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Decoding The New Hiring Playbook Of India’s Fastest Growing Startups

26 Dec'22 | By Inc42 BrandLabs

Inc42, along with hiring platform Fountain and startup accelerator Huddle, recently held a panel discussion titled Decoding The New Hiring Playbook Of India’s Fastest Growing Startups. The session explored many critical areas such as

Problems faced in hiring and training talent
Indian startups’ (Series A and above) outlook on hiring
Initiatives/best practices followed by startups in India to hire talent

Moderated by Sanil Sachar, founding partner of Huddle, the discussion included Ashish Kashyap, founder of INDmoney; Bharat Sethi, founder of Rage Coffee; OmPrakash Muppirala, head of Fountain India; and Varun Laul, partner at Investcorp.

Talent Acquisition: Key Guiding Principles For Startup Founders

Most founders think hiring the right people and building a strong team are the toughest part of setting up a successful startup.

After all, it took even the great Nick Fury of Marvel fame several attempts to find the right talent mix to spearhead the initiative of the Avengers, a group of superheroes.

But coming back to the mundane reality from the world of Marvel, one must acknowledge that startup founders in India have found it increasingly difficult to onboard talent and retain the new hires in the past few years. It was all the more pronounced in 2021, the year of the Great Resignation when thousands of employees decided to leave the traditional corporate framework.

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Of course, 2022 has witnessed a huge number of layoffs, given the geopolitical uncertainties, economic headwinds and a harsh funding winter. But it is more of a cyclical downturn and anticipatory hiring freeze, according to experts. Moreover, the thesis of hiring becomes all the more critical in downtime when options are plenty, but the choices made may still be faulty, impacting a business in the long run.

India is home to the third-largest startup ecosystem, with more than 57K entities launched to date. They have a combined valuation of $450 Bn+, as per an Inc42 report, and as many as 108 startups became unicorns as they reached a billion-dollar valuation. Understandably, more achievers are coming in (read 103 soonicorns), and teams must deal with more challenges to ensure sustainable growth. Hence, getting a good sense of a candidate’s ninja skills, goals and interests will be critical to making the right hiring decision.

So, what are the guiding principles that startup founders must inculcate in their search for the right team? How do they learn the best practices of hiring?

“The talent acquisition strategy differs based on which stage the startup is in – 0-1, 1-10, 10-100 or beyond, you have to be cognizant of that and based on that your hiring strategy should be,” said Ashish Kashyap, founder of INDmoney.

“Typically, you map it out. If the ‘Y’ axis is intent, and the ‘X’ axis presents skills, you will want people in the top right (high skill plus intent). But you definitely don’t want people in the bottom right (highly skilled but low on intent),” he explained. “If you ae 100 plus you want skills, as you are incremental and in case of 0-10, it will be very different,” he said.

On the other hand, hiring senior people has its own challenges, according to Muppirala of Fountain (India).

“The hiring process should be more of a conversation than a question-and-answer session,” he said. “One of my favourite questions is asking the interviewee about the most successful project they’ve worked on. Some people spoke only for a minute. So, how senior can they really be? Also, check if they say ‘I did this and I did that’ instead of ‘We did this and we did that’,” said Muppirala.

While laying off someone, especially someone from the early/initial team, can be very hard for a founder, sometimes it becomes necessary for the startup’s growth or survival.

“It is not uncommon to see an initial team member simply existing instead of evolving,” said Varun Laul of Investcorp. “I think it’s really important then for the founder or the CEO or the investor to start saying that if you are only going to exist, that ‘s’ will go away very soon and lead to an exit,” he added.

Talking about 2023 and beyond, the panellists thought that hiring processes would likely see a paradigm shift. Since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, many startups and large enterprises are increasingly offering remote roles. Interviews for these positions are often conducted online without asking the candidates to travel to the office.

“Currently, 10% of the hiring happens online, and 90% is done offline,” said Muppirala. “The biggest trend we may see in the next 10 years is that this 10-90 split will flip, and 90% of the people will be hired online,” he concluded.