Team Youpid was at the recently concluded edition of Pune Open Coffee Club (POCC), that had organized a session by Chetana Mehta on “How to build a killer startup team”. Team Youpid has a soft spot for Pune since our Engineering team is based out of Pune and we’ve always wanted to plug into the startup scene in Pune having heard and read so much about it.
Chetana touched on many HR best practices drawing from her experience in the Industry so it was educational to hear her talk about her experiences in growing a team and hiring the right kind of talent and nurturing the right kind of culture in your organization. However, as a startup, we felt that the content catered to mid-size companies and over. Regardless, it was fun to interact with Chetana, who has been a colleague of co-founder Akash Saxena way back in the day!
Post the talk,members of the audience talked about Interviewing Hacks that have worked for them in their organizations. Here’s a sampling!
Team Youpid
- Know what you’re looking for
- Separate personnel requirements into workers / thinkers
- Thinkers are harder to find, search at startup events/forums, if you’re plugged into the ecosystem, you might be more open to being in a startup is our rationale.
- Workers are important as well, work needs to get done and founders can do only so many things!
- Workers can be groomed into thinkers with proper inputs occasionally
@ngkabra via Nikhil Jakatdar (in a prev OCC Event)
Nikhil distills his hiring process into 5 steps
Step 1:
Sell the company with passion, then de-sell, be up-front about risks & everything bad that could happen.
Rationale: Open up all the risks and the wins, will help the candidate see past the romanticism. If the candidate calls you back after this stage, they are more likely to be interested and will stick with you through the bad times as well.
Rationale: Open up all the risks and the wins, will help the candidate see past the romanticism. If the candidate calls you back after this stage, they are more likely to be interested and will stick with you through the bad times as well.
Step 2: Regular Tech Screen
Rationale: Well!
Step 3: Stress Test
Call candidate over and have an interaction with a set of people. Bring Pressure.
Rationale: Shows you how a candidate reacts to pressure, important in a startup environment
Rationale: Shows you how a candidate reacts to pressure, important in a startup environment
Step 4: Meet the Team.
Rationale: During the interview process, only a couple of people interact with the candidate, let the team meet the incoming candidate and ask team if they spot any red flags or spot dyanmics issues.
Step 5: Offer
Make two offers, one high on cash, the other high on equity. If the candidate picks the cash-heavy offer, its probably not working out!
Rationale: Startups are strapped for cash. If your candidate is looking for money, might not be with you through your journey when things are rough.
Rationale: Startups are strapped for cash. If your candidate is looking for money, might not be with you through your journey when things are rough.
There were some other fun hacks like @sandeepsaxena from Acton Biotech talking about how an unconventional method of reaching out to his massive contacts list bore more fruit by way of qualified job candidates v/s a dedicated recruitment drive!
Building a team around the core of the founders is a hard task indeed, in such a small team a small mistake can make a big difference, so was educational to hear how other entrepreneurs dealt with this issue. Ultimately, Nikhil’s method touched many of the sentiments that Team Youpid also holds close – though long drawn – its a process that ultimately might have the highest chance of yielding a “hit”!
The post event networking was gold, with Team Youpid finding common connections with fellow Pune based entrepreneurs like @sdawara of Dubzer and meeting all round interesting folk! Ultimately, such events are about exchanging ideas and sharing experiences with fellow entrepreneurs. This event was great on both counts!
Have interesting interviewing hacks? Do comment and share!