Avoid These Hiring Mistakes To Grow Your Startup

You have a unique, wonderful idea, and you are ready to transform it into reality. Of course, you cannot do it alone. You will need a team. This means you need to take people on board. Though it appears an easy thing to do, most businesses find it hard to hire great people.

However, bringing right people in is critical for any startup, especially for the one that is just starting out and has a few employees. Hiring the wrong person not only wastes time and money, but also affects other employees, which eventually affects a business.

In today’s post, I am going to discuss the five, common hiring mistakes that you must avoid to secure a sustainable growth.

After reading this post, you will know how to seize the right talent for your startup.

Without further ado, let us dive in:

1- Compromising on Skills

A good number of startups, at their initial stage are cash-strapped. They try to keep their operating cost low. To do so, they, sometimes, compromise on skills and hire people who are not adept enough to complete tasks efficiently.

You should never make this mistake unless you have an able training department.

According to a Forbes article, you will have to shell out close to $1000,000 for the training of a group of 25 people, excluding the fee of a trainer.

My friend, to train your employees is a costly affair. You should not even think about it at the initial stage of startup when your financial condition is not strong.

Always take skilled people in.

2- Not Looking for the Same Experience

This is a common mistake. Sometimes, startups, hire people who do not have the same experience.

Let me explain it further:

You sell soft-toys online, and you need a copywriter to write copy for the toys. The best would be you should hire a copywriter who has written web copy for soft-toys in the past.

Hiring someone who never wrote copy for soft toys would not be a smart decision even if the copywriter you are going to hire has long experience in copywriting.

Also, make sure to bring in people who have performed in the same business conditions as yours.

A copywriter who has written successful web copy for a large company might not repeat the same magic in your startup.

3- Hiring People with No Passion

Do I really make you understand why you should hire passionate people?

Passion nurtures progress.

As rightly pointed out by Dan Finnigan, the president and CEO of Jobvite, in his article on Inc.;

“If you truly enjoy what you do, you naturally work harder at it and you improve. If you don’t like it, you won’t work as hard, and you won’t succeed as often–which, in turn, discourages you even more, so that you like it even less.”

A passionate soul finds ways to improve and complete the job with perfection. Startups are born out of passion, and they need passionate employees to grow faster.

4- Not Assessing Skills

Even though, you have shortlisted candidates who have experience in the same industry. You must assess their skills.

The best way to do it is to assign them paid, sample tasks and review how they have performed. You may find the skill assessment process tedious. But believe me, doing so can save you from lots of troubles.

Here are the top five tips to conduct a successful skill assessment:

• You should test both technical and soft skills
• Put strong focus on job-specific skills
• Search ideal testing method
• Personalize each skill assessment

5-Not Picking People with Competitive Mindset 

Each market has cutthroat competition. If you want to survive in your niche, you need to get an edge over your competitors.

How can you do that when you offer the same product as your competitors do?

There is a proven way – upskill your employees and find here the tips to do so.

If your employees are adept at what they do, it will be easier to beat the competition in your niche. However, for successful upskilling, your staff must have a competitive mindset, which means you cannot afford to hire people lacking competitive mindset.

Conclusion:

Taking right people on board is vital for a sustainable growth. As a startup owner, you should aim at picking the best fits for your venture.

Never compromise on skills, hire experienced people with a passion for what they do, and assess their skills. Also, make sure to bring in people with a competitive mindset.

What about you? Do you have any tip to pick right employees? Do leave it in the comment section. I would love to hear about it.