How to Recruit and Evaluate Talent for Your Early-Stage Startup

When no one knows about you or your business, recruiting for a startup is more art than science. How do you make the right hiring decisions as you grow your organization and business?

A job seeker meets with a recruiter during a job fair in Brooklyn, New York City, on April 12, 2021 Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

By Snehal Kundalkar

Securing great hires is one of a CEO’s top priorities, and for early-stage startups, the odds can be stacked against you.

I came across a comprehensive guide to startup hiring 101 written by Steve Bartel, the co-founder and CEO of Gem. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend reading it. He provides step-by-step instructions on how to go about the hiring process. But, based on my experience I feel startup founders must first fulfill the prerequisites to hiring before diving into the process. The prerequisite addresses questions such as when should you hire, who should you hire and where should you find those people.

Art or Science?

Recruiting in the early days is more art than science. You find people who are ready to help out in any way possible and scale until you max out individual capabilities. As soon as you get to scaling upwards of 10 people you need to start thinking of having a process, being creative and honing the craft of recruiting.

When Should You Hire?

There’s always more work than what you can tackle. There is an eternal sense of resource deficit. “We don’t have enough people” is a sentiment shared by nearly everyone involved. But, if you are going to bring in people on your payroll, you need to clarify the following things first.