A Culture Fit Twist for Startups

An essential element of a strong hiring process is a check for culture fit. This includes checking against the company’s core values, involving a sufficient number of existing employees, using written essays that prompt the prospect to speak write about culture related items, and equipping everyone with a veto power based on culture.

I recently heard some interesting advice on indirect approaches to evaluating culture fit. For developers, it is good to find out how the prospect spends their free time. If they have a few software-related hobbies, it is a good sign that they love their trade. For sales people, it is good to find out if they played competitive sports or had competitive experiences in their background. These are both indirect indicators, not silver bullet questions.

For startups evaluating for culture fit, it is important to not only evaluate for fit to your own corporate culture but also to evaluate for fit to startup life. Some people are just flat out not well-suited to work in a startup environment.

In some cases, the hiring process for startups needs to include a persuasive element encouraging the prospect to recognize the reasons joining a startup is a great idea relative to joining a BigCo (here and here). In other cases, it is important to recognize when persuasion will not work and the prospect is simply not wired in a way that is conducive to adaptation to startup life.

What ways do you vet prospects against compatibility with startup life? How do you persuade prospects to forego BigCos to join your startup?