Signal vs noise: Sourcing and screening

Signal vs noise: Sourcing and screening

In my last two articles, I covered candidate interviews and reference checks. To finish this three-part series I want to now cover the tip of the recruiting spear: how to source and screen initial candidates. When you're a startup without an established reputation, you can't recruit the same way a larger company does. You have to create opportunities to connect with candidates personally, and then convince them to take a chance on you.

Signal vs noise: Sourcing and screening

In my last two articles, I covered candidate interviews and reference checks. To finish this three-part series I want to now cover the tip of the recruiting spear: how to source and screen initial candidates. When you're a startup without an established reputation, you can't recruit the same way a larger company does. You have to create opportunities to connect with candidates personally, and then convince them to take a chance on you.

Sourcing your first employees

When you're hiring your first non-founder employees, chances are most of your candidates will come from your personal network. This is because at that time you basically have almost no product recognition or employer brand you can take advantage of. Instead you need to recruit from the pool of people that know you personally. This could be people you went to school with or former colleagues you've worked with. This early batch of candidates can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, they're probably the easiest candidates you'll ever have to evaluate. These should be people that you already know can do the job and ideally have already seen them succeed in similar situations in the past. But this hiring phase can also be a curse as well. For first-time founders that don’t yet have a strong personal network to pull from, it can be very difficult to find and convince anyone to work with you. This is why I advise aspiring founders to focus on building their personal networks and reputations before starting a company. If you’re a student, hang out where the best students are, find other like-minded students and befriend them, and join student organizations that will help you make connections at school and hopefully in your chosen industry. If you’re already in the workforce, do the same thing but at your workplace. Seek out those that are the best at what they do. Even if you never end up working with them directly, exceptional people tend to know other exceptional people. These early personal networks will be where you find your cofounder and your first few employees. 

Moving beyond your personal network

Eventually it will become important to start hiring from outside the founder’s personal networks. Even if you still know excellent people personally, around the five-employee mark it becomes important to start hiring from outside your network. This is because, most likely, your personal network probably resembles yourself in many ways. When you hire from your network those employees will think like you, act like you, and ultimately make similar decisions as you would. This makes team cohesion smooth, but will ultimately make your product or service worse. As I’ve written before, you need a diverse team because a diversity of thought will help you see around corners and build a product or service that connects with more types of people and customers. 

Finding candidates

So how do you find those external candidates? When you’re just starting out I would avoid platforms like LinkedIn and I also wouldn't recommend outsourcing your recruiting process entirely at this stage. External recruiters, like TeamFirst, can be valuable partners, but founders need to remain deeply involved in defining what makes someone successful at their company. Additionally, great candidates are currently swamped with messages on LinkedIn and it's very hard to stand out from the rest when you don’t yet have a great employer brand name. What I suggest instead is doing things that don’t scale (to quote the great Paul Graham). First off, go to in-person events where those who are excellent at their jobs are. These can be casual work events or trade shows if you’re hiring for a very specific type of role. Meeting people in person immediately gives you a more powerful connection with the candidate and gives you a leg up on your online-only competition. The other technique to use is unique/non-traditional methods of finding and reaching out to candidates. For example, I have a friend whose recruiters subscribe to all of the AI white papers coming out of top universities. When they see a great white paper they will reach out to the grad students that worked on that paper. Other founder friends have recruited engineers by finding promising GitHub projects and reaching out directly to the developers behind them using the email addresses associated with their commits. Not only are you able to find diamonds in the rough this way, you immediately have something to talk to the candidate about as well.

Screening candidates

Once you’re chatting with a candidate the first step is a quick screening call. The point of a screening call is to do two things: one, set expectations and ensure you’re not wasting your or the candidate’s time and two, sell the candidate on the opportunity. You should have a list of deal breakers ready to bring up with the candidate. A good list to start with is: 

• Salary: Is the salary range you can pay for this role going to work with the candidate

• In person requirements: Are you in-person, remote or a hybrid workplace. Are your in-office requirements going to work for the candidate

• Roles and responsibilities: What exactly are you expecting the candidate to deliver in this role? Is this a job they’d be excited to do? If the candidate really wants to be a manager in the next position and this isn’t a management role now's the time to get on the same page.

• Values alignment: What is the candidate motivated by? What are they hoping to achieve with their next role? Can this role and your workplace fulfill those motivations the candidate has?

The goal of screening is to discover whether there's a path to yes, not to manufacture reasons to say no. By adopting that mentality you may find a non-traditional candidate that excels in the interview and job. And once you’ve gotten to yes, there are no immediate blockers, it's time to sell. This screening call may be the candidate’s first interaction with your company. They may know nothing at all about what you’re doing, the mission, or why you all exist in the world. Ensure they know all of that and get them excited about the opportunity. Help them imagine working at your company and what their day-to-day life will look like.

Conclusion

Across these last three articles, I've argued that recruiting isn't about finding reasons to reject candidates. It's about creating opportunities for exceptional people to show you what makes them exceptional. Whether you're sourcing candidates, interviewing them, or checking their references, your job is to design a process that gives you the signal you need to make a good decision. Remember, recruiting is a two-way street. You're evaluating the candidate, but they're evaluating you right back. Make sure that every interaction a candidate has with your company, from the first call to the offer letter, leaves them even more excited about the opportunity. Even if they ultimately don’t join, often candidates talk with others about their experience interacting with and interviewing at your company. You want them to tell all of their friends about how good the experience was. That’s the start of your employer brand!

When you're hiring your first non-founder employees, chances are most of your candidates will come from your personal network. This is because at that time you basically have almost no product recognition or employer brand you can take advantage of. Instead you need to recruit from the pool of people that know you personally. This could be people you went to school with or former colleagues you've worked with. This early batch of candidates can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, they're probably the easiest candidates you'll ever have to evaluate. These should be people that you already know can do the job and ideally have already seen them succeed in similar situations in the past. But this hiring phase can also be a curse as well. For first-time founders that don’t yet have a strong personal network to pull from, it can be very difficult to find and convince anyone to work with you. This is why I advise aspiring founders to focus on building their personal networks and reputations before starting a company. If you’re a student, hang out where the best students are, find other like-minded students and befriend them, and join student organizations that will help you make connections at school and hopefully in your chosen industry. If you’re already in the workforce, do the same thing but at your workplace. Seek out those that are the best at what they do. Even if you never end up working with them directly, exceptional people tend to know other exceptional people. These early personal networks will be where you find your cofounder and your first few employees. 

Moving beyond your personal network

Eventually it will become important to start hiring from outside the founder’s personal networks. Even if you still know excellent people personally, around the five-employee mark it becomes important to start hiring from outside your network. This is because, most likely, your personal network probably resembles yourself in many ways. When you hire from your network those employees will think like you, act like you, and ultimately make similar decisions as you would. This makes team cohesion smooth, but will ultimately make your product or service worse. As I’ve written before, you need a diverse team because a diversity of thought will help you see around corners and build a product or service that connects with more types of people and customers. 

Finding candidates

So how do you find those external candidates? When you’re just starting out I would avoid platforms like LinkedIn and I also wouldn't recommend outsourcing your recruiting process entirely at this stage. External recruiters, like TeamFirst, can be valuable partners, but founders need to remain deeply involved in defining what makes someone successful at their company. Additionally, great candidates are currently swamped with messages on LinkedIn and it's very hard to stand out from the rest when you don’t yet have a great employer brand name. What I suggest instead is doing things that don’t scale (to quote the great Paul Graham). First off, go to in-person events where those who are excellent at their jobs are. These can be casual work events or trade shows if you’re hiring for a very specific type of role. Meeting people in person immediately gives you a more powerful connection with the candidate and gives you a leg up on your online-only competition. The other technique to use is unique/non-traditional methods of finding and reaching out to candidates. For example, I have a friend whose recruiters subscribe to all of the AI white papers coming out of top universities. When they see a great white paper they will reach out to the grad students that worked on that paper. Other founder friends have recruited engineers by finding promising GitHub projects and reaching out directly to the developers behind them using the email addresses associated with their commits. Not only are you able to find diamonds in the rough this way, you immediately have something to talk to the candidate about as well.

Screening candidates

Once you’re chatting with a candidate the first step is a quick screening call. The point of a screening call is to do two things: one, set expectations and ensure you’re not wasting your or the candidate’s time and two, sell the candidate on the opportunity. You should have a list of deal breakers ready to bring up with the candidate. A good list to start with is: 

• Salary: Is the salary range you can pay for this role going to work with the candidate

• In person requirements: Are you in-person, remote or a hybrid workplace. Are your in-office requirements going to work for the candidate

• Roles and responsibilities: What exactly are you expecting the candidate to deliver in this role? Is this a job they’d be excited to do? If the candidate really wants to be a manager in the next position and this isn’t a management role now's the time to get on the same page.

• Values alignment: What is the candidate motivated by? What are they hoping to achieve with their next role? Can this role and your workplace fulfill those motivations the candidate has?

The goal of screening is to discover whether there's a path to yes, not to manufacture reasons to say no. By adopting that mentality you may find a non-traditional candidate that excels in the interview and job. And once you’ve gotten to yes, there are no immediate blockers, it's time to sell. This screening call may be the candidate’s first interaction with your company. They may know nothing at all about what you’re doing, the mission, or why you all exist in the world. Ensure they know all of that and get them excited about the opportunity. Help them imagine working at your company and what their day-to-day life will look like.

Conclusion

Across these last three articles, I've argued that recruiting isn't about finding reasons to reject candidates. It's about creating opportunities for exceptional people to show you what makes them exceptional. Whether you're sourcing candidates, interviewing them, or checking their references, your job is to design a process that gives you the signal you need to make a good decision. Remember, recruiting is a two-way street. You're evaluating the candidate, but they're evaluating you right back. Make sure that every interaction a candidate has with your company, from the first call to the offer letter, leaves them even more excited about the opportunity. Even if they ultimately don’t join, often candidates talk with others about their experience interacting with and interviewing at your company. You want them to tell all of their friends about how good the experience was. That’s the start of your employer brand!