What My Recent Hires Taught Me
It’s hard to win trust and even harder to keep it.
Have been facing this issue lately with hiring people for my startup. To put it in plain sight, people don’t easily believe you. It’s similar in case with jobs. Nobody wants to keep any inexperienced person, but if nobody hires him ever – how will he become experienced ?
Similarly, everyone wants to work with established company but if everyone starts thinking such – there won’t be any start-ups !
Amidst these chaos I found a new best friend – helplessness.
Helplessness is not necessarily bad
Recently, two fellows have joined me and I am very happy to have them on-board. Our little team came together not because I made some great offer to them, nor because they are exceptionally talented or, not necessarily because they saw the great vision behind this startup. The reason that we came together was – helplessness.
These guys were unsure of their abilities and were ready to grab any opportunity that luck throws to them and I too was helpless as I didn’t had any better options. We just happened to fall together into right place.
However, I am just thankful to these guys for their trust. And, I consider it to be my duty to maintain that.
My USP (unique selling point)
Being a startup, we are very constrained in terms of resources. Startups don’t always have the privilege to spend lavishly on their resources – be it “human resource”, “office space” or even “ACs”. You ought to keep your head low initially – survival is utmost important after all. It’s like one wrong move and game-over.
I am thus putting my hopes into those people who are young and are willing to do multiple things at once. At this point, I can’t make exorbitant offers. My selling points are – “ample learning”, “disciplined freedom” and “trust”.
I am still not sure if that’s the right path, but as an employee I always wanted to be treated with those attributes, even with little monetary trade-offs. So, I just wanted to try out this leadership style.
It won’t hurt me if this company won’t become a great talent pool, it would be very disappointing, however, if I fail to imbibe certain valued character into it.
It will be interesting to see how far we can go.
Help yourself first to get help from someone else
People comes in all flavor :
- Some would say I am with you while actually they are not.
- Some won’t say a thing but they will jump in at the most needed time and will go out of their way to help you.
- Some just don’t give a damn – they neither say nor help in times of need. They are worse than strangers.
Tough voyages filters people who are actually worthless to you and vice-versa (you are worthless to them). But more than that, it gives you the ability to stand firm on your own feet rather than leaning on someone else’s shoulder.
People generally help those who are not too bothersome. First prove your worthiness by tackling the problem, give your best shot and then only reach out for help.