A talk given by our co-founder Rishabh Kaul at the BHIVE/Citruspay #Upstart event on Hiring for Startups

2. Unconventional
Experiments
during Hiring
@rishabhkaul kaul@belong.co

3. Based on true stories

4. ● Friends didn’t want to join early on.
● Executive Search firms either didn’t work for
us, or didn’t want to work with us
● Job boards mostly sent in irrelevant
candidates and a lot of time was spent in
filtering this noise.
We were pushed to the corner and had to try
different things to be able to attract good guys
As a startup, the odds are against you

5. #1 Didn’t hire a HR/TA early on...
When Exotel wanted to build the early
team they hired a smart BITS grad
who was active on Twitter and
Hackernews as an intern to help lead
hiring and engage candidates.
Today he’s our Co-founder @ Belong

6. #2 Didn’t have a job description...
Job descriptions haven’t changed since 1947
Have personas instead.
- Personality traits
- Places that this person
might come from
(colleges, companies)
- Career growth with
multiple options

7. #3 Embraced Extreme Referencing
http://www.forentrepreneurs.
com/extreme-referencing/
- Often, an interview is not
enough to give confidence
about a great hire
- 3-5 Reference Checks for junior
hires.
- 7-12 References for
senior/executive hires

8. Every congregation of people (online +
offline) is a potential source to identify
great folks. Not limited to professional
social networks.
#4 Always be sourcing

9. We’re all humans at the end of the day.
- Post interview feedbacks
- We kept an alumni page to remember
those who helped us come this far
- Personalization in every interaction
with anyone (no copy paste
templates)
- Keeping in touch with folks who we
wanted to hire
#5 #HBnotHR
If there’s a doubt, then there’s no doubt