You’re Not Bad at Hiring. You’re the Bottleneck.
"Help, I'm stuck interviewing candidates for my friends' startups."
I saw this plea on Reddit yesterday. A software engineer has been doing a favor for his founder friends—acting as their unofficial "CTO-by-proxy" and vetting candidates because the founders don't have the technical skills to do it themselves.
The startup is now scaling. Candidate volume has tripled. The friend is drowning in calendar invites and can no longer keep up because of their own life.
He asked the brave users of Reddit: "Do you have a secret sauce to make this less time-consuming?"
My answer? You're trying to solve their operational problem with your manual labor
If the company’s hiring engine relies on a favor from a BFF, they don't have a hiring process. They have a bottleneck. This is a classic "Seed-to-Scale" friction point.
This is exactly I told the drowning Redditor:
1. Operationalize the "Vibe Check"
Right now, they're probably sending you everyone who looks decent on paper. You're wasting time on people they might reject later for "bad vibes." The Fix: Tell them to run the first round. Build them a simple rubric to score for "ownership," "communication," and "problem-solving." The Rule: "Don't send me anyone who hasn't passed your culture screen first."
2. Stop Interviewing, Start Filtering
You said dealing with applications is time-consuming. That’s because you're likely letting them send you raw resumes. The Fix: Tell your friends you will only interview candidates who pass a code test first. Have them set up a simple take-home challenge or use a platform like HackerRank. If the candidate doesn't pass the automated test, they don't get your time. Period.
3. You're the "Final Boss" (Not the First Line)
Vibes have been checked and resumes have been filtered. Now you only have to interview the top candidates who remain in the pipeline. Use your specific expertise to verify the "Founding Engineer" traits that the founders can't assess. Your job is to stamp "Approved," not to filter through the noise.
The Bottom Line:
Hiring isn't just about finding people. It's an operational workflow. If the workflow breaks because your friend goes on vacation, you aren't ready to scale.
Build the system, not the bottleneck.