Questions regarding practices of recruiting new employees for the business.
4
votes
4answers
442 views
How to Assess Integrity of a Potential Hire?
Warren Buffet says, "Hire people based on Passion,Intelligence and Integrity." People's passion is visible in the first meeting, and intelligence comes out in a couple of hours in a discussion, but ...
4
votes
5answers
663 views
Hiring Full-Time vs Contractors / Outsourcing Impact on Valuation?
Our SaaS startup is (hopefully) getting our first customer soon, at which point we decided to bring in additional resources to accelerate development.
The basic options is whether to bring in a ...
4
votes
2answers
131 views
Selling my share of a 50/50 business
Final question - you may recognize my other two.
My partner invested about $10K into this business and I've got 4000K hours, and I charge $100.00 per hour, invested in this business.
I think nothing ...
4
votes
4answers
2k views
Minimum age I can pay (hire) my kids?
How old do my kids have to be before I can hire them as employees in my software company (doing clerical tasks)?
Clarification: I'm asking what age can I legally (in the US) employee them and pay ...
4
votes
5answers
2k views
Options for hiring Indian workers directly
My core aim is to hire people directly in India (Delhi) and spend a lot of time there myself (I am a British person with a British passport).
I am interested in knowing what are the best options for ...
4
votes
1answer
266 views
How is hiring and relocation handled for non-local job candidates of a venture-backed startup?
I am interesting in moving out to another city to work at a promising startup, particularly one with venture funding and user traction.
How do venture-backed startups generally handle candidates who ...
4
votes
2answers
183 views
Hiring first person employee vs contractor
I have bootstrapped a startup in NY and am ready to hire a person. Should I hire this person as a contractor or as an employee. I realize that there are many laws and logistics around hiring an ...
4
votes
1answer
106 views
Advice for early-stage hiring?
I am the CEO of a rapidly growing startup and our growth has begun to outpace our resources as a 3 person organization. So we have begun looking around for people to hire, both as programmers, as ...
4
votes
3answers
242 views
Where did your star developer come from?
If your startup has a star developer:
what was he/she doing before joining your company?
How did you find and get into contact with him/her?
4
votes
6answers
366 views
What Job Boards Do You Use to Find High Quality Technical Talent? [closed]
At some point, we all exhaust our networks and need to look externally for talent. We're planning to do some specific recruiting around front-end and "all-around" dev folks in the next few months and ...
4
votes
2answers
1k views
What states are the best/worse to have remote employees in?
One of the issues many small companies in the US run into is wanting to hire an employee (who let's say will work from his home) that lives in a different state.
I've found that some of the states ...
4
votes
3answers
216 views
How to hire someone who is more technical than you?
I'm an amateur because I have no formal technical education. I built my current startup through technical trial and error. I'm looking to bring in someone who is a professional and can secure my ...
3
votes
11answers
1k views
Does a small startup really *need* someone with an MBA?
Inspired by this question, I want to know if people think a small startup (3-5 people) actually needs someone with an MBA. Especially if the group has reasonably diverse skills and isn't going the ...
3
votes
4answers
325 views
Do you test all developers you hire?
There have been references here to programming tests that are used to hire programmers. Even Joel has written about such tests. While that makes a lot of sense for new or intermediate developers, is ...
3
votes
6answers
696 views
how do I hire people when the company is not making any money?
I have an iphone app which I want to convert into a full scale website. I also want to port the app to other platforms (Android, Blackberry etc). I am also planning to quit my day job to work on this ...
3
votes
6answers
389 views
What kind of skills should I look for in a Head of Marketing?
IT used to be said that half of the money you spent on advertising was wasted - but you couldn't tell which half (bonus points to anyone who know who originated that). Online marketing is different, ...
3
votes
5answers
458 views
Hiring and interviewing advice
I'm in the process of evaluating resumes for a web marketing / project management position. I've never considered myself very good at interviewing. Beware, my question is multi-faceted, so don't feel ...
3
votes
7answers
516 views
Should I hire relatives in my startup?
My sister and I started a small company. I don't mind working with her. So far, we've been doing well and have managed to keep our professional issues separate from our family life. The problem is my ...
3
votes
6answers
883 views
How can you hire great developers for startups?
There is a lot of advice on how to hire great developers, which I don't think is quite relevant as far as startups are concerned.
The reason why I am saying this is because we--as a startup in the ...
3
votes
8answers
516 views
What qualification and/or skills should I look for while hiring a web designer?
I am about to launch a website, which I got created through a freelancer. However, I am not very pleased with freelancer's performance and plan to hire someone full-time to make required iterations in ...
3
votes
3answers
349 views
Hiring siblings
There are 12 ppl in my organisation. Should I hire siblings of people already working for my organisation? I mean its not a big deal for a big company, but such a decision should be thought upon in a ...
3
votes
6answers
389 views
What are the proper steps (contracts, terms, payments agreements) when hiring freelance developers?
I'm looking to hire some developers to help bang out some features of my app that I can't do myself yet. I'm going to be able to give them pretty specific tasks and if they do well continue on and ...
3
votes
8answers
738 views
Best place to find software development interns?
So you have decided to hire some interns... You don't have much time to go to a college/university and get the word out... where do you find the best interns for software development? I know of ...
3
votes
2answers
94 views
Is it fine to post a job ad before finalizing the company name?
This might actually be a trivial issue but, I'm still confused. I am starting a mobile apps and games company, which doesn't yet have any name(s). I say names because someone suggested considering the ...
3
votes
2answers
145 views
How do you tell if he/she is a great marketing candidate?
What are the methodologies you use to determine if a person would make a great marketer?
For instance, I may be looking for someone who has great instinct about what the market wants and able to ...
3
votes
5answers
2k views
How to set up sales office in the US?
If, for example, I have a company headquartered outside the US and going to work with US companies.
What is the best way? Set up sales office in the US or hire independent sales person?
What kind of ...
3
votes
4answers
497 views
Contribute to a startup as a part timer [closed]
I work as an architect in a successful product company. I am passionate about doing something of my own like building my own IP. Right now i do not want to just quit my job and do something of my own ...
3
votes
6answers
652 views
How to outsource marketing / sales
First of all I know that "sales and marketing" is my business it's not something to outsource.
However I'm in a different situation:
I don't have budget and the long-term commitment position to ...
3
votes
4answers
865 views
When hiring a consultant, what criteria do you use to evaluate them?
Over the years, I have had mixed results with hiring consultants for various jobs. I used to think that if they were referred, then that was good enough but that's not as consistent as I would like. ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
What kind of sales commission plan is Groupon using?
Groupon has been hiring sales people like crazy. Their turnover is probably very high but the sheer number of salespeople that they are adding to their company every month is something crazy to a ...
3
votes
12answers
580 views
Where do you find candidates for hiring?
There are a number of avenues to go for hiring, like LinkedIn, traditional Craigslist, Monster listings, etc.
I personally use Startuply.com (YC '08) for a lot of the hiring that I do. It's proven to ...
3
votes
4answers
410 views
Interviewing sales people: what do you do to check their claims without asking for past W2s?
One of the favorite parts of my job is to recruit people for my company. From experience I have come to realize that no matter how busy you are, outsourcing recruiting and hiring is very shortsighted ...
3
votes
1answer
427 views
Estimating Startup Costs / Pro Forma
I'm working on a business plan and estimating startup costs. I know the numbers vary wildly from enterprise to enterprise, but I'm trying to identify in my estimates how many people I would need to ...
3
votes
2answers
284 views
Equity for strategic hires?
We're a small (but growing) consulting firm with software to be developed as a side stream (yes, I know this is an original story :)). 3 partners, equal equity.
We've worked with a few people in the ...
3
votes
2answers
250 views
How does section 409A impact how startups pay new hires?
In 2004, Congress passed a law that changed how deferred compensation was taxed. If a compensation package satisifies the rules in Section 409A then when stock is used as compensation, it is taxed ...
3
votes
4answers
374 views
What are some startup perks?
I interviewed for a NYC startup who told me their perks are free groceries from an online grocer, an office kitchen with nice appliances, and he has no problem with me bringing a sleeping bag to the ...
3
votes
3answers
518 views
Head count planning for a growing start up - any processes, books, templates?
As a growing start up, we need to plan for new people in every deparment (some of these are just 1 person, but future departments).
So Sales has its plan to double sales this year; meanwhile other ...
3
votes
2answers
115 views
Hiring an employee in the USA
We're an Israeli Company that wants to expand to the USA, we have already close the commercial details with a very experienced executive in the USA, now we have to decide how we can hire him, we asked ...
2
votes
7answers
2k views
Why do startups tend to offer fashionable “cool” job title names? Is it sane?
Since a few years I've seen job title names like
Javascript Assassin
Rails Master
PHP Guru
Python Ninja
Lisp Middle Earth Wizard
Perl Golfer
which are usually offered by startups. What's your ...
2
votes
5answers
561 views
Using a Staffing Agency - Is it a Bad Idea?
If you've exhausted your personal network (and friends' networks), and now need to hire people who have skills that you don't have, would you try working with a staffing agency?
I've heard a lot of ...
2
votes
2answers
449 views
How do I develop HR policies for a start-up from scratch?
With no budget for hiring a full-time HR person, what is the right way to develop HR policies as my startup grows.
2
votes
3answers
202 views
What solutions are there to removing medical insurance as a barrier to startup hiring?
In the US, medical insurance is tied to the employer in the vast majority of cases. Paying for an employee health plan is beyond the means of many startups. Founders are often willing to take the ...
2
votes
5answers
175 views
Adding my own developer to freelance team
Hear is my issue: I hired a freelance development firm to create a web app for my business. The developer is very talented and they produce great work. However, development has been very slow and ...
2
votes
6answers
296 views
Startup, Friend, Salary, and New Employee
My startup is pulling $20,000 a month and in the position to add a new technical full-time employee in order to gain technical competitiveness. However, I'm troubled by my current situation.
Few ...
2
votes
3answers
114 views
Hiring a Commercial Office Cleaner
Has anyone hired a commercial cleaner in the past? If so, how did you choose the right cleaning company? What was important for you when looking for a commercial cleaner? Also, what where the ...
2
votes
3answers
355 views
How much cash reserves should you plan to have before hiring?
We're at a point where we need to hire at 1-2 employees, and I'm not sure how much cash to have on hand. We're a SaaS product, with growing traction and on target to be cash-flow neutral next year. ...
2
votes
1answer
96 views
Ethicality of hiring a former student?
Background: I'm both administrative staff for a university, and I'm the owner of a small business. I've been working with a particular student at the university on some university grant work, and ...
2
votes
4answers
315 views
When do I need to register a company for my start up
I have an idea for a start up but would like to get a POC solution developed for feedback purposes before I spend time and money on the full product development.
Since I cannot develop the POC myself ...
2
votes
2answers
164 views
Hiring developers. Ways to reach out?
My company has finally gotten to a place where we can hire a second developer, and I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for doing recruiting (that are hopefully cheap).
I've posted to ...
2
votes
4answers
1k views
Starbucks Interview Process - Hiring Happiness?
As a big Starbucks fan and avid traveller I have noticed a trend while travelling whether its from Toronto to Texas to California... All Starbucks employees seem to have a very similar personality ...
