If you’re a start-up, then major kudos to you; it’s a tough slog to bring your vision to life, so the very fact you’re at the recruitment stage is testament to all your hard work.
But, the hard work doesn’t stop there, as Lord Sugar’s notorious ‘finger point’ suggests…
The Apprentice, (though cringingly over-egged) is proof of what can happen if you don’t suss out your employees before they start working for you.
And even though you’re unlikely to hire someone who forgets to bring the very pair of trousers to the photoshoot of the trouser advertisement campaign, or spells ‘arctic’ without the ‘c’ in a business branding presentation, hiring the wrong person in the FinTech industry can come with its own set of challenges.
So, after you’ve gone through the gruelling CV and job application whittle down process, what can you do to avoid choosing the wrong person at the interview stage?
Well, let’s rephrase that slightly and redefine it as what you can do to ensure you’re choosing the right person…
#1 Share your vision from the off
Startups have a bigger challenge with recruiting the ideal candidate because they’re building on their vision.
The good news is that candidates are equally as excited about working with a promising company with a great vision as they are working for a larger, established firm, as that’s because it can be assumed that anyone who’s looking for a job in FinTech is doing so because they’re intrigued by the limitless possibilities of tech, which, in other words, would suggest they’re a visionary…
So, in order to ensure you’re hiring the right people into your company, you need to share your vision for the company with them from the off, and not just share, but encourage their input too.
During the interview, the interviewee is sussing you out just as much as you are them, so showing authentic emotion about your vision and passion for the work you’re doing is a wonderful way to keep it real, which should also help you gauge whether they’re just as passionate about it as you are.
A great question to ask is: “If this was your company, what would you want to do with it?”
To ensure your perfect hire feels important to the process, you should be transparent about the company’s stature and growth and discuss how best to communicate with each other during tough periods, which is a strong way to prevent people from jumping ship.
Caring about what your candidate wants to achieve and giving them fuel to grow within the company will help you retain them for the long haul.
#2 Assess their soft skills through role-play exercises
A really common issue start-up FinTech companies have is hiring based on a set of job-description criteria (hard skills) and then realising the person they’ve hired doesn’t have the soft skills needed to do the job properly.
Soft skills, such as great decision-making confidence, communication abilities and work ethic are characteristics that can’t typically be “learnt”, but are incredibly important to the job, so, ensuring your interviewee has such skills in the bank is a pretty worthwhile exercise.
(You can read our blog about why soft skills are so important in FinTech here.)
Now, granted, it’s a little tricky to confidently identify all these skills during the interview, but through role-play, you can start to gauge whether the most critical ones are there or not, such as communication abilities.
For example, you could set up a couple of scenarios that test this soft skill, such as a scenario where an issue with a project needs to be diplomatically communicated with the team and resolved.
#3 Ensure they know what kind of working environment they’ll be in
One of the biggest reasons why a candidate leaves her/his new role is because the working environment is different to what was a) sold to them or b) they conjured an image of themselves.
To combat this, it’s a good idea to set their expectations from the beginning by not just telling them what the working environment is like, but showing them too.
If your interviewee has worked for a larger tech corporation and are used to certain, shall we say, “perks”, then it’s a good idea to understand what their own expectations are and understand whether or not working for you would be a big compromise for them.
#3 (and a half) Consider a recruitment partner
Look, recruiting the right people for your FinTech startup by yourself is definitely doable, but it’s not easy.
(Imagine Lord Sugar sifting through CVs. Lol.)
The whole recruitment process requires time, effort and skill, and there may be a lot of bumps along the way, especially if you hire the wrong person.
That’s why, there’s another option for you, one that removes all the headaches and ensures all areas are covered.
When it comes to recruiting the right candidates and eliminating the various stages in unveiling their skills, you need help. Not only do you need help, but you need a strategic partner who helps you to streamline this important area for growth.
A recruiter is a body that actively sources and screens your potential candidates, and it goes a lot further than simply reviewing a bunch of resumes and presenting the most promising and available bodies to fill the chair.
Having a recruitment partner takes the time-consuming process of calling, interviewing, emailing, researching, scheduling and other avenues to uncover the ideal candidate for the role before presenting them towards you.
In short, it’s like skipping through the entire season of the Apprentice (and all the cringe moments that come along with it) and getting to the final episode where, only then, are the strongest candidates presented to you.
Our process for doing this is fail-safe, and it’s why our clients regard us as recruiting partners opposed to CV providers.
If you’d like to know exactly what our process is for ensuring our candidates are both competent and compatible, you’re more than welcome to send us an email at hello@wearesyncopate.com or call us on +44(0) 333 733559 , or alternatively, feel free to check out our website to get a better feel of whether you think our style will gel with yours.
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