Finding the Right CTO for Your Company: A Hiring Guide

In order to be fundable, your startup team needs to have a technical expert. A good chief technology officer will have the skills to help your company navigate the technical side of your business. However, it can be a tad difficult to find the right candidate for the position. The key is to first know what you are seeking, and then use methods that help you compare a candidate’s purpose to your company’s goals. Keep reading to learn more about hiring a CTO that fits with your company.

How to Find and Hire a Qualified CTO

Determine What You Are Seeking

You want to start off with a complete job description. This description needs to include both skills and personality attributes. This not only ensures that someone will have the right technical and professional skills to move your company forward, but it also helps narrow down the types of personalities that your candidates will have.

To start off, some of the skills you will need are the following:

• Broad technical background
• Strategic thinking skills
• Business sense
• Communication/interpersonal skills
• Zeal for learning

From there, you will need to outline the kind of personality you need. This is, of course, necessary for an effective CTO, but it will also help you locate culturally aligned talent. For example, your job description might state that you are seeking a purpose-driven individual with broad technical experience who is interested in building innovative cloud-storage solutions, with an added note that a healthy sense of humor is a plus.

Matching Your Purpose

Often the best way to find a CTO for your startup is by networking. This allows you to develop relationships and personally differentiate between candidates. To network effectively, start by pulling from your own personal network. Contact people who regularly publish articles connected to your company, and attend networking events hosted by technical organizations.

Another great way to find CTO candidates is through recruitment services. An executive search firm has experience finding, interviewing, and offering jobs to qualified employees. Since they are well versed in the hiring process, they offer a level of expertise to the search process that is hard to match when you don’t have too much experience in recruiting.

However, beware that not all services are the same. It is key to find one that will work with you to make sure that you not only have a good skills match, but also a strong match for personality, purpose, and culture. This requires a purpose-based approach to recruiting.

Ultimately, the key is to make sure you can develop a pool of candidates who have the potential to fit in with your company’s purpose, business goals, and space in the market. This means that you either have to personally meet each potential candidate or utilize recruitment methods that narrow candidates down to those who will fit best with your company.

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