When filling non-technical new roles early in the life of a startup, a topic that frequently comes up is whether to hire a generalist (an “all-around athlete”) or a specialist that can dial-in and excel at a single function. We lean heavily towards hiring generalists early on because:
- Everyone, including you, needs to do a little bit of everything;
- Your business needs, and therefore the job descriptions of your employees, change at light-speed; repurposing existing talent is far more efficient than firing and re-hiring; and
- Its much more cost effective to have one person doing many things than to hire multiple specialists
Types of non-technical generalists
While you should cast a wide net and look for talent broadly, the three buckets we like most are:
- Other leading startups - Employees that have “been there and done that” should be an obvious first place to look. They’re de-risked with respect to whether they’ll fit in at a startup culture and they will hit the ground running.
That said, be conscious of the bias we all carry in hiring employees from successful startups. Many mediocre performers get confused for high performers simply because they happened to work at a breakout company, not because they directly contributed to its success. Make sure you fall in love with the candidate and not the company that they are coming from.
- Management consultants - Work experience at top-tier firms (McKinsey, Bain and BCG) provides a lot of positive signal that someone is a high performer, fits well into multiple situations/roles and can think both horizontally and vertically.
- Investment bankers - Similar to consultants, employees from bulge-bracket banks (Goldman, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley) have gone through rigorous validations already.
Avoid corporates
At all costs, avoid candidates from big corporates early on unless you’re positive they’ll be a strong culture fit and have really strong evidence they can succeed at a start up.
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