Patrick Severs’ Post

#Success story "Over 50 candidates interviewed. None made it past the first round." This was the reality I faced while working with an early-stage fintech startup on a highly niche role: a Backend Developer with expertise in System Design and end-to-end product delivery. The company needed someone with prior experience in early-stage startups and a proven track record of building systems from scratch. Sounds challenging, right? Despite interviewing over 50 candidates from their talent pool, none were able to meet the technical and experience requirements. The reason? Their existing talent pool was primarily made up of candidates who had experience with writing APIs, but lacked the depth needed for the role. So, what did we learn? Clear communication with the hiring manager is essential to truly understand the role. Building a well-aligned talent pool is critical to avoid mismatches in skillsets. Perseverance is key! Even with multiple rejections, it’s all about finding the right fit. After a few more rounds of refining the search after our intake meeting, a qualified candidate finally joined after completing their 60-day notice period. It was a challenging, but rewarding process, and the role was successfully closed! Key takeaway: Never underestimate the power of a detailed intake meeting before diving into building a talent pipeline. Lesson learned: As recruiters, it’s our job to make sure we understand the role inside and out, align with the hiring manager, and set clear expectations from the start.

Hiring your first developer is a big milestone! But it can also be very intimidating (especially if you're a non-tech founder). Let me share a few hard-earned lessons from hiring developers for my startup 👇 → Focus on the right energy Don't get too hung up on credentials or previous experience. Look for motivation and eagerness to learn instead. → Avoid "senior" developers ... at least as long as you're still a small startup. They often come with a hefty paycheck, and many of them don't particularly like working in an early-stage startup environment (even if they say they do). → Hire generalists In the early stages, you'll need people who can wear many different hats - not specialists! → Involve your team in hiring decisions. If you have multiple developers already, involve them in the interview process. Let them help decide if this person would be great to work with or not. → Use contract-to-hire Start by hiring candidates as contractors/freelancers before converting them into full-time employment (if ever). This reduces risk significantly. → Hire fast, fire fast Don't waste time on long screening and recruiting processes. Do a surface-level screening, and if everything looks good, let them prove themselves by actually doing work. Remember, hiring is an ongoing learning process. Picking a bad hire, getting screwed over by an Upworker, doing poor management... these are failures to learn from, just like everything else in business.

What is it I actually do? Spoiler Alert - I don't craft beer. Last week I had discussions with 3 different startups around what it is I do - all starting with the question "do you just hire software developers?" It got me thinking and I quickly realised my superpower isn't hiring software developers despite it making up 80% of my business - my strength is my ability and enthusiasm for scaling startups. So my plan for 2024 is to lean into my key strengths: 1. Bullshit-free recruitment advice. 2. Building and scaling technology startups. 3. Full talent partnership to help define strategy, approach and search. 4. Limited to a maximum of 5 active clients at any one time. I'm also looking at expanding my service offerings to include: 1. Retained Search for Individual Hires. 2. Client Partnership for Team Builds. 3. Fractional Talent Management for scale-ups needing 6 months + partnership. The aim is to provide startups and scale-ups a one stop shop when it comes to engaging, attracting and retaining the best talent. The above is how I want FORM careers to look like / feel like in 2025. Proper Talent Partnership.

Most software engineering recruiters aren't software engineers. 🤯 SACRILEGIOUS 🤯 BLASHPHEMER 🤯 Also the reality. My job isn't to tell CTO's that a candidate is a fantastic software engineer because of all their technical nitty-gritty skills - but that they're a fit for their team and the wider startup environment in general. "Gee Varsh. How do you do that, if you're not a software engineer yourself?" 🤨 Easy-peasy lemon squeezy! 👍🏽 I put myself in an assumptive 'non-technical stakeholder' role. In most startups, you know you're going to wear a lot of hats. Sometimes engineering, sometimes product, sometimes DevOps and very often - external stakeholders. When I chat to you about a role, I'm not looking for specific answers to: 🚫 Do you know what a JSX linter is. 🚫 Whether you can use binary search for unassorted array of integers. 🚫 What different architectural styles you would use create a WebAPI I am looking to see: ✅ Can you explain a technical concept in layman's terms ✅ Can you make me understand what impact your work will have on the outcome ✅ Are you able to share knowledge with those who aren't your equals (technical level) Always keep the end goal in mind. In startups, you'll be dealing with a whole host of people with varying levels of technical proficiency. Your job? Build something GREAT, and bring them on the journey with you. #toptipthursday #startups

Tech hiring is a minefield. Most start-ups walk into it eyes wide shut. Here's the twist: It's not about the code. It's about the fit. Imagine this. You've found the perfect coder. Their skills? Unparalleled. But three months down the line, projects are stalling. Team dynamics? Fraying. Why? The code was perfect, but the fit was all wrong. Start-ups, by nature, are agile, fast-paced environments. Every hire must not only excel technically but also align with the core values and vision of the company. They need to be adaptable, thrive on change, and mesh with the existing team. It's a complex recipe. Yet, the hiring focus often zeroes in on technical skills alone. A glaring oversight, considering that most tech issues can be taught or solved, but a mismatch in work culture or ethos? That's a harder fix. The solution? A hiring blueprint that balances technical prowess with cultural fit. Interviews that delve into problem-solving approaches, teamwork scenarios, and adaptability to change. It's about finding those who not only write impeccable code but who also champion your start-up's vision with the same fervour. Let's pivot the conversation from mere technical skills to a holistic view of hiring. Have you experienced the impact of 'fit' in your hiring process? Share your stories below. Let's learn from each other.

How do I hire someone who's seen scale, yet is still scrappy? Aptible posed this question to us and we went to work: It quickly became clear that some of the most talented candidates weren't just working at high growth startups, but within larger companies known for aggressive scale and engineering excellence. But founders are often hesitant to hire someone with lots of big company background. They're fearful there's going to be a DNA or velocity mismatch. That's where it's important to dive deep and peel back the layers of the onioin. Our conversations with Nhien Tran pretty quickly revealed some extremely promising stories. As a critical PM owning the browser side of Datadog's Realtime User Monitoring product, she had learned to work within a smaller team that needed to prove it could punch above its weight to justify more resources. When the need for a React SDK emerged, Nhien led her engineering team to create one quickly, marshaling engineers that had never built one before to treat it like an internal startup. And most critically, she had seen a rapid scaling in her product areas, seeing customers provide real time feedback and enthusiasm about the value that she was delivering. And when you enter a smaller company -- that's often the biggest question founders worry about with a PM. Are they going to build the right things quickly, or are they going to spend lots of time building smart but unneeded things? Nhien answered that question head on at every step of the interview process. Hats off to an incredible partnership with the team at Aptible, including Caroline Lau and Frank Macreery for being great collaborators during this process. And amazing work to our search lead Nikki Bruno for her endless passion in filling this role! Nhien -- we're excited to see what you do!

Hiring developers isn’t about finding talent—it’s about attracting it. The best engineers aren’t chasing job posts. They’re solving problems, contributing to open source, and building cool stuff. So here’s the real question: Is your startup exciting enough to make them notice you? #TechRecruiting

I couldn't agree more with Gaurav's thoughts. Startups often face the unique challenge of finding needles in a haystack when it comes to talent. The problem isn't just finding the needle in the haystack; there are often no needles to be found. If your startup is facing this issue, it's time to increase the size of the haystack. Let's connect to discuss how Dobr.AI can help you exponentially increase the size of the candidate pool you can evaluate.

🚀 Hey LinkedIn fam – got a sec? Let’s talk 𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐬. 🚀 Hiring developers feels like playing Tetris on expert mode. Resumes pile up, timelines explode, and somehow, you’re still short-staffed. 😅 𝐒𝐨… 𝐰𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐱 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭. Meet 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐲𝐀𝐏𝐏 (beta dropping soon!) – a tool to help startups and companies skip the chaos and hire actual humans, not just LinkedIn ghosts. Here’s the vibe: 1. 𝐍𝐨 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 “𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲” 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬. We’ve got a 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐬𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐝 of pre-vetted developers – skills checked, CVs polished, culture-fit verified. Think of it like a VIP list, but for coding rockstars. 2. 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐩𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭. See someone you like? Hit “Request Availability.” Our nerdy-but-friendly Tech Managers will handle the awkward stuff and back to you asap. 3. 𝐂𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 “𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞”? Open a brief. Tell us what you need (“React wizard who loves cats” works), and we’ll hunt them down. Fast. 4. 𝐎𝐡, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐯 𝐬𝐮𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐚 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐲? We’ll find another one with aligned skills. Free. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞? ✅ 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞. (Yes, really. Beta perks, baby.) ✅ 𝐍𝐨 𝐇𝐑 𝐣𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐧. Just real people and quick answers. ✅ 𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤. If it flops? Blame us. If it works? You look genius. ✅ 𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: Rigorous vetting for skills, reliability, and team fit. 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐧? We’re opening beta to a small group soon. Drop a 🚀 in the comments or DM me “GIMME LIFTYUP” – and let’s make hiring suck less. P.S. Did I mention it’s FREE? #HiringHacks #StartupGrowth #TechRecruitment #HiringSimplified

I think so, developing a product is different from client management. Companies teach their resources best practices but they lack in giving them exposure of client communication. So, the employees get demotivates and feels like they aren't getting enough opportunities due to which they try to escape from current job