{"id":29442,"date":"2014-09-10T10:24:03","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T17:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smartrecruiters.com\/blog\/?p=29442"},"modified":"2014-09-15T10:35:25","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T17:35:25","slug":"hire-like-the-tortoise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smartrecruiters.com\/blog\/hire-like-the-tortoise\/","title":{"rendered":"Hire Like the Tortoise"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a lot of advice out there about how startups<\/a> and entrepreneurs should hire fast and fire fast. Fundamentally, I think this is backwards, but I am not surprised by this advice for a few different reasons.
\n
\nFirst, the very nature of startups, as many in the industry define them, is high speed growth. \u00a0When you\u2019re really on fire you have virtually no choice but to hire fast to keep up with the growth. \u00a0Along with this need for speed is the idea that everything should be done quickly. How will you go form $0 to $1 billion in five years if you\u2019re not super fast?<\/p>\n

Second, advisors, pundits, and senior executives love to look at firing as a test of a manager. How can you show that you\u2019re tough without firing someone? How can you show that you can make important decisions? Many times in my career I have been advised, ordered, or encouraged to fire someone and I have also seen this happen to many other managers. In my experience, executives ask subordinates to do the firing because they don\u2019t have the guts to do it and prefer to delegate it. The advisors or investors who make these remarks do not bear any of the consequences of a firing\u2014they only bear limited benefits. \u00a0So, \u201cfire fast\u201d is a cheap way out.<\/p>\n

Third, hiring the right person is hard. \u00a0If you meet a potential hire online, you talk to them (in person or over the phone?) for maybe an hour or two, check their resume<\/a>, have some other people talk to them and make a decision. \u00a0How can you possibly evaluate their skills in that time? \u00a0It\u2019s easier to just say \u201cHire fast, fire fast until you get the right mix.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have three big problems with this approach:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It\u2019s unfair to your employee who is fired<\/li>\n
  2. It\u2019s unfair to your other employees<\/li>\n
  3. It generally ignores switching costs<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When you hire someone, they are under the full belief that a) they will be at the job for at least one year and b) they will be the ones who decide to leave. \u00a0People often leave higher paying jobs, stability, and a reputation when they leave a job for a startup. So if you, as an entrepreneur, make the mistake of hiring wrong and then decide to fire them, they have to find their way back to the right place.<\/p>\n

    Hiring is about personal relationships and company culture<\/a>. With respect to the team you have (and are keeping), you are asking them to integrate someone and then let go of them. The employee has to be trained (which your team probably does) and people want to get along with their coworkers, so investments are made in friendships and getting to know each other. \u00a0\u201cFiring fast\u201d gives your remaining employees the impression that you don\u2019t mind being unfair to people \u2013 and they may infer that means them, too.<\/p>\n

    Finally, you ignore switching costs with respect to training and workgroup harmony. As a corollary to the training factor, it takes investment to bring people on: to teach them your systems, any job-specific tasks, and more. Interns aside, I estimate it takes 8-12 weeks to get anyone employee past the investment curve and fully productive. \u00a0If you fire them in 90-120 days you\u2019ve wasted half of your time (and presumably they didn\u2019t even produce what you expected in the second half of that time, since you fired them.) \u00a0As you continue to change the team around, it creates problems for the team within itself to get work done. Roles and responsibilities become unclear.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s been almost two years since we made our first hire. \u00a0We have six full time employees, plus the two co-founders. We haven\u2019t had to fire anyone.<\/p>\n

    Our first employee landed in our lap. He sought us out before we even had funding and I didn\u2019t know who we would hire or what our plan was. Our first in person meeting was three months before we made an offer. We knew that our first hire would be a critical person both in terms of work to be done, as well as setting culture, so we were lucky to have a good excuse (no funding) to drag out the process. My co-founder and I both had meals with this employee and many conversations. The time taken paid off\u2014once we closed the first part of our round, we made an offer, negotiated quickly and got him on board.<\/p>\n

    Our second hire was also slow.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have the same luxurious excuse of non-funding and we had already been searching around for this position for more than a month when we first received his resume.\u00a0 We kept coming up with excuses to drag it out for a week or speak again.\u00a0 We were very concerned about how he would fit in, because he is a quiet guy and the three of us are, well, opinionated.\u00a0 What we learned in the slower back-and-forth and from the previous month of talking to other candidates was that employee #2 was going to be a great fit. He has turned out to be a far more capable employee that even in our highest hopes.<\/p>\n

    Sometimes you can get worn down by the process and want to just hire somebody. One of our critical early positions was hard to hire for and we went through dozes of resumes and interviews<\/a>. We talked about just hiring someone to get someone in the door, but we persevered for another few weeks and found the ideal candidate. This employee has been way more versatile than imagined and touches almost every product we work on. The wait has paid off many times over.<\/p>\n

    We\u2019ve hired through a\u00a0recruiter<\/a>, we\u2019ve hired out of our networks, and we\u2019ve hired when people cold e-mailed us. \u00a0There is no one panacea to finding the right person, but we have developed a great process for understanding attitude and aptitude, as both are critical factors. I have hired at least a dozen people in my career in various jobs and interviewed dozens more on committees. I like to think that I am starting to understand what works for me as a manager and for Wallaby as a team.<\/p>\n

    Because we hire slowly, we have a team that knows each other really well. They get along, they know each other\u2019s strengths and weaknesses, and they are super effective. \u00a0There is a saying in software development that one good engineer is worth three bad engineers. \u00a0I know we have a team of great engineers<\/a> and that because of how they work together, we are fast, effective, and making wonderful progress with double-digit monthly growth and revenue in hand.<\/p>\n

    In the end, you have to build a team that works for you, but for us, we like to build it slowly so that we can operate faster in the long run.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Matthew<\/a>This article was written by Wallaby CEO Matthew Goldman\u00a0from Forbes and was legally licensed through the\u00a0NewsCred\u00a0publisher network. Learn more about\u00a0SmartRecruiters<\/a>, your workspace to find and hire great people. <\/em><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lot of advice out there about how startups and entrepreneurs should hire fast and fire fast. Fundamentally, I think this is backwards, but I am not surprised by this advice for a few different reasons.","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":29734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"series":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/www.smartrecruiters.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Tortoise.jpeg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/www.smartrecruiters.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Podcast-icon.jpg","download_link":false,"player_link":false,"audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/hiring-success-podcast\/id1472174987","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oaXJpbmdzdWNjZXNzcG9kY2FzdC5jYXN0b3MuY29tL2hpcmluZy1zdWNjZXNzLXBvZGNhc3Q","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"soundcloud":{"key":"soundcloud","url":"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/smartrecruiters\/sets\/hiring-success-podcast-1","label":"SoundCloud","class":"soundcloud","icon":"soundcloud.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/3bM8YzLjM2G9qJXLBBySaB","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/www.smartrecruiters.com\/blog\/feed\/podcast","embedCode":"

    Hire Like the Tortoise<\/a><\/blockquote>