Freelancers, future entrepreneurs, action profiles… The founders of Slash Intérim and Kraaft share the types of profiles to favor for the first recruitments of a start-up.
The first recruitments are a key stage in the life of a start-upas the profiles chosen can influence the trajectory, even the viability of the project. It is therefore essential to select them carefully.
1. Target positions to fill your lack of expertise
A classic piece of advice that still deserves to be remembered. In the seed or pre-seed phase, resources are limited and every recruitment counts. The first collaborators must above all fill the gaps in the founding team and allow the company to be operational. “At the beginning, I struggled but I had to target profiles capable of doing what I didn’t know how to do. It was urgent recruitment,” says Emma Capronfounder of Slash Intérim, a platform dedicated to independent recruiters which has around thirty employees. “For the first recruitments, you have to ask yourself what are the limiting factors for my company and which prevent it from being operational”, adds Marc Negrefounder of Kraaft, a construction site monitoring software which has nearly 70 employees.
2. Focus on profiles focused on execution rather than (over)thinking
It is often said that reflection precedes action. But the first collaborators must also know how to move on to execution without procrastinating too much. In any case, that’s what Marc Negre thinks: “We must first target profiles that are a bit of a bulldozer, capable of acting without thinking too much. We don’t need to brainstorm for hours before launching. This is even more true for tech profiles, who must agree to release a product even if imperfect. The important thing is to move forward, even if everything is not complete. On our first tech recruitments, we made a bit of a mistake with profiles that enjoyed the long processes a little too much.
3. Surround yourself with future entrepreneurs
Try to find profiles who have an entrepreneurial spirit, even if it means seeing them leave the company when they want to get started in their turn: “Among our first ten employees, five of them set up their own company! We knew that they would end up leaving us but that was a bit of a contract. Often, these are people who are up for trying lots of things and who are particularly motivated,” assures Marc Negre.
4. Find people to “go to war”
For Emma Capron, the first recruits must above all have the necessary commitment to support the development of the start-up: “You have to look for people who believe in your project and with whom you can go to war”. A state of mind that the founder himself must be able to detect in the candidates: “At the start of the adventure, it is the founding team that has control over the first ten recruitments. For the next ten, it will generally be HR. It is essential to take this time and conduct the interviews yourself to properly identify the candidate’s human qualities.”
5. Rely on freelancers to validate a need
Before recruiting on a permanent contract and assuming the associated costs, calling on a freelancer may prove relevant: “This allows you to validate a need before recruiting permanently, particularly for developer positions,” explains Emma Capron. In other words, the freelancer gives the right to make mistakes, not the permanent contract. Be careful, however, not to generalize this approach to all positions: “Our first tech was a freelancer. It was a mistake, because we needed someone with a real emotional attachment to the project to play the role of CTO. It was not suitable for such a central position,” recognizes Marc Negre.
