I met Lauren Friese a couple of years ago, when she was first starting TalentEgg. She’s just as passionate today – with 8 employees and growing – as she was then about helping students connect with the employers that suit them best. In her words: TalentEgg is anonline career resource for students and new grads.

TalentEgg.ca helps students launch meaningful careers, and helps employers attract and recruit top students. Here’s Lauren on CanadaAM.

I thought it might be interesting to ask Lauren our series of hiring questions, to get her perspective from both sides: as an entrepreneur and as someone who helps the best and brightest young talent find their professional footing.

1) What’s the best advice you’ve ever received regarding hiring employees? Why was it the best?

• The best advice I’ve ever gotten is very cliche: hire people who are smarter than you.
• For me at TalentEgg, I’ve slightly adjusted that advice to mean ‘hire people who complement your skills … AND are smarter than you in their area of responsibility’. In practice, this means that I tend to hire people who are do-ers, rather than idea-people.

2) When it comes to hiring a new employee, what is the best time/money-saving tip you know? Can you quantify your savings?

• Referrals! A players know A players.
• The biggest cost in our hiring cycle is the time it takes me to screen and qualify and interview candidates. Referrals help quite a bit. A system like ClearFit would accomplish something very similar I would imagine.

3) What’s your best advice for avoiding hiring mistakes in the hiring selection process? Why?

• Everyone says “Hire slow, fire fast”. I agree with ‘fire fast’.
• If someone isn’t working out, it’s not in your interest or their interest or the interest of your current team to keep that individual on board. However, the whole idea of hiring slowly seems flawed to me. At some point, every hiring decision is a risk, and a lot of time can be wasted putting candidates through a lengthy hiring process. So I would edit the saying: “Fire fast, hire as quickly as is reasonable.”

4) Where (from what source) do you tend to find your best small business job candidates? Why is it the best source for you?

• Our own site… and craigslist!

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