Why startup founders should create hiring rubrics
Max Kolysh
CEO @ Dover
September 30, 2024
•
4 mins
A hiring rubric is a structured evaluation tool that defines the key competencies, expectations and characteristics required for a role. It can outline skills, behaviors and values that make a great candidate. In short, it provides a clear roadmap and criteria for everyone involved in the hiring process to use. This helps reduce subjectivity, guesswork and inconsistencies when hiring candidates.
For startup founders, time is a resource you can’t afford to waste. Without a structured hiring process and hiring criteria in place, you can spend needless hours, days, or even weeks deliberating on hiring decisions. Even worse, you might make the wrong hire and have to go through the entire process again. A hiring rubric speeds up the hiring process, improves the quality of hires, and keeps everyone on the same page.
Beyond efficiency, rubrics also make a fairer process for potential candidates. Top talent prefers a fair and expedient hiring process. With a rubric in place, you can garner a reputation for having a good hiring process, which can help you attract better applicants. It’s a win-win for everyone.
A well-designed hiring rubric has several significant benefits that can improve your hiring process. Let’s break down the top five:
1. Defines "good" upfront
Before you post a job or conduct an interview, a hiring rubric forces you to define what success looks like for the role. What skills and attributes are essential for the job? This creates a clear line between qualified and unqualified candidates. When your entire team understands what a “good” candidate is, you can avoid being swayed by superficial traits or unconscious biases.
2. Reduces bias
Speaking of bias, hiring rubrics are a powerful tool for mitigating unconscious bias. Setting criteria in advance helps you avoid making decisions based on irrelevant factors or solely choosing someone based on “cultural fit.” Things like appearance, background or personal preferences can sometimes influence your decision. A hiring rubric ensures this doesn’t happen. Additionally, you’re less likely to pass on highly qualified candidates who may not immediately stand out but possess the core competencies necessary to excel in the role.
3. Improves team alignment
When multiple people are involved in the interview process, it’s easy for everyone to have different opinions on a candidate. A hiring rubric ensures everyone involved in the interview process is using the same evaluation criteria. This helps create more consistent and comparable feedback.
4. Speeds up decision-making
Everyone who has been part of a hiring team knows the pain of spending hours in lengthy circular debates after interviews are over. No one can agree on who the best candidate is or who should move forward. A rubric can help eliminate this particular bottleneck. You can quickly determine if a candidate meets, exceeds, or falls short of expectations according to your predetermined framework. This leads to go/no-go decisions faster and less frustration trying to come to a consensus.
5. Provides feedback
Building a strong employer brand is crucial for growing startups. One way to make candidates happy, even if they don’t get the role, is by providing constructive feedback. A hiring rubric allows you to look at your evaluation and provide specific, actionable feedback on areas where they performed well and areas they need improvement. This helps them in future job searches and reflects well on your company as a fair employer.
How to build your startup’s hiring rubric
So, we know the importance of a hiring rubric and the benefits it offers. But how do you build one? Hiring rubrics are relatively straightforward, but you should take your time to ensure they align with your company's needs and values. With that in mind, here’s a guide on building the ideal hiring rubric for your startup:
List 5-7 Key Competencies for the Role
Start by identifying the core skills and attributes necessary for a candidate to succeed in the role. These could include technical skills, soft skills, problem-solving abilities, alignment with company culture, leadership qualities, etc. Having 5-7 is a sweet spot because you don’t want the rubric to get too complex, but you need to be detailed enough to define candidate requirements clearly.
Define Success Levels for Each Competency
For each competency, establish three performance levels. These levels are:
Exceeds expectations: What does top-tier performance look like in this area? What does a candidate need to not only succeed in the role but bring it to the next level?
Meets expectations: What is the minimum level of competency you expect? Decide what is enough to advance someone to the next stage of an interview or an offer.
Needs improvement: What indicates that a candidate is under-qualified or unfit in this area? Is this area something that they can learn on the job, or do they need to come into the role with these capabilities?
Create Interview Questions That Assess Each Competency
Creating a hiring rubric can also help you structure your interview process. You can use your rubric to develop specific interview questions that directly measure each competency. For example, if problem-solving is essential for the role, ask a question where candidates walk you through a scenario where they solved a difficult problem.
Weight the Competencies Based on Importance
Not all competencies are equally important. Assigning weight to each competency allows you to create a numerical value for candidates based on how proficient they are in each area. For instance, for a senior engineering role, leadership experience might be a plus but it’s not as important as knowing programming languages required for the role.
Following these steps will help you create a hiring rubric that your team can use to screen candidates. Also, don’t be afraid to adjust your rubric as you learn what’s important. Refining your rubric over time can help you make better hires in the future.
Key takeaways
A hiring rubric provides structure and consistency in your recruitment process, allowing you to objectively assess candidates and make faster, better decisions. Also, it helps reduce bias and missed opportunities because you relied on “gut instinct” rather than who is the best candidate for the role. In short, rubrics create a more fair and inclusive hiring process that is better for candidates, better for hiring teams and better for your company.
For one last pro tip, it’s also a good idea to incorporate your company values into the rubric. A candidate’s ability to embody your values can be just as important as their technical skills. Company values are especially important in startups, where you have a smaller team. It’s best to build your company with people who can get on board with the mission.
Hire fast with Dover’s free ATS and fractional recruiters
A hiring rubric is one way to improve your hiring process, but Dover has the tools you need to take it to the next level. Our free ATS gives you the ability to easily track applicants from application to offer, generate job listings and post them on job boards, sort candidates with AI-powered candidate scoring, collaborate with other hiring team members and much more. All for zero cost with no hidden fees.
Our Recruiting Partners marketplace is also a great place to get hiring help from proven and expired startup recruiters. They can help you make great hires and take the time-consuming tasks of sourcing and screening off your plate. Ready to see how Dover can help you? Get started with our ATS and Recruiting Partners today.
