Hiring The Wrong Employee

There are many reason why a startup fails. Depending on the stage of the company there are a trillion scenarios where your startup just doesn’t work out. And while there is no one reason your startup will fail, I’m fairly certain hiring the wrong employees is in everyone’s top 3 reasons why it does.

And it makes sense. Hiring the wrong employee can set a company back so badly that some never recover. If you think about it- let’s say in a good scenario- you come to the realization you hired the wrong person 6 months after said hiring (because it never happens instantly). Now you need to let the person go and find a replacement. That will take another 1–3 months. Then that new person needs to be brought up to speed (and you run the risk that they might also turn out to be the wrong person). So we are talking 9 months to one year of time lost for a role.

Now think about hiring the wrong person in multiple roles and only raising enough money for 18 months. Startups need to make enough progress to justify another round of fundraising, taking the business to the next level.

So, you can see how hiring the wrong employee can really sink a company. But what can a company do to make sure they hire the right people? I think it goes without saying that they need to ask the right questions in the interviews (or courting process). On top of that, you need to hire for the here and now as well as where you want to go. This means making sure that if your company is going to be growing, you have the right personal to grow with the company.

I’m not a hiring expert, so I would love for someone who knows what they are doing to jump in the comments and give some helpful tidbits about hiring the right employees and tricks to spotting the wrong fits.

This post was originally published September 23rd 2013 on my personal blog, Alex’s Tech Thoughts