Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Our Unique Hiring Practices

First off, we ask a lot of odd personality-based questions for prospective candidates. I think I recently scared one away with some of the most immature (but valid) questions like, If you were an animal, which one would you be and why?

Then we ask about their favorite stores and e-commerce experiences to see how well they might be able to identify and empathize with our customer.

Finally, we ask for an executable plan for what they will be doing with us because there is no hand-holding in this custom men’s shirt startup. Don’t know the difference between a slim fit dress shirt and an athletic fit dress shirt? Hasta la vista, then.

Once all those things are in order and the responses are agreeable with us, we put them on a trial period to see if things really work out. Most of the time, our contractual agreement notes that if the relationship doesn’t work out during the trial period, there is no responsibility on our part to compensate the new hire. A bit harsh? Yes, but we need to filter out the proper candidates rather than waste our money, especially because we waste a ton of time getting to that point. But all applicants that get to that stage agree to the trial period and agree to the terms, so it works out.

This unique hiring practice has allowed us to effectively find the right people without wasting too much time or money.

Do you have any interesting ways of hiring?