Challenges of Hiring Good People

William A. Sahlman, Harvard Business School

William Sahlman, professor at Harvard Business School, argues that recruiting good people is hard and while an entrepreneur is bound to make mistakes, fixing those mistakes is critical. Sahlman suggests that interviewing is difficult because of the impetus to assume the candidate is the right fit, but entrepreneurs must expend extra effort to assure they have the right person or it can cost the whole company. And in the cases where a mistake is made, entrepreneurs must be ruthless in fixing that mistake quickly.