Chocolate bar

This week, we’re talking recruitment. It is make or break for your new start-up.

When recruiting, heuristics and feelings are as important as cold hard cash. You’ve got to get people to buy into your ethos, mission and values at interview and in their first, crucial, month with your start-up. How?

Tell people your ‘company values’ at interview? OK. 

Put them on the wall in your interview room and point them out to interviewees? Sure. 

How about a 70p hack to demonstrate that you live your values and really do treat your team as individuals, with their own goals, ambitions, priorities and problems?

At the interview – ask what their favourite chocolate bar is. It’s a nice little ice breaker question that people won’t expect. 

And then when they come in for an onboarding meeting a few weeks later, there it is, in their Welcome Pack. 

In every area of life, a personal touch has an oversized benefit. Think a hand-written card over a pre-printed one; a personalised gift over a voucher. The key is systemising the personal touch so you can keep it up as you go through your growth journey.

Best wishes, Ben.