How (not) to hire

And how (not) to write about how (not) to hire

* Reposting this with edits based on feedback I got from folks who had read the article. The last version seemed to hyper-focus on specific people and instances instead of being a list of learnings from a hiring perspective, and I have now taken a step back and attempted to write about the process itself. Super grateful for the honest feedback, this is also a part of my learning curve as a founder.

Note: All of this is from the context of an early stage startup. Companies at different stages require different kinds of team members, and different work styles, and this is by no means meant to be all-encompassing. Also, I understand that it’s not easy to work at an early stage company, and just because one is not a good fit for the early stage doesn’t mean they are unemployable.

The last month was tough.

We interviewed 100+ candidates and ended up making messy hiring decisions.

Here are a few learnings from this experience.

1. Proactiveness does not always lead to successful outcomes
   
   The folks we hired were buzzing around in constant action - asking questions, coming up with ideas, tapping into their network for solutions.
   
   But the outcomes were the ultimate determinants. They could not get the most basic things done without running into some or the other issue, largely caused by a lack of understanding of fundamental principles.
   
   So our big learning is not to hinge too much on proactiveness unless it is coupled with strong fundamentals.

2. Inability to take accountability is perhaps the biggest red flag
   
   If you mess up, you own up to it, figure out why you messed up and course correct. Instead of owning up, if folks on the team come up with excuses (or worse, empty apologies mixed with justifications) for why they messed up, they already become un-coachable.
   
   It’s nearly impossible for un-coachable people to solve hard problems because they are either unaware of what they don’t know, or are covering up what they need to learn. Being open to learning (not just saying you want to learn, but showing you can learn) is a pre-requisite to solve hard problems, and in turn thriving at an early stage startup.

3. Response to failure is often a good marker for success in a startup
   
   I understand that a lot of these responses are shaped by what kinds of environments someone grew up in. Fear and shame are often natural responses to failure if you grew up in a family or society that valued you only when you succeeded.
   
   However, an individual’s ability to succeed in uncertain environments is determined by how conscious they are about these patterns, and how they are working on reframing their failures within their own minds. I know this is hard hard work. But if people are not willing to/able to work on themselves, then perhaps it’s hard to expect them to commit meaningfully to a long term vision.
   
   I am cognizant of the fact that a lot of these responses are skewed based on the condition of the job market, the kind of privilege you have or don’t. But we are all trying to succeed in a capitalist world (which unfortunately rewards and amplifies privilege), and as a startup we need to maximize our odds of success by hiring the best folks.
   
   Ideally don’t hire people who have a propensity to panic in the face of failure; they need more work on their nervous system before they can be a good fit for an early stage startup. We are figuring out how to determine a candidate’s response to failure during the interview process - would love to get thoughts from other founders/hiring managers who have cracked this to some extent.

4. Ability to leverage available resources is an underrated skill
   
   Testing for whether someone is resourceful enough, i.e. when they run into a problem do they just assume that nothing can be done, or do they find their way into plausible and feasible solutions, using whatever is available to them (including google/chatgpt/reddit), is an important aspect. So now we have started testing for this in our technical rounds.

5. Don’t hire people who just want a job.
   
   This is so hard to say out loud because there is such systemic inequity within the candidate pool. However, an early stage startup cannot afford to hire people who don’t have an innate hunger to solve a problem (I am not referring to a societal problem here, but a problem in the sense that it is intellectually challenging to get to a solution).
   
   Just because someone has the skillsets or experience required to solve a problem, they need not be able to solve it, because they don’t spend enough time worrying about it, and thinking about it from the right first principles framework. It’s hard to determine why a candidate applies to your company. The obvious answer is that they are looking for a job that pays. But we believe there are ancillary markers for what matters to them (like why they picked the projects they picked in the past). If they are only looking for something that gives them a monthly salary and nothing else (which is not wrong on any level at the candidate’s end; it’s probably the most peaceful way to operate in the world), they are perhaps a terrible fit for an early stage company.

6. Hire people who invest time in activities outside of work
   
   This perhaps sounds counter-intuitive. But we have grown to realize that to bring your fullest creative self to work, you need to have healthy avenues for delight. You don’t need to be an expert at things that give you joy, but the fact that you invest time in diverse things enables your neurons to fire differently, and these can in the long-run translate into connecting dots that others haven’t connected before. Folks who can do that are a valuable asset.

1. This list is definitely going to be work in progress (as a mentor in the biotech space who has been hiring for the last two decades told us, his success rate is still 70%) but I think it is definitely worth putting it out here to track the evolution of our hiring process.
   
   I would love to connect and chat with founders building in deep tech and figure out how you are setting up hiring pipelines and what metrics you use for decision making.