Hiring for a new venture is like hiring for a startup. The team is small and the future uncertain. Every team member needs to wear multiple hats. Given this, here is my take on traits to look for in a new hire (almost irrespective of the role).

1. They show progression.

“Progression” is more than just a string of promotions. I think of it as:

• Stepping outside of one’s comfort zone
• Being entrusted by others with greater responsibility

Someone who has repeatedly taken on scary challenges has the emotional and learning ability to handle the surprises of new venture life. They aren’t just running on their “expertise”. Their CV probably shows changes in roles, industries or perhaps even career.

However, they might be hopping for the wrong reasons. This is why they should also show signs of greater responsibility. Someone they worked with trusted them to do more. “Greater responsibility” is context-specific, but some examples are taking on more people or being assigned the more difficult challenges. This may be evident from the CV, but probably only becomes really clear in an interview.

2. They have done excellent work in the past.

I’ve studied different languages over the years, having bounced around Europe a lot. But I have one major problem: I ramp up quickly and then stall. A multilingual friend pointed out that with languages, once you master one, mastery of another is easier. The skills of mastery are somewhat transferable.

Doing excellent work is like learning a language. Do it once and it’s easier to do it again.

Just to be clear, excellent work doesn’t have to be a deliverable like a design, piece of code, or document. It might be a skill, such as sales or leadership.

How to find out about their excellent work? Ask them. I sometimes ask people about work that they are most proud of. However, having recently read this great blog post, I think a better variant is “I’m interested in learning more about how you get stuff done. Can you tell me about the best project or piece of work you’ve ever done?”.

In their storytelling, there are three things to listen for:

• They have the ability to judge their own work. While external feedback is valuable, an inner voice is essential. A designer should have a sense of whether his solution is clunky or elegant. A brand marketer should have a feeling for whether the creative will be memorable or is bland. Probe on this one. How did they know it was going well/badly? What sort of details told them so?
• They have figured out how to improve it. Nothing starts off as excellent. When they realized something was not up to standard, how did they overcome obstacles and fix it?
• They have passion. This is the juice that fuels the above points.

3. They can explain complex things to a six year old.

Niklas Sundbaum, a fantastic CTO I’ve worked with in Sweden, taught me one of my favourite lessons in hiring: they should be able to explain complicated things to a non-expert. (Denzel Washington’s character also teaches a similar lesson in Philadelphia.)

Although every field has complexity, the core concepts can be sketched on a sheet of paper. Explaining something simply from their domain is actually a sign of solid understanding.

If you’re hearing jargon and buzzwords – and they can’t clarify it – take it as a red flag. They won’t know what’s really driving their part of the business. And they definitely won’t know how to relate to yours.

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So there it is: my favourite tips for hiring. Whether you use them or not, remember that the world of new ventures will throw a lot of curveballs. Just make sure the people you hire to stand with you can catch a few along the way.