How to Find the Right Candidates When Hiring for Your Startup

When I launched my first business in 2003, I admittedly wasn’t thinking about hiring. I was so focused on making my LSAT prep courses available that I neglected to consider the best way to grow my reach: by enlisting help. Doing everything myself had a major impact on my ability to grow and even on how passionate I could remain over time.

I’ve since worked with hundreds of small business owners to launch and scale their businesses, and I’ve seen this situation play out repeatedly: entrepreneurs often delay hiring or expanding. And I get why.

Bringing on staff can be stressful and complicated — from sifting through potential candidates to sharing control and responsibility — and it’s a major shift if you’re used to working solo. But the reality is, if business is going well, you will need to hire at a certain point. And the good news is, now is a great time. With an abundance of talent looking for new opportunities, it’s an employers’ market.

But how do you know if you can afford the investment? And how do you ensure you’re hiring the right person? What I’ve learned after a decade of hiring hundreds of team members is that there’s nothing more important than taking the time to get the right people. Here are the four things I recommend doing to increase your odds.

Related: How to Know When to Hire Your First Employee

Do the math

Sometimes, you simply can’t afford not to hire. But before you put up a job posting, you’ll need to calculate whether you can actually cover the salary plus recruitment costs, taxes, training and benefits. All of this is table stakes, but your calculation should also go beyond the obvious.

I like to consider the ROI of the position in terms of the value it will produce. For roles that generate revenue, such as sales, it’s an easy calculation — simply hire someone who can close more sales calls than you. However, for non-revenue-producing roles, you should also evaluate whether the new hire will free up your time for higher-value tasks. If reducing admin tasks lets you take on 20 additional client hours per month, then an admin hire might make fiscal sense, even if the role isn’t directly generating revenue.

Even where there isn’t a direct financial connection to the role, I encourage entrepreneurs to run a spreadsheet on the ROI. Consider all the costs and benefits and assign annual dollar values. Then answer these questions: are you getting hours of your time back each week? And will you be able to earn more because of it?

You’ll also want to consider this: being a great leader means hiring people who are better at your job than you are. So, when you’re deciding on the seniority level for your first hire, think about whether it should be a cost-effective contractor, a smart and hungry junior, or a seasoned pro. The choice will depend on the work you need to be done and your ROI spreadsheet.

Related: Is Over-Reliance on AI Hiring Making You Miss Out on Top Talent?

Give away your Legos

Whether your first hire is a general role or a specialist, you’ll eventually have to give up jobs you love. I like to call this giving away your Legos — the things you love but need to delegate in order to scale.

For me, it was accounting and finance; I love building financial projections and budgets, and it took me a while to let go of this task. Now, I have a team that does it a hundred times better than I did, and they have helped make my business exponentially more successful than I could have without them.

Skills and smarts are always essential, but consider hiring people who are additive in other ways, too – decent human beings who bring different backgrounds and views into the mix. Studies have shown that this kind of diversity will strengthen your company in ways you simply can’t measure.

Do your due diligence

Hiring decisions often come down to the interview, but I’ve found this process doesn’t always produce an accurate story about a candidate. Anyone can study up on a job and prepare thoughtful responses – but do they really have the experience you need?

In my business, we’ve created a scorecard that lets us evaluate candidates based on their actual accomplishments — not just on their answers to hypothetical scenarios. We investigate candidates’ work experience to determine their performance, and then we back it up with thorough reference checks.

This can be time-consuming, but I don’t recommend skimping on your homework. If designing an effective hiring process feels too onerous, try using an AI tool as a thought partner to help you shape your strategy and interview questions. You can even use it to run practice interviews, but don’t delegate entirely — it’s up to you to ensure the final result is something you’re proud of.

Related: 6 Tips for Saving Money on Labor Costs

Set them up for success

You’ve made your hire – congratulations! Now, it’s critical to take the time to set them up for success.

Here are a few things I find work well:

• Give them clear feedback on the strengths you hired them for and any concerns you had during the interview process
• Ensure you have a clear written statement of what success looks like within 30, 60 and 90 days (the best hires will do this for you)
• Check-in with them regularly — especially in the early days. Review that success document
• Ask what they need to be successful, and ensure they’re not blocked from succeeding.

Your first hire — and every hire thereafter — will have a major impact on your company’s ability to grow – and on your ability to stay engaged. It pays to take the time to get precisely what you’re looking for. Done right, this decision will shape your business’ future and push your vision forward in ways you couldn’t achieve alone. So make this hire count — your future self (and sanity) will thank you for it.