What is Hiring Off The Line? The Best Recruitment Strategy for Building Start-Up Teams

Since starting Findrs in 2018, we’ve learned a lot about recruitment. After a period of complete upheaval since the pandemic and the uncertain economy, everything we know about hiring, candidate requirements, and priorities for both hirers and candidates has been turned on its head.

So, as the market changes, we also want to change the narrative around recruitment. While many people have negative connotations associated with the recruitment industry, thinking of us “dreaded recruiters” as glorified salesmen who merely want to fill roles to earn a commission, for the Findrs team, recruitment is about so much more.

It’s about working alongside a candidate to help develop their skills, portfolio, and CV so they can continue to work their way up the career ladder until they find their dream position or they’re even hiring for their own start-up.

It’s about working together with CEOs and founders to help them grow their organisations with the right talent management.

And, it’s about building teams of competent, passionate, like-minded individuals that make award-winning scale-ups and start-ups that are transforming the tech industry as we know it.

To reflect these goals of being more than just another recruitment business, we developed our own unique strategy that we consider to be the most effective way for start-ups to build efficient teams to help them scale up fast: Hiring Off the Line.

This strategy has achieved stats like 100% Assignment completion rate, 90% CV sent-to-interview ratio, and 100% offer-to-acceptance ratio for some of our key clients, because it’s all about a holistic approach to recruitment.

Here, we give you some detailed insight into this strategy to help you understand the importance of hiring with the idea of building a great team in mind, rather than an endless (sometimes unsuccessful) search for the “perfect” individual.

What is Hiring Off the Line?

Hiring off the line is our unique recruitment strategy that helps start-ups and scale-ups hire the best talent to facilitate their growth.

It works like this:

In a typical hiring scenario, a recruiter and hiring manager will gauge a candidate based on their skills and attitude. Once they find the candidate with the “perfect combination” of these two facets, their CVs are shared with the hiring organisation and the interview process begins.

Unfortunately, this traditional method has a couple of major drawbacks. Firstly, you may find your recruiter overlooks a great applicant who would’ve been a perfect fit for your organisation because they’re lacking in one or two technical skills. Or, you may end up placing the “perfect candidate” only to find that their personality isn’t really a great fit for your company’s culture - something which, in a large corporation may not matter, but in a small, collaborative start-up or scale-up can have a hugely negative output on team spirit, passion, and productivity.

In comparison, Hiring Off the Line takes a more holistic approach because it’s about so much more than a single candidate.

Leadership Teams/The Hiring Organisation

The first factor we take into account before searching for candidates is the leadership style within the hiring organisation.

What kind of leader are you? What kind of team are you looking to build?

The majority of leaders fall into one of two camps:

Type 1: You’re very technically skilled. You’re competent in your programs and software to the point where you’re confident in your ability to teach candidates any skills they may be weaker in.


Type 2: You’re a positive and inspiring leader. You can walk into a room and inspire your team with the passion you have for your product and organisation.

Consulting with you on your leadership style helps us determine the kind of team you’re looking to build and the qualities that are more important to you in candidates - so we can help you piece together the perfect team.

Candidate Requirements

Similar to the two categories of leaders, candidates also fall into two main camps:

Type A: These candidates have the best attitude. They’ll demonstrate unparalleled will and commitment both throughout the application process and once placed in the role. Though they may be lacking slightly in technical ability.

Type B: These individuals have the great technical ability. They’re highly competent and check all of the boxes of required skills. However, they may be more process-driven and have a less inspiring or enthusiastic attitude.

The Missing Piece

What Hiring Off the Line does is it then matches the personality types of applicants with hiring managers and colleagues to build exceptional teams.

It stops you from overlooking great candidates because they’re lacking in one area or another and allows you access to a larger market of talent tailored to your leadership style and candidate requirements.

In the graph below, we rank candidates based on Skills, Competence, and Ability and Attitude, Commitment, and Will and place them somewhere across the line. Candidates rarely score equally high on both axes, but this doesn’t mean they won’t be a good fit for your company.

Of course, if applicants score below 50 in either of these areas, they aren’t the best candidate for your role. However, if they have a higher score along one axis than the other, Hiring Off the Line helps us understand where we have the capacity to compromise based on your leadership style and where candidates have the potential to grow into a position with the help of a supportive or inspiring leader, rather than being discarded.

For example, if you’re a Type 1 leader (highly technical and confident in teaching necessary skills), you’ll likely build a team of Type A individuals (candidates with a great attitude). This means you can hire for attitude and train for skills to develop the perfect candidate.

Alternatively, if you’re a Type B leader (inspiring, motivational, and uncompromisingly passionate about running a team), we’ll help you hire candidates with Type B personalities (high technical ability). In this scenario, you’d hire for skills and inspire attitude.

In traditional recruitment methods, the idea that you can “teach” attitude is overlooked. Recruiters are familiar with the idea that skills can be trained but don’t necessarily consider the same can be said for will and passion. But, with the right leadership style and a clear decision on the kind of team you want to build, you can find candidates who score 90:60 in either direction and train for the area they’re lacking.

Using this methodology to hire for your start-up team, helps you build a collaborative, like-minded organisation that works well together to increase your company’s profitability and efficiency.

A Note On The Importance of Succession Planning

Once you’ve built this kind of team, it can all fall apart if you decide to plan your exit or sell your organisation.

Most successful organisations can run even when the manager isn’t involved/leaves/sells. You need to plan for your succession so the new leader can continue to build and inspire a team of the same personality type you’ve curated so far.

Of course, there are occasions where a mix of Type A and B personalities works well. But over the years, we’ve learned that placing like-minded individuals together through holistic team building helps organisations thrive.

Start Building Your "Dream Team"

If you’re looking to expand your team for your tech start-up or scale-up, we’ll be happy to consult with you and get to know your leadership style so you can build your dream team.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us on 0113 833 5855.