A strong leader should be able to challenge, motivate and develop this individual but there needs to be a commitment of time from both sides to make this relationship work. It is likely a successful relationship will need a combination of communication styles & meeting formats. Personally, I would try and operate yearly or half yearly appraisals / reviews in person.
If the individual is responsible for projects or areas of work that they, or the line manager hasn’t faced previously then provide that individual with a mentor or top advisor to help them on that journey. This doesn’t need to cost the earth, as quite often there will be a mentor willing to give back or a specialist network / community out there that can help.
Make sure you have a strong process for reviewing individuals work and gaining their feedback on how they are enjoying the role. It is crucial to build a two-way process to establish a long-term relationship, if you want to create an environment where the employee is giving it everything they can because they feel that they have been part of the process.
There are a number of ways to create longevity with employees, clearly building a great culture and making employees feel that their roles have a purpose are massive factors. Increased responsibility, new projects, flexibility and an opportunity to move or double down into areas of specific interest, are also key factors. Make sure you know which of these factors will act as a motivator for each of your key employees.
How to fend off the competition? You have helped to develop a superstar with the knowledge, experience, and character that other businesses will love, so you must be aware of this to protect them from being poached.
It is key to fully understand the motivating factors for the individual involved and it is so much better to do that early on and throughout the process. It is so common for a Founder / Line Manager to only ask what the individual wants in terms of salary, flexibility, role tweaks when the individual is handing in their notice. In most instances this is too late as they have already worked out that you don’t care.
Understand what the individual wants to do with their career and how they would like to be rewarded for doing exceptional work. If this is feasible for your business then make it happen, stick to what you have agreed and then go again, as it likely that some of these motivating factors will change as their personal circumstances change.
Please continually look at how you reward your employees through the different stages of your business, so that you have options available to keep hold of your best people.
Is this the only option? 99% of people want to be good at their job or be considered an asset to their business. Very few people go into their working week looking to fail or cause issues but based on this statistic 1 in 100 are a bad fit for your business and should be fired before they cause bigger issues with the culture of the business.
Thinking of the other 99%, it is essential to understand what the severity of the performance or cultural issue is and decide from there. Quite often this can be addressed quickly but if the problem persists after regular employment reviews, then this individual is a bad fit for your business and should be fired before they cause bigger issues with the culture of the business. It is too damaging a message to send to the rest of the employees if the business is seen to reward individuals who are constantly underperforming and adding more pressure to others.
When trying to keep hold of superstars there is always going to be a stage where you can’t offer them what they want any longer and, in these instances, it is best for the individual to leave the business on good terms (if possible). There are many instances where this may be driven by unrealistic salary or equity expectations that you cannot offer, but there are many other factors at play here that you can’t control.
Perhaps the individual enjoyed the breadth and antiquated nature of a role when you were an early stage startup but now that roles have become more defined with functional specialist, they feel like their scope has been reduced. It is not possible for you to turn back time and it is important to consider what the business needs next, whilst you would love to keep a hold of that individual, it is not the best thing for either the company or that individual.
Written by Andrew Waters| Zanda Co-Founder
As an expert in partnering with early-stage tech start-ups, feel free to get in touch if you require advice or are keen to hire that first or even second person for your finance function.
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