Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong

http://blog.zumper.com/2014/04/kissing-goodbye-to-the-ohare-test/

by dbg067 • 12 years ago

42 17 12 years ago

blog.zumper.com

bruceb• 12 years ago

Though one could argue if you higher smarter people you might have less "oh shit" days?

kenrikm• 12 years ago

Not everything is about code and servers, a lot of the "oh shit" stuff comes from external factors that even a intelligent person would not be able to foresee or avoid. I think the point is to hire smart resilient people, not just smart people.

scobar• 12 years ago

I agree with this comment as well as the overall theme of the article. Smart people may be able to foresee potential "oh shit" moments, but realize that multiple factors which contribute to those moments are outside of their control. Therefore, smart and resilient people will be able to take the hits and adapt as they dig themselves out of the lows.

rhizome2• 12 years ago

Are you saying that if we looked at companies that have indeed hired smarter people, they would be found not to ever have had "oh shit" moments?

watwut• 12 years ago

I would expect the companies with capable management and employees to have less "of shit" moments and mostly not to repeat then same "of shit" moment every deadline.

By capable I mean not only smart, but also able to plan etc.

For example, if unforeseeable things in your business happen often, you can and should plan for them. E.g. know what the priorities will be in advance (what is more important speed or quality?), take aside some money/time for solving these etc.

If the company spends too much time putting out fires, then something is wrong no matter how smart they think they are.

birken• 12 years ago

And if you are a prospective employee joining a company that is planning to have "oh shit" moments, just make sure you are being compensated with a lot of equity. There basically is no worse deal than joining a risky company at the stage where they already have some funding and employees.

Assuming you are the resilient type who is capable of founding a startup, you'd get a much better deal either founding your own company or just joining a runaway success startup and get experience and build your network while saving up dough.

Jormundir2• 12 years ago

I greatly second this. I'm doing a job search now and have already had to turn down three offers from early stage startups, because the compensation is delusionally low. I'm talking 40-60k below market rate, with pitiful stock options to make up for it. I often wonder who would even let themselves be taken advantage of so strongly? Why would any halfway decent engineer take 65-80k with 0.25-0.5% equity?

Either be a founding member, or join a larger already successful company who will give you market compensation. Don't get caught in the middle soup of being taken advantage of and often being part of a very poorly run companies.

tbrownaw• 12 years ago

I'm talking 40-60k below market rate, with pitiful stock options to make up for it. I often wonder who would even let themselves be taken advantage of so strongly? Why would any halfway decent engineer take 65-80k with 0.25-0.5% equity?

    see news about $100M exits ==> 0.5% == $500k
    heard mention of a 10% success rate ==> $50k expected value
    $50k == (market_rate - salary) ==> sounds about right

Which of course misses that (1) the utility of large amounts of money isn't linear (expected value doesn't work that way on single occurrences); (2) future money should be discounted by some rate; and (3) your equity will get diluted.

And that the slaray difference is per year, and the equity is a one-time thing. And whatever else I missed.

jmzbond• 12 years ago

I like this concept, you're right that brains and resilience aren't always the same. Some really smart people need stability and can't handle rapid change.

However, I do think culture-fit (which is way more important than personality) is as important of a criteria, even more so for early stage start-ups. When you're building an organization, you have a vision not only for what you want that org to achieve, but what you want it to look like. In an early stage company, even one person that goes against that culture could represent 25% of the company. Their mere presence serves to undermine what you want to build, and as they say... the one rotten apple rots the rest.

I'm not saying these are bad people, a culture-mismatch at one org is a culture-fit at another org, but this is an important criteria. I recognize also that this really drags down the recruiting process. There are some ways to get around it (e.g., trial work weeks, part-time contractor positions), but these have been discussed on HN before and are not immediately relevant.

Just more food for thought.

lucisferre• 12 years ago

Hire who's right for your startup, not who someone (who may have really only written this blogspam as a way to get eyeballs on job postings) tells you to hire.

These "how to hire" posts are getting so tired. Not because its a bad subject but because they are completely empty.

nmac• 12 years ago

I agree. At the end of the day, it always comes back to personality types and drives. Each startup needs different things in different phases. Maybe a really smart coder is exactly what a non-technical co-founder might need, whilst a resilient hustler is what a well groomed hacker needs. In general, universal quantification over statements that are not law-like are doomed to fail. (<- yes there is an embedded pun there).

kenster07• 12 years ago

The article seems to subtly suggest that if you do not have an advanced degree [1], you do not have "brains." As someone who has "brains" but has chosen not to pursue and advanced degree, if I were working for the author, my reaction would be to question this person's judgment on several levels: 1) Implicitly putting down those who work with him who don't have advanced degrees. 2) Susceptibility to autobiographically-based irrationality, aka too much Koolaid.

Why is this an irrational viewpoint? Sure, someone who has an advanced degree is unlikely to be dumb. But as any remotely educated person should know, it does not follow that someone who does not have an advanced degree is not smart.

I think the obsession with advanced degrees is fascinating though. Do people really believe that getting an advanced degree will make one a more productive web developer? Are the years spent getting that advanced degree remotely comparable to years of meaningful industry experience? Or comparable to using the countless online resources to educate oneself in topics that are directly applicable to web development?? Hint: no.

[1] "Brains don’t matter as much as resilience in your first couple of years as a startup. I borrowed a lot of money to put myself through one undergraduate and two masters programs so, yes, it hurts to write that."

danielweber• 12 years ago

Paul Graham talks about hiring people who aren't hapless: http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html (2009)

Which I agree with. I've worked with people who started crying at the first sign of trouble. I've worked with people who wanted to make every single encounter into a fight. Both of these are completely toxic to a start-up.

I really worry, though, about these hiring practices that are just psychological tests designed by non-psychologists, like this:

Hire people who emailed you a dozen times before you had a chance to reply

I usually stop emailing after 3 or 4 times, figuring that that 4th email already made me look desperate.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a lot of these "how to find good employees" are as rigorous as dating advice in the latest issue of Cosmo.

zcarter2• 12 years ago

Coming from an investment management background, it has been hilarious to see people espousing all manner of foolish nostrums about tech hiring, showcasing biases that have proper names in the investment community,

My favorites are of the "never hire Xs" variety, as a manifestation of the snake bite effect. Woah... what happened between you and someone with a dual CS/Art History major?

zcarter2• 12 years ago

I would reframe the suggestion as two ideas. 1) "hire for your culture" and 2) conditioning on a cultural expectation of individuals putting up with lots of problems on their own, "make sure new hires can cope."

The latter is an important point, but the idea that all startups have this attitude towards employees and crisis management is not accurate.

How important is it for potential candidates to know if the culture at a startup they are considering working for has these values? I'm guessing a blog like this turns off a lot of people, but to the author's point, not anyone they would hire. Effective :D

FD: back end dev at Mighty Spring, we do startup hiring. (mightyspring.com)

Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong

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