Potential vs experience: what do you need for your startup team?

When hiring for early-stage startups founders often have to choose between potential and experience. While it may seem that hiring experienced talent is an obvious choice, this is not always the case (and not only for budget reasons). After a year of trial and error in forming our ideal startup team, I have found that there are several benefits to hiring raw talent:

1.They put extra effort
Candidates with no experience are ready to work twice as hard to prove their worth. They are eager to learn and master both hard and soft skills. Besides, they will perform each task with extra diligence and attention, making sure that it meets your expectations.

2.They are more adaptable
Experienced candidates are often used to a certain way of doing things and may find it difficult to adapt to a startup’s workflow, where constant change is inevitable. On the other hand, applicants with no experience tend to be more flexible and adapt to a company culture easier. What is more, they will be ready to take on different responsibilities and save your money by covering hiring gaps at the early stages.

3.They are innovative
With no experience to fall back on, green candidates tend to be more creative and willing to take certain risks. They look at common problems from a different perspective and offer unique solutions and ideas. Having raw talent in your team helps you avoid groupthink and increase your innovation rate.

4.They are loyal
Dedication is another quality that can justify hiring raw talent. Working for a startup means constantly dealing with its ups and downs. Often inexperienced hires value their chance to contribute to the development of a new company more. If they've become highly engaged they're less likely to leave when a startup hits a stumbling block.

Although there are many benefits to hiring raw talent, it does come with its risks. The onboarding process will take more time, new hires will make obvious mistakes and may need additional guidance for the first few months. Plus, there is always a chance they will realize the job doesn’t suit their career aspirations down the road.
So how do you make sure hiring an inexperienced employee pays off?

The answer may seem simple, but it doesn’t make it less true: Pay extreme attention to both soft and hard skills. Having no work experience doesn’t equal having no core competencies for doing a great job. For instance, a fresh out of university web designer may deliver a more creative and timely result than a specialist with 10-year experience (based on personal experience).
In 9 cases out of 10, you can determine if a candidate is a good long-term employee by applying a well-thought-out skill-based approach to the recruitment process. While testing hard skills is best achieved with test tasks or skill-based hiring platforms, evaluating a candidate's soft skills is a bit more complicated. Here are a few common techniques I am using:

• Ask applicants to rate their strongest to weakest soft skills and connect their answer to a specific real-life experience
  - Ask them to outline a solution to a job-related problem (for instance, develop a strategy for implementing one of the projects)
  - Identify the strong and weak points of the solution and see how they respond to your critique
  - Pay attention to their behavior through the hiring process (how quickly they respond to your emails, how well-structured and on-point is their cover letter, and how they talk about their previous work or study experiences)

Overall, I would say that apart from lower costs, there are many other reasons to choose potential over experience when hiring for a startup. A perfect creative team should consist of a mix of raw talent and experienced employees. The key is to have a well-functioning hiring process, pay equal attention to soft and hard skills and consider team dynamics.
Shameless plug: the startup I am developing right now offers a recruitment platform with a variety of tests that evaluate both hard and soft skills and shortlist the best candidates for you. If you need help finding your perfect employees quickly and effectively, check our website