Hiring Basics for Startup Founders | Recruitcha

The goal of interviews is two-fold:

Learn more about the candidate

Each interview should help you and your team learn more about the candidate and what their motivations are.

Appealing to the motivations of candidates is a key part of convincing them to join your startup.

Before you start interviewing, it’s important to map out your interview process so you can keep track of where everyone is in the pipeline:

Use the Interview Guideline sheet here as a base to get started.

How many interviews will there be? Who will be handling the interviews at each stage?
Will there be a take-home assessment? A work trial? If so, will the work trial be paid? Ideally so.
- Strong candidates usually can’t commit to more than 2 days, especially if they’re currently employed.
Internally, what is your process post-interview? Where should each interviewer keep their notes? Keep notes private until final hiring decisions are being made, to keep decision makers unbiased.

Spend five minutes reviewing the candidate’s resume and previous work experience on LinkedIn. If they’ve listed their GitHub, go through any recent projects. Look for any commonalities you can use to break the ice such as where they went to college and where they’re from. Keep a basic list of questions you want to ask.
For the initial interview, the goal is to sell the candidate on your opportunity and get them excited. Strong candidates will be interviewing with multiple companies, so be ready to explain 'why you.'

Each candidate will have different motivations, such as:

Financial — the potential upside of their equity
Adventure — the thrill and adventure of working in an early-stage company
Fit/Passion — alignment with the vision and mission
Freedom — breaking free from the bureaucracy and micromanagement of larger companies

“What’s motivating you to look for a new opportunity right now?” This opens the candidate up to explain why they’re looking. Use this to position your opportunity.
Startups often require a deep commitment to work, and sometimes 60–80 hour weeks. Make sure you weed out anyone who wants a standard 9–5:“How important is work-life balance to you?”

“How actively are you interviewing?” If someone is actively interviewing, you may need to be ready to handle competitor offers.
“When are you ideally looking to make a move?” This tells you their urgency.

We recommend leaving this question until after you’ve built up some rapport, but make sure to ask about it because it can be a non-starter if expectations are misaligned.
It’s illegal to ask someone what they are currently making, but you can ask them what they are targeting: “What compensation range are you targeting?” For sales roles, understand what total OTE they’re targeting.
With equity, be clear and transparent about how it works.
Be careful with compensation. If someone is only in it for the money, it’s usually a red flag.