Running the firm
Hiring when every hire is twenty percent of the firm
In a firm of five, one hire changes the culture measurably. That is a different problem from filling a role.
Published
The arithmetic
A wrong hire in a firm of two hundred is a problem for one team. In a firm of five it is twenty percent of the company and everyone works with them every day.
The cost of a bad hire scales inversely with headcount, which is the opposite of how most people think about hiring risk.
The most common mistake
Hiring for the firm you intend to be rather than the firm you are.
A specialist hired for a role that will exist in three years spends three years doing something else, becomes frustrated, and leaves. Hire for the work that exists now.
Ambiguity tolerance is the actual requirement
Small firms have undefined processes, shifting priorities, and no one to ask. Someone excellent in a structured environment can be unhappy here, and it is not a failing in either direction.
Test for it explicitly. Ask what they did when nobody told them what to do.
In a firm this size you are not filling a role. You are choosing someone everyone will speak to every day for years.
Write the job down first
Specifically: what leaves the founder’s desk, and what done looks like. If you cannot write it, you are hoping someone will work out what you do, which is not a job description.
Say it in the interview
About the ambiguity, the resources, and what is unresolved. Candidates who accept on an optimistic picture leave within a year.
The ones who accept knowing the reality are the ones who stay.
Then actually delegate
The most common failure is not the hire. It is hiring someone and handing over only the easy work, then concluding hiring did not help.
See the first hire.