Of course, it is always preferable to find someone with the perfect pairing of skill set and mindset. But this is rarely the case at my company, Balihoo, a Boise startup that last year launched an online search engine for advertisers.

Many positions go unfilled for long stretches. For example, the position of media buyer remained open after several months of searching for experienced applicants but finding none who fit into our organization. Thus, we altered course and began searching exclusively for entry-level people who were self-driven, fit our culture, demonstrated comfort in fluid environments, and showed a high degree of aptitude to learn.

First, we had to determine how to reach these people. Posting to standard career Web sites was yielding resumes that didn't match our needs. We asked some of our recent entry-level hires where they looked for jobs. The answer was unanticipated: college career boards and nontraditional Web sites-turned-recruiting-tools like MySpace and Facebook.

We already maintained a company blog that somewhat spoke to this audience, so we complemented it with MySpace and Facebook pages and revised the job description to better resonate with the target audience. As a result, we were quickly flooded with resumes from the right applicants.

Next, we constructed a multipart screening process to evaluate applicants in three main areas: Balihoo core values, role-based competencies and cognitive skills. Since we could not use previous job performance to assess an applicant, we developed behavioral questions to determine how past experiences would lead to future success and case studies designed to measure candidates' critical thinking abilities.

For example, our case study challenged candidates to solve a pared-down but real-life media buying problem and make a recommendation to the interviewer. Media buying knowledge was not a prerequisite to solving the problem - just quick thinking, sound logic, and confidence in presenting an answer.

Once we hire a person - we hire about 1 in every 200 people who apply - it's time to "over-invest" in them. We purposely use the term over-invest to signify the commitment needed to train and develop inexperienced employees. Most of the training we do is on-the-job. While there is formal training available from third parties for some of the roles, we've found the best way to learn is through shadowing experienced people. Having the new person "jump in head first" is a great way for them to learn in a very quick and focused manner. Many of our new employees are serving our most important clients and completing mission-critical tasks just days after starting.

A beneficial byproduct of our hiring process is that we attract and select versatile, challenge-seeking individuals - two core competencies we need in an ever-changing startup. While many of our entry-level employees continue to excel and drive change in the roles for which they were hired, others quickly change roles in response to shifting business needs; both types are equally important to our company. For example, a newly hired media researcher quickly turned into a product manager, a marketing coordinator temporarily became a recruiter, and a support associate morphed into a data analyst.

Given the rapid pace of change - sometimes the only constant in any startup - hiring for mindset over skill-set has allowed us to develop our talent base quickly despite market-based challenges and has filled our ranks with an array of adaptable people who have helped us continually grow as the market shifts and opportunities arise.

Vincent Martino is chief operating officer at Balihoo Inc. He can be reached at vmartino@balihoo.com. Starting Up is a series published on Thursdays. The columns grew from discussions between the Statesman and local tech and entrepreneurial leaders and are coordinated by Julie Howard, a specialist for the Idaho Office of Science and Technology. Reach her at julie.howard@commerce.idaho.gov.

Article written by Vincent Martino - Special to the Idaho Statesman

Edition Date: 08/14/08