Your team is the most important asset you have, and yet, for many entrepreneurs with young companies, recruiting is the skill to which we devote the least time and discipline. Despite the research, tests and tools that sophisticated companies use to evaluate employees, many of us entrepreneurs think hiring is nothing more than using a little common sense and trusting your gut. For some reason, hiring is just one of those areas that we don’t identify with the need for expertise—just some good “people skills.”

“The first hires you make are some of the most important. ” 

Your gut feeling is not enough. The fact that you need help is not enough. You have to improve your hiring skills to give you the best chance of success. I know it seems way off before you have a recruiting department, but in the meantime, try some of these techniques to improve your chance of making good hires:

• Rely on Proven Tools. Many times I’ve seen the advice of “following your instincts” being given to managers as the golden rule of hiring. Your personal sympathies or dislikes can easily turn into prejudices that at the end of the day will have nothing to do with the candidate’s qualifications for the job. There are tools and procedures to help you choose the best candidate. Use background checks, check references, dig into personal and professional detail and use personality tests. There are no shortage of real tools to help you.
• Use Outsiders to Interview. You are often too anxious to bring on resources to be objective about a candidate. Ask a colleague or advisor who has little to do with your business, but plenty of business knowledge, to interview finalists.They are much more likely to be objective than you are.
• Don’t Panic. When the pressure goes up, people tend to act hastily and make decisions that may not be fully thought-through. Hiring a new guy may be a sufficient immediate solution to workforce shortage, but not making sure he’s the right one can backfire in the days to come.
• Hire for Your Phase of Growth. It’s important to adjust recruiting to your startup’s size or phase of growth: hire energetic generalists in your early days, build a recruiting team as you grow, target and hire specialists with your now-sophisticated recruitment team, and build a culture of recruiting to keep a full hiring pipeline once you’ve matured. An employee who helps you hustle through your early days isn’t always right for your later-stage startup years later.
• Be Wary of Strategists. Thinking is easy, executing is hard. As careers advance, fewer people choose to remain in an execution role and steer toward “strategy” and “strategic thinking.” When you hire experienced people, make sure you ask them, “Tell me about your desire to build process and structure, and also execute it.” If they answer, “I am willing to get my hands dirty,” move on. If they say, “I love building businesses” or “I love watching a team gel,” consider them. You need people who “love to” and not ones that are “willing to” get their hands dirty.
• Read through References. Pay attention to what the candidate’s previous employers had to say, and focus on the details. Better, pick up the phone and personally check unlisted references as well. There may be a reason they were unlisted, and you may want to know about them.
• Pay More. The difference between someone who makes $125,000 versus $150,000 seems like a fortune when you have little money (or it’s your money). The difference in talent and experience can be significant and worth the additional spending. With the right team member, it will unlock more than that amount of value.

The resources that make your company grow and succeed are your people—especially your senior people. Hiring the right people is difficult to do in any business. In an entrepreneurial venture, it is even more challenging. But if you adopt the right perspective, it will become clear just how critically important hiring is. You’ll develop it as a specialized skill, and in doing so, approach building your team with the same purpose and care you devote to other key elements of your business. Every time I failed to prioritize this perspective, the mistake was obvious and far-reaching. But when I approached hiring and recruiting new team members with a deeper understanding of the purpose—and the painful consequences of getting it wrong—we advanced the business and strengthened our company culture. You can’t control everything, but this is one skill you can choose to improve and the results will be undeniable.