Why startup job ads attract the wrong people

Founders describe the company they hope to build. New hires meet the one that exists.

The most famous job ad in history was probably never published.

“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

Legend says Ernest Shackleton recruited for his 1914 Antarctic expedition with an advert promising low wages, bitter cold, months of darkness and a doubtful return. Historians have searched newspaper archives without finding convincing evidence that it ever ran. Shackleton did write that almost 5,000 people applied after he announced the expedition, but the famous wording may be the best recruitment copy nobody actually wrote.

Startup founders love it anyway.

It turns low pay, long hours and uncertainty into a test of character. Put the word mission around a difficult employment deal and suddenly the missing processes feel heroic.

The useful lesson is not to sell the suffering. It is to tell the truth.

Most startup job ads are fan fiction. Not malicious fiction, but something more dangerous. Aspirational fiction. Founders describe the company they are hoping to build, not the one they are running today. The ad promises clear ownership, fast decisions and meaningful autonomy. The new hire arrives and finds priorities changing after every customer call, three people owning the same decision and a founder who considers delegation an interesting theory.

The mismatch attracts people to the imagined company. Then, when they struggle inside the real one, the company decides they could not handle startup life.

Sometimes that is true.

Sometimes they accepted a different job.

A good job ad should explain the trade before asking someone to make it. Say that priorities will change. Say that the person will have to build processes while delivering the work. Say where the founder remains involved, which decisions the hire can make and what support does not yet exist.

But honesty has to work in both directions.

When you describe the pressure, explain why it is worth taking. What authority comes with the responsibility? What will the person learn? Who will coach them? What resources are committed? What does success look like after 90 days?

When the salary is below market, say so. Explain the equity in numbers rather than adjectives. Meaningful equity has funded many imaginary retirements.

Expect chaos is an unfinished sentence.

There is a more credible Shackleton lesson. The expedition physicist Reginald James later recalled being asked about his teeth, varicose veins and whether he could sing. Shackleton was choosing people who might have to live together under extreme pressure, so technical ability was only part of the job.

You should not copy his interview questions unless your startup has taken an unexpected turn towards polar exploration. But you should hire for the conditions people will actually face.

Ask candidates about a time the brief changed halfway through. Ask what they did when a senior leader rejected work they believed was right. Ask how they created structure when none existed. Then tell them how often those situations happen in your company.

An interview should allow both sides to assess the same reality.

This is where brutal honesty often goes wrong. Some founders use it as edgy branding for poor management. They boast about weekend work, low salaries and impossible targets as if exhaustion proves ambition.

Hardship is not the product.

Working late once because a customer system failed is part of responsibility. Working late every week because nobody can prioritise is a management problem. When production failures happen often enough to feature in the job ad, perhaps the next hire should be an infrastructure engineer.

The aim is not to attract people who enjoy suffering. It is to attract people who understand the constraints, believe the opportunity justifies them and have the experience to operate well inside them.

Tell candidates what is broken. Tell them what they will own. Tell them what the company can offer now, rather than what might exist after the next funding round. A smaller number of informed applicants is better than hundreds of people responding to a company that lives only in the founder’s head.

See you out there.

Martin