10 Best Books on Hiring for Startups

Books are a treasure trove of knowledge for entrepreneurs when it comes to hiring, especially when you realize that the individuals who wrote these titles have been at the forefront of hiring top-notch talent for years or even decades.

Instead of taking the time to make mistakes and learn the hiring process on your own, reading and actually implementing the advice of human resources professionals or other founders can help you hit the ground running and immediately find yourself steps ahead of the competition.

Below are the best books on hiring for startups and why you should read these books as soon as you have the chance.

Also Recommended: Check out our list of the best startup books.

“Who: The A Method for Hiring” is a book dedicated to teaching executives and hiring managers about solving the single biggest problem in business today: successfully hiring top performers that help your business thrive. The book starts by discussing the problems organizations face with hiring and jumps into a blueprint for hiring success. Once you have the blueprint down, Geoff Smart and Randy Street take you on a journey through interviewing and spotting A players and the best ways to seal the deal when hiring someone you’ve identified can help your business.

“Startup CEO” will guide you through the process of scaling up your business and successfully navigating all of the risky, difficult, stressful, and lonely aspects involved with being a startup founder, including the hiring process. Author Matt Blumberg begins by exploring the importance of authentic leadership in business today, how you can develop a dream, vision, and story for your company, and how to craft your company’s culture. You’ll then learn all about hiring and compensation, including promotions and motivating your internal teams.

Listen to our interview with Matt Blumberg below!

“Talent” dives deep into the topic of hiring and retaining top talent and why talent is one of the most important aspects of business growth and market cap multiplication. Authors Ram Charan and Anish Batlaw begin by explaining why high-performing talent is the ultimate “market cap multiplier” and then discuss how talent is the engine of value creation. Then, they walk through several stories of how CEOs achieved massive revenue growth and how risk-taking leaders can achieve rapid growth on a condensed timetable with the right leadership and talent collaboration efforts.

The “High Growth Handbook” is a book that describes Gil's observations about common patterns he identified in high-growth technology companies. You’ll explore each of these categories in detail, including the role of the CEO, managing the board, recruiting, hiring, and managing talent, building the executive team, organizational structure, achieving hypergrowth, marketing and PR, product management, financing and valuations, and mergers and acquisitions.

“Recruiting 101” is a great book for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and recruiters that want to uncover why some recruiters are so successful while others are not. Steven Mostyn dives into the 15 fundamentals of being a great recruiter, including motivation, relationship management, intake sessions, domain knowledge, recruitment marketing, and your own personal recruitment brand. You’ll then learn all about sourcing, cold calling, candidate engagement, interviewing skills, speeding up the hiring process, closing candidates on your job offers, and achieving data-driven results.

Looking for more book recommendations? We asked startup founders to share their favorite books on entrepreneurship, and here's what they said.

“The Culture Code” is an excellent book for startups looking to build up a solid culture in their business. Author Daniel Coyle explores some of the most important aspects of building a great company culture, including how to build safety and belonging in your organization, the importance of sharing vulnerability, and establishing a common purpose among employees.

“Hire Like a Boss” is a guide to startup company recruiting and hiring. As a founder, knowing how to pick and choose top-performing talent for your most critical teams is what’ll make your business successful in the long run. You have to know how to navigate the interviewing and hiring process and exactly what to look for in candidates. This book guides you through the process of recruiting new employees and interns, how to screen job applicants, how to manage employees effectively, and how to conduct employee and intern reviews.

“The Alliance” is a book that looks at the “loyalty pact” between employees and employers. Unfortunately, the employer-employee relationship is often broken, requiring certain interventions and tactics in order to get everyone on the right track. This guide will walk you through employment in the networked age, building trust, building alignment with employers and employees, implementing transformations with strategic conversations and systems of checkpoints, implementing network intelligence programs, corporate alumni networks, and how you can implement an alumni network into your own company.

“Scaling Up” is the perfect book for any new startup founder, as it walks you through a proven process for scaling up and growing your company. You’ll learn what tools you need to scale up, how you can scale up your leaders, teams, and managers, what you can do to scale up your business strategy, tactics for execution scaling, and finally, how to scale up your cash and profitability.

“Superbosses” is an excellent resource for startup founders who want to ensure that they are the best boss and managers they can be for their teams and employees. Sydney Finkelstein walks you through the different types of boss personality types, understanding people, motivating people, being uncompromisingly open with others, delegating, and networking for success. By the end of this book, you’ll know exactly how to become a “Superboss,” an exceptional leader that your team adores, including getting your team motivated to take on any task, no matter how difficult or at what scale. 

What’s your favorite hiring book for entrepreneurs? Let us know in the comments!