Internal Promotion Criteria

What does it take to land a role at one of the companies on this year’s LinkedIn Top Startups list? According to CEOs and co-founders, it comes down to a mix of skills, motivation and cultural fit. 🛠️ Expertise Candidates need best-in-class skills and sound judgement, says Varun Bhanot, co-founder and CEO of MAGIC AI, a startup that develops intelligent holographic mirrors for home fitness. “We hire for a combination of capability, character and culture fit aligned to our purpose,” he says. “The best people raise the bar for the group, not just their function. We hire adults who take ownership, move fast, care deeply about members, and make others more effective.” Ben Freeman, co-founder and CEO of Omnea, says the company interviewed more than 10,000 people for its first 50 roles and has kept the bar high. “We are looking for ‘top percentile’ performers,” he says. “Our org structure is very flat so high-agency people can move fast and own outcomes.” 🧠 Growth mindset Subject-matter expertise, however, isn’t the only key to success – a learning-driven approach and entrepreneurial spirit can matter even more. “What matters is curiosity, care and a drive to do better every day,” says Greg Freeman, founder and CEO of Data Literacy Academy. “If you bring the right mindset, we’ll teach you the skills. What we can’t teach is the spark: that mix of passion, curiosity and responsibility that drives our culture forward.” Ben Peters, co-founder and CEO of Cogna, reinforces the importance of a growth mindset. “Whatever the role, technical and functional excellence is non-negotiable but what sets our new hires apart is their growth mindset – the drive to learn fast, think deeply, and solve what matters,” he says. 🤝 Values alignment AI and robotics company Humanoid focuses primarily on cultural fit. “That alignment between values and vision is at the core of what we’re looking for,” says CEO and founder Artem Sokolov. But he also talks about the importance of having a diverse team. “Our team is truly international, people come from diverse backgrounds and many different countries. This approach gives us an immediate advantage: diversity of thinking, inspiration and talent, which directly shape the culture and knowledge behind what we’re building.” Olly Sloboda, co-founder and CEO of Zero100, emphasises how critical it is for candidates to align with the company’s guiding principles, a set of behaviours that define its culture and quality standards. “It’s a very practical way of ensuring that anyone we bring in will be a great fit,” he says. “I'd summarise the essence of a Zwunder (a Zero100 employee) as someone who’s hungry, humble and curious, with incredibly high standards.” Think you have what it takes? Check out this year’s UK Top Startups list and explore open roles at these companies: https://lnkd.in/g84NGuRD ✍️ Edson Caldas

218 CVs in a day. 120 interviews in a week. And in the end… I select maybe 2 or 3 people. …why so few? It’s not that the rest aren’t capable — many are smart, well-spoken, even experienced. But hiring isn’t just about skills on paper. It’s about fit. Over time, I’ve started noticing patterns. — Too many job hops (especially in the mid-years) often show a lack of commitment. — When I ask about KPIs, they start describing KRAs. — When I ask about results or targets, they change the topic. — Case scenarios? I get diplomatic answers — afraid to be real. — Simple questions turn into long, stretched explanations. — And often, they talk a lot about the work done, but not the impact created. The people who’ve truly done the work never have to prove it. Their calm confidence says it all. Because when you’ve been through the grind — your results speak louder than your words. With my years experience, I’ve also learned : Hiring someone who isn’t culturally aligned with your organisation can be disastrous. At Cambridge Court Group of Schools -one of our strongest core values that we preach every day is:  “Nothing at the cost of culture.” You might be incredibly result-oriented, but if you don’t align with the culture — it just doesn’t work. And the reverse is also true — being a great cultural fit but not delivering results can only go on for so long before credibility fades. Here’s a truth I’ve come to believe: Everyone — including me (Executive Director)— is replaceable. Titles don’t make us irreplaceable. Value and alignment do. So when I hire, I look for that rare balance — someone who fits our culture, walks the talk, and lets their work speak for them. Because at the end of the day — skills can be taught, but culture… that’s built deep within. #Leadership #Hiring #WorkCulture #TeamBuilding #CambridgeCourtGroup

"We've decided to go with someone who's a better cultural fit." That's what they told Mike. IT Director. Manchester. He'd just done FIVE rounds of interviews. Technical test. Panel interview. Meet the team. Presentation to the board. Final chat with the CEO. Five. Rounds. They loved him at every stage. "Your experience is exactly what we need." "The team really connected with you." Then silence for two weeks. Then that email. "Cultural fit" means one thing when you're over 50: You're too old. They just can't say it. The worst part? The job's back online. Three months later. Same role. Here's what "cultural fit" actually meant: The team was mostly under 35. Ping pong table. Friday drinks at 4pm. Mike has teenage kids to pick up from football practice. He wasn't staying till 7pm "for the vibe." So he didn't "fit." Not because he couldn't do the job. Because he had a life outside work. The recruiter told him (off the record): "They thought he seemed... tired. Like he wouldn't bring energy." Mike had run IT infrastructure for a £200M business. He'd managed teams through three major system migrations. But he didn't high-five people in the office, so he was "low energy." This is what we're up against. Not "can you do the job?" Can you pretend you're 28? Can you be excited about pizza Fridays? Can you act like this job is your whole personality? And if you can't, you're "not a culture fit." Mike called me three weeks after that rejection. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. You're not doing anything wrong. You're just playing a game nobody explained the rules to. Here's what changed: We stopped applying to startups with "dynamic, fast-paced culture!" in the job description. Translation: They want unpaid overtime. We targeted companies who valued experience. The ones sick of expensive mistakes because no one's done it before. I rewrote his CV so it didn't scream "I've been around forever." It screamed "I've solved this exact problem and I can do it again." And I gave him the script for "culture" questions. Not: "Oh, I'm very adaptable! I love team activities!" But: "I'm here to deliver results, not play ping pong. If you want someone strategic who makes you money, I'm your person. If you want someone for pub quiz night, hire a graduate." Mike got hired six weeks later. Fintech company. Leeds. They specifically wanted someone who'd "seen it all before." £95k. Fully remote. No ping pong table in sight. But here's what keeps me up at night: For every Mike I help, there are fifty others still stuck. Still getting five rounds deep just to be rejected for invisible reasons. Still thinking it's them. It's not you. If you're ready to stop guessing what's going wrong in your job search, here are all the ways we can work together: https://lnkd.in/gPTwK2W2 Let's get you hired by people who actually value what you bring. Tag someone who needs to see this. #queenofcareers #ageism #over50 #jobsearch

Mentoring and coaching are not the same thing. Most founders use the words interchangeably... And end up getting less from both. I did not know the difference until I spent 10 days training and qualifying as a business coach at INSEAD in 2023. Here is what I learned: ✅ Mentoring uses experience and shares learning. A mentor has been where you are. They have made mistakes, built the business, and lived through the consequences. When you bring them a problem, they draw on all of that to tell you what they would do and why. My first mentor was Nigel Morris, the co-founder of Capital One. Three hours in his office changed the direction of HomeServe in America. ✅ Coaching facilitates thinking, exploring options and decision-making. A coach asks the questions that help you find them yourself. The best questions are often the simplest ones. - "Why do you think that?"  - "What are you trying to achieve?"  - "What choices do you have here?" Sometimes the most basic questions elicit the most powerful solutions. The problem is that coaching alone would never have been especially useful for the founders I work with. And mentoring without first understanding the real issue or opportunity can miss the point entirely. So I combined them into what I call Coachment. You start with coaching, asking the right questions to properly diagnose the problem or opportunity. Then you move into mentoring, applying real business experience to what you have just uncovered. Think of it like a medical check-up. The X-ray machine diagnoses the issue. (The coach) And the specialist consultant uses their experience to decide what to do about it. (The mentor) Together they are far more useful than either one alone. Most founders I meet have never had either. If you are serious about scaling, you need to find both. If you'd like more information on building and scaling your business, subscribe to How To Make a Billion. It's a free weekly newsletter with lessons and frameworks from over 40 years of entrepreneurship. Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ergDQtiK Comment below with your thoughts on seeking counsel.  If you have a coach or mentor who has helped your business scale, please tag them to show your appreciation. 

The hidden $4.3 million cost nobody's talking about? Letting your own people walk out the door while recruiting externally for the same skills. 🤦♀️ LinkedIn's Global Talent Trends shows that companies with high internal mobility have employees who stay nearly 2x as long as those with low internal mobility. Yet when I ask executives about their internal mobility programs, I get blank stares or vague references to an outdated job board. The math isn't complicated: • External candidate: $4K+ to recruit, 44 days to fill, months to ramp up • Internal candidate: Already trained, cultural fit proven, ready to contribute day one So why are we making it so hard for people to move within our organizations? I recently spoke with a tech leader who was shocked to discover 40% of the roles he was desperately trying to fill externally matched the career aspirations of employees who were already leaving. They were literally recruiting for skills they were simultaneously losing. This is madness. The companies winning the talent war aren't just posting jobs internally. They're fundamentally redesigning how work moves through their organization. They're asking better questions ↳ "What if we looked at skills, not just job titles?" ↳ "What if we made internal moves as easy as applying externally?" ↳ "What if managers were rewarded for developing people, not hoarding them?" Good talent is already inside your company. You're just making it impossible for them to find their next opportunity with you. When employees can't grow with you, they'll grow without you. #InternalMobility #TalentRetention #FutureOfWork #SkillsStrategy

The day I “retained” Anuj… and still lost him Exit interview. Anuj—one of our top performers—sat across from me. “No special raise,” he said. “Just a role where I can stretch, learn, and help the company grow. I’m okay with putting in extra hours.” We shook hands. Deal done. I asked him to email me and his VP to withdraw his resignation. He did. I thanked him. Two months later, the growth role opened. “Ready to take it next month,” Anuj smiled. “Great. Align your release date with your manager,” I said. The next day, a very different Anuj walked in—upset. “My manager says I can’t be released for three months. I’ll miss the opportunity.” I tried to convince the manager too; however, he seemed to be in a revenge mode due to his earlier resignation. No luck. Anuj felt I had broken my word—even though the intent was real. The next morning, his resignation hit my inbox again. One line stung: “You’ll release me in 30 days for an external opportunity, but you need 90 days for an internal one.” We didn’t lose Anuj to the market. We lost him to our manager's ego, which gets support from our systems & policies. What I changed after that: Internal moves must follow the same (or shorter) notice as external exits. Managers are measured not only on retention but also on how many people they launch. Successors are planned early so one move doesn’t break a team. Internal opportunities have a clear start date and release SLA. 👇 Lesson: Don’t punish high performers for being valuable. If we block their growth inside, we push them to grow outside. #HR #Leadership #InternalMobility #Retention #CareerGrowth #PeopleFirst #Trust #Jobs

Stop defining "fit" as job candidates you’d grab a beer with. That’s not culture fit. That’s comfort fit. And it’s how teams end up full of people who think the same, act the same, and stall innovation. Real culture fit isn’t about “vibes.” It’s about values and versatility. → Do they align with your mission? → What can they bring to our team? Don’t hire for familiarity. Hire for contribution. The best teams aren’t made of clones. They’re made of contributors.

Training. Coaching. Mentoring. Counselling. Most people use them interchangeably. But they’re fundamentally different — and confusing them can hurt growth. Here’s how I explain it (and how it shows up in consulting): 🔧 Training – Teaching the basics. When I joined consulting, training was learning how to structure slides, analyze data, build models. It’s structured, repeatable, and often classroom-style. A trainer gives you the tools to begin. 🎯 Coaching – Stretching performance. A partner once told me: “You can push this insight further. Go beyond what you think is feasible.” That was coaching, unlocking capability I didn’t know I had. 🧭 Mentoring – Sharing experience. I still remember a senior partner sharing how they navigated a tough client situation, not telling me what to do, but giving me patterns to learn from. A mentor shows you what you don’t yet see. 🪞 Counselling – Guiding behavior & judgment. This happens when someone sits you down and helps you reflect: “What’s really driving your choices? How do you want to show up as a leader?” A counselor helps you understand why you do it. Each has its place. Each works differently. And great leaders know when to use which. In consulting (and leadership), you can’t just train your teams. You need to coach them to stretch, mentor them to grow, and counsel them when they need perspective. Your team doesn’t just need answers, they need enablers. #Leadership #Mindset #Coaching #Mentoring ------------------- I write regularly on People | Leadership | Transformation | Sustainability. Follow Surya Sharma.

Why Your "Culture Fit" Is Costing You the Best Hires Had coffee with a hiring manager last week who just lost a candidate. My candidate, actually. "I don't get it," he said. "She seemed excited during the interview. The team loved her. Then she picks someone else's offer." I knew exactly why. She'd told me the day before. "They're all nice people," she said. "But they're basically the same person copied five times. Same schools, same backgrounds, same way of talking. It felt... off." She wasn't looking for different personalities. She was looking for different thinking. The team had great energy. They finished each other's sentences. Laughed at the same jokes. Moved in sync during the office tour. That's what scared her. "If everyone already agrees on everything," she asked me, "who's going to spot the problems?" She took an offer from a messier team. People who debated in meetings. Disagreed on approaches. Came from wildly different backgrounds. That felt safer to her than perfect harmony. Here's what I see happening with "culture fit": You mistake comfort for capability. That candidate who reminds you of your best performer? Who went to the same university? Feels like a sure thing. But you're hiring familiarity, not talent. You screen out people who think differently. The candidate who questions your process in the interview? Who doesn't nod along with everything? That's not poor culture fit. That's someone with independent judgment. You build echo chambers. Then act surprised when nobody saw the market shift coming. When the product launch misses the mark. When the crisis catches everyone flat-footed. Smart candidates notice this now. They're asking about team diversity in interviews. Not just the obvious kind—they want to know if people actually disagree with each other. Here's what you should actually be hiring for: Values alignment, not personality cloning. Does this person share your core principles? Integrity, customer focus, accountability. That's your foundation. Complementary skills. What does this person bring that your team lacks? Hire for gaps, not mirrors. Productive friction. Someone who'll push back. Question assumptions. Spot blind spots. That's not a culture problem—that's a culture upgrade. The hiring managers who get this? They stopped asking "Will they fit in?" and started asking "Will they make us better?" Different perspectives. Different experiences. Different ways of solving problems. That's not a risk. That's how you build teams that actually perform when it matters. My candidate didn't reject that job because the people were bad. She rejected it because they were too similar. And she's probably right. #Recruitment #HiringTips #TalentAcquisition

When low attrition is a red flag! High attrition is often seen as a problem. But low attrition with low internal mobility? That’s a slower, quieter risk - and it’s just as dangerous. Companies that grow talent only from within and rarely hire externally often face: 1. Talent stagnation, especially when attrition stays below ~5% for years 2. Mid-career exits, as employees seek growth they couldn’t find internally 3. A lack of fresh ideas, leading to missed opportunities and strategic inertia According to McKinsey, internal talent who don’t see movement - either vertically or laterally - are more likely to disengage or leave. Talent mobility isn’t just good for morale; it’s vital for organizational health. So what do successful companies do differently? They build systems that move people intentionally: 1. #Cross-functional roles that help employees become well-rounded leaders 2. #Geographic rotations that expose them to new markets and cultures 3. A 3–5 year internal #movement cycles, refreshing both teams and individuals Fresh thinking doesn’t always require fresh hiring. Sometimes, it’s about rethinking how you use the great people you already have. Low attrition with low movement is just slow attrition in disguise. #TalentMobility #LeadershipDevelopment #RetentionStrategy