Recruiting the right talent is about more than just selling candidates on your company and the role. You need to give candidates the full picture to make sure it’s actually the right fit, for both you and the candidate.
As the co-founder of a fast-growing startup, I’ve seen how prioritizing transparency makes all the difference in hiring success. If a candidate knows exactly what to expect — the good and the bad — and they’re still fully bought in, they’re likely to excel and add to the company’s culture.
What to Do Instead of Selling Your Company to a Candidate
- Highlight your startup’s strengths, but let the candidate speak more in order to gauge their genuine enthusiasm (or lack thereof) about your mission.
- Ask the difficult questions immediately.
- Stay involved in the recruiting and hiring process as the founder or executive to give candidates a realistic sense of what the company is like.
Selling Candidates on Your Company Is a Red Flag
Recruiting often feels like a sales pitch: Convince candidates to join even when they’re unsure. But when you’re selling candidates on a role, you’re likely feeding them promises you can’t keep. You may also be afraid that they’ll leave once they join, which prevents you from being honest and direct with them when you really should be.
Examples might include promising a high-potential candidate that they’ll definitely be able to be a leader, build a team and hire right away, or convincing a seller that they’ll hit their quota on inbound sales alone.
At an early stage startup, it’s especially important to be direct about the ever-changing landscape they’re stepping into and ensure that they’re ready to embrace the uncertainty. You might be able to change the candidate’s mind on their role for a short period and even get them excited about it. But once they start, they’ll likely realize that their initial preferences hold true, and they’ll ultimately be unhappy.
At my company, we’ve learned that if we have to aggressively sell a candidate on a role or the company, then it’s probably not the right fit. In early conversations, we’ll obviously highlight our company’s strengths, but the right candidates are excited by our mission, have well-thought-out opinions on how they can help us grow and usually feel strongly that we’re the right fit for them as well.
Ask Direct Questions From the Beginning
Asking direct, honest and difficult questions about why someone is interested in working at your company saves everyone time and prevents future conflicts.
For example, during early interviews with candidates, we ask something like, “As a startup, our team works exceptionally hard and goes above and beyond what you’d see at a typical large company. Why would you be open to that when you could join a larger nine-to-five company?”
Based on how a candidate responds to questions like this, you can learn whether they’re the right fit. At the same time, this allows candidates to figure out if your company is right for them. Each candidate is looking for a specific experience, and if you can’t provide that, they should know as soon as possible so that they can find another company that does.
Show Candidates You’re Genuinely Invested in Them
My co-founder and I think that every leader should take an active role in sourcing, interviewing and selecting candidates.
Being proactive and opinionated helps us build a team aligned with our strategic vision. It also signals the importance of each role we hire for (both internally and to candidates), provides candidates with a more detailed perspective of the organization and sets the tone for hiring managers to do their own sourcing.
No one is more passionate about the company than the founders. Having direct communication with candidates allows that passion to show through (or not), indicating the tone the founding team sets for the rest of the company. I’ve had multiple candidates mention that the excitement and drive they felt from me and my co-founder during their interview process is what convinced them to join.
Additionally, executives should have a pulse on how more than just one area of the business operates. They can provide insight and transparency into company-level initiatives, challenges and metrics in ways that hiring managers oftentimes can’t.
Executives also need to go beyond typical recruitment tactics. In certain cases, I’ve flown from New York City to San Francisco in the morning to get dinner with a candidate, only to take the red-eye back that night. This sends them a clear message that they’re special to us and that we feel strongly about their fit with the company.
Regardless of who’s sourcing and interviewing, your team will need to be completely honest and direct with every candidate. This includes everything from your company culture to the role they’re interviewing for. That’s the only way you can hire talent at scale that’ll thrive and actually enjoy working at your company.
