Startup Recruitment Failures

A company's culture is at the forefront of every decision. If you want to attract and retain top talent, constantly work on your culture so you can walk the walk and not just talk the talk - states Ross Jardine, CEO and Founder of Architus. Showcase not only the growth opportunities or day-to-day tasks but paint the picture of what it's like to belong to your team.

In this episode, Pedro Henriques, CEO and Founder at Bridge In shares a few recruitment failures and talks about how important it is not to force a match between an employee and a company. Sometimes it's better to let people go in a kind way and then find them thriving someplace else.

In this episode, Vitor Soares, CEO at Tap My Back talks about interns and what they should bring to the table. It's hard to make up your mind and to know exactly what your career aspirations are while young, but one must know how an internship can help one grow and develop.

In this episode, Afonso Pinheiro shares the 3 hiring failures that he faced during different stages of his career. Why the Portuguese market is more open than Spanish, the importance of language and culture in business, and why is it critical to learn from people with international mindsets - all in this episode.

Onboarding begins with the first interview - you present your vision, culture and see if both parties are fully aligned. As Pedro Pinho Veloso, CEO and Founder at Near Partner says, they had quite a few near misses, when having doubts proved to be a bright red flag for hiring somebody. Not faking on social media, managing your company's image right, and retaining people - this and more on this...

The 21st episode of Startup Recruitment Failures brings us to Portugal, where we'll talk with the local startup founders. Mindaugas, CEO, Co-Founder at Coho and an ex-recruiter, will share his insights into the startup recruitment process. He's convinced, that the worst mistake is not carving out the time for the recruitment process while being a hiring manager.

Interviewing process is a theater, states Olegas, Engineering Manager at Meta. Candidate can dress the part and act as described by the script. If you know your role well enough, you can easily fake even passion or approach to diversity. Since diversity is vital not only for the team's mental health but also for business, being objective and searching for historical signals can help to identif...

Turing College is the first Lithuanian company backed by Y Combinator, at the moment having students from 20 countries. In this episode, Benas Šidlauskas, Co-Founder and Chief Business Development Officer shares how Turing College developed and encountered a few tricky hiring failures, and talks about the importance of in-depth screening and having insightful data about the candidate.

Even before the pandemic, MailerLite practiced a fully remote way of working. Until now they think it's the best way to work and cooperate within your team. In this episode, Ilma Tiki, the CEO, and Co-Founder at the Remote Company (the COO at MailerLite) shares her insights on hiring - proceeding with selection using writing tasks, not falling for a candidate's positivity, and making sure...

Revolut is conquering the world - currently having almost 6,000 people employed. Andrius Biceika has been a part of this incredible journey for six years. In this episode, he shares tips and tricks on hiring, talks about the importance of the probation period, and choosing the right questions for filtering that perfect match for your startup.

Hostinger can be proud of more than 1,000 employees and offices successfully established abroad. In this episode, Arnas Stuopelis, CEO at Hostinger, shares his experience on hiring decision-making, dealing with a pathological liar in the workplace, and staying true to yourself in times of emotional farewells.

Do everything that it takes to find a hidden, talented hire. Fight your internal, unconscious biases, go through hundreds of applications if needed, and make sure you have a diverse talent pool. These are only a few pieces of advice from the Ex-Director of Product at Shopify, Andrius Šlimas. From a small team in Lithuania to being a part of a massive company - learn from one of our inspiring stori...

Building the team is like making soup: each ingredient affects the taste, quality, and consistency of the final result - just how a new hire can change the overall vibe of a team. That's why Linas Armalys, CEO at Noviti Finance advises on starting a business with people you trust completely and have an emotional glue with.

Do you know how hard it is to build a company of 2000 employees and deal with the issues on the way? In this episode, Jonas Karklys, Co-Founder a NordVPN, talks about the difficulties of scaling internationally and shares some tips on how to overcome them. There will be perseverance and hustling involved, but success will be yours - keep pushing!

If there is one thing that people should know about startups, it's the culture and attitude. This is what matters the most - says Julius, CEO at Cloudvisor. We can gain experience and learn new skills, but changing the approach and mindset is a tough task. Listen or read more about how hiring less skilled colleagues could benefit your startup growth and why you need to experiment in the early...

In this podcast, Marius, Co-Founder at Orbio, shares his personal approach to the situations that happened in the past and advices on how to not get attached to failures personally. Listening to his gut feeling and taking risks is an integral part of success. You'll hear about the right attitude towards dealing with setbacks and how he navigated several difficult situations throughout the life...

How to deal with a complex, antagonistic, or misaligned employee? Strong feedback process, good knowledge of labor law, and relying on hard data instead of playing an opinion game - that’s only a few of the tips Rimante, COO at Omnisend, gave. Omnisend suggests how to remain strong and standing when facing a disturbance within a team caused by one person - listen or read on Startup Recruitment Fai...

In the early stage of business, one needs to wear many hats - Egle Tumenaite, CEO & Co-Founder at CornerCase Technologies remembers these days were a bit overwhelming. She shares her insights about growing a company from scratch - encountering some tricky situations and various obstacles. Which, she says, is inevitable to make massive progress in the long run. Entering an unfamiliar market wit...

Kilo Health culture is exactly what a lot of startups are seeking nowadays. Being the second fastest growing company in Europe, Kilo Health must have an exceptional team built. Ugne Civile - Talent Acquisition Partner at Kilo Health -  provides us with a better understanding of what it feels like to belong to Kilo Health, the importance of cultural fit, homework for a candidate and following your...

Whatagraph can be proud of its wide diversity - having people of 20 different nationalities and coming from all religious backgrounds. Justas Malinauskas - CEO & Co-Founder has been with Whatagraph since the very beginning. In the process of hiring more than 100 people, he learned a lot. In this episode, Justas shares some thoughts on navigating the company's culture, having an open-door p...

When you are a young bootstrapped startup, you cannot afford a C-level manager for sales. So you hire juniors and expect them to grow. CoinGate Co-Founder Dmitrijus reflects on how this strategy backfired and shares valuable insights from this experience.

Vinted is a second-hand clothing marketplace valued at over a cool billion (the first unicorn in Lithuania - yay!). Mindaugas joined 10 years ago as employee #13, and now he leads a team of 400 engineers. What a ride! He shares about a Senior Manager who had a very strong background, but just couldn't thrive at Vinted.

BitDegree recently raised a $1M investment led by Taizo Son, the younger brother of Masayoshi Son of Softbank. Danielius shares stories about the loss of a good CTO candidate, friction when working in an international team, and challenges facing an exodus of 10 people after changing the company’s direction.

It seems so obvious: when you hire, you need to invest in onboarding. However, we often tend to forget what is obvious and expect new employees to join the team and start delivering.

SurfShark Founder & CEO Vytautas Kaziukonis talks about relying more on procedures rather than the gut when hiring people and shares an amusing story about a Head of Sales who could not sell because of a basic skill missing that nobody checked for.