Honesty IS the Best Policy

What if you started being more honest?

When people ask about your culture you might say things like "we're customer-obsessed, we're people-first, we're inclusive, we work hard and reward our employees through presidents club and wellness days"...

Or you might say "we're a 🚀 - did you see our last funding announcement?"

You wake up one day with 30% turnover on your sales team and you wonder why?

“We must have hired the wrong people, we weren't motivated enough or cut from the right cloth”.

“We better implement performance reviews…”

That could be the case.

It’s most likely the fact that all you did when hiring your current and ex-employees was tell them about the great things going on at your company.

Why wouldn’t you? Your story is exciting to tell, and you want like-minded, hard-working people to join your team and to take your company to the next milestone.

What most leaders miss in startup recruiting is that your whole story is what has to be told to hire the right people: the people that aren’t only going to expect shiny and new, happy and blissful.

Over the last decade I’ve heard every startup recruiter reference their own version of “organized chaos” in phone screens.

It’s gives the illusion that you’re telling candidates the truth about the culture, the hustle, the challenges, but it’s simply not enough.

In fact, organized chaos at startups is actually something a lot of people crave…

So, what do you do?

One company’s version of organized chaos is going to look very different from another.

For instance, a customer success manager may have been a top performer with a 100% renewal rate at a startup that happened to have a CS program in existence before the top performer started. They were set up for success, and had a great product to work with.

Another startup’s product may not be as ready to go-to-market as they thought, and that same CSM is not going to have the same success as they had at their last startup.

Less success = less money.

Less success = not hitting their OTE.

Not hitting their OTE = looking for another role.

One person is going to crave autonomy, while another person is going to be motivated by uncapped commission and wide territories.

Hiring someone that is used to some sort of organizational excellence is not going to thrive in an environment without it if they weren’t warned. 

When you just tell someone that “it’s a startup, it’s organized chaos!”, you’re neglecting to mention the areas that are being worked on, or the challenges each team faces.

You’re neglecting to set realistic expectations.

The tech industry has the highest turnover rate across sectors, at 13.2%. As a business leader, it’s imperative to do everything imaginable to hold onto top performing talent.

Imagine what would happen with a little more honesty…

There's an art to recruiting, and honesty is the foundation of it.

I challenge you today to start being more honest, and I guarantee you’ll see your retention skyrocket.

Next week we’re going to be exploring questions to ask candidates to help you evolve your culture, avoid employee burnout and increase retention.

That’s all for this week! Please share with your colleagues if you’re enjoying this newsletter ♻️

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