Ten years ago, long before Covid-19 shut down the world and normalized working from home, Ayesha Tariq saw a position advertised with ‘flexible timing’ option. As a new mother, this suited her really well, and thus began her journey to establishing, automating, leading and rebranding the human resources department at one of the fast growing software houses in Pakistan, Arbisoft. But there’s more, she was also a product owner for two of their inhouse Enterprise Resource Management softwares.
What did she learn from her decade of experience in scaling a company and finding the right talent? Ayesha spilled it all during an interactive session with our Cohort X startups, who were able to learn valuable insights and strategies that will enable them to skillfully grow their ideas through strong cohesive teams and a progressive culture. She shared her lessons learned from her hiring and onboarding experience, obtained through trial and error, experiments and multiple failures, encouraging the startups to not shy away from trying new ideas or getting discouraged by failure.
Ayesha shared ten lessons for the Cohort X founders, who work in an increasingly unstable and unpredictable environment. Add to that, the economic uncertainty currently faced by the country, it does put a strain on the founders as they attempt to increase their operations. Let’s look at her ‘ten commandments’ for budding startups who are seeking to grow:
- Handpick your core team for critical positions, individuals you can trust in delivering fast paced work in a short period of time.
- Brand building takes years, so make your pitch count to attract the right individuals. Look for talent using multiple platforms, online groups and specialized platforms like Github are great options.
- Assess your potential hire through multiple methods to avoid false positives, use technical interviews, cultural-fit interviews, reference checks and possibly a work related assignment. Taking a longer time is better than making a mistake.
- Make use of analytics, measure where your best and successful hire comes from for added efficiency.
- Keep the questions semi-structured, and outline topics that are important to you to give the interview panel flexibility in asking questions.
- Be realistic, don’t oversell the position. Provide the applicant with a ‘job sample’ experience, before making the offer.
- Have a pre-onboarding period, maintain contact between the offer and joining date and help them get familiar with your company environment and culture.
- Onboarding can be a difficult experience, maintain empathy and ensure the process is streamlined to ensure all elements of their new work are shared.
- First 90 days of an employee will show whether they are to stay or go. Provide regular feedback and explain clearly what work outcomes are expected.
- Hire fast, but fire not-so-fast. Give sufficient time for improvements, and fire respectfully if things don’t improve.
Additionally, she advised startups to look for talent in good universities by reaching out to them or maintaining contact with professors who can offer recommendations. Creating brand presence in the region by going to university fairs is helpful in attracting employees. Work on coaching and training, and hire candidates based on their potential and attitude towards work. Ayesha reminded the founders to remain transparent, discourage hierarchy, provide psychological safety and flexibility of work to their teams.
Founder Feedback:
“I found the session to be very informative, and learnt various techniques of hiring and onboarding. I am in the process of expanding my team right now, so this is very helpful”.
Muhammad Tahir Khattak, Founder Build Enable
“I had been planning on adding a B2B element to my business model, to target the problem of talent acquisition and retention in the tech industry of Pakistan. Getting insights from Ayesha Tariq, who is the Head of People Operations and Development provided me with useful information and understanding.”
Izzah Gul Awan, Founder Gule e Shaoor
