Why Some of the Best Entrepreneurs Are So Bad At Recruiting Employees

An entrepreneur can be only so entrepreneurial without a competitive, intelligent and dedicated team behind him or her. Though, where the entrepreneur will succeed in 50 other places, he or she will often fall short when it comes to recruiting the employees that are going to take his or her company to the next level.

As both an entrepreneur and CEO of an executive search firm, I understand how both hiring managers and potential employees analyze an open job and the exact points where they don't see eye to eye and the potentially devastating results of not being able to recruit top notch applicants.

Here are the most common recruiting mistakes entrepreneurs make and how to fix them.

1. Offering equity instead of salary. Many entrepreneurs like to go this route, but no competitive job seekers like to. Why? The answer is simple: they are job seekers and, thus don't think like entrepreneurs.

This is where many entrepreneurs become baffled as to why someone wouldn't want equity in their company as it's their baby. It's the best company in the world. However, the job seeker does not see it that way.

Also, companies need more employees to grow, not more business partners to bicker in the conference room over the size of the Fresh Direct bill. If you want good employees, you have to pay a competitive salary with competitive benefits, vacation days, sick days, etc.

2. Many entrepreneurs are disorganized when it comes to the exact job description. Entrepreneurs strive off of uncertainty and perform best when they can use their creativity. However, employees want structure. They want to know what they will be doing everyday.

Upon interviewing applicants, I have to tell the start-up CEOs whom we work with to focus on the job description that I make them write-up and tell them to make sure that the interviewee can do those tasks better than the other applicants whom they are interviewing and who will be happy doing so on a daily basis.

3. Many entrepreneurs are not in tune enough regarding what I refer to as their "employee branding." Employee branding consists of making the company look sexy to work for, the particular job appear engaging and challenging as well as making the future prospects with the organization seem enticing.

Employees want to be part of something tangible. Something that they can go brag to their friends about. It's not that people love working at Google. It's that they love telling other people about the lunch there.

Entrepreneurs need to make their potential employees feel as if they belong and make the company seem like a place that every job seeker would want to work at.