Finding fantastic staff for a brand new startup isn’t always easy. You want employees who buy into your vision, offer excellent skills, and work with you to turn your business acorn into a mighty oak. The trick is recognizing that talent recruitment is just as challenging as fundraising; your business growth depends on it.
Set the world alight with an incredible pitch, and you’ll have inspired professionals flocking to your door. Get it wrong, and you can damage your prospects of making it big.
So, let’s show you the golden rules of how to hire the right employees for a startup business.
Treat Candidate Interviews as an Opportunity
As a startup, you can’t drive a hard bargain and assume that every interviewee will chuck in their current secure position on a whim to join your company. The recruitment process is as much about advertising what you can offer, as it is about offering an opportunity for skilled staff to get involved.
Keep it simple, and represent your brand in the best possible light:
- Be honest – share your ideas, aspirations, and limitations.
- Prioritize high-quality leads, call them back right away, and be flexible about the interview process.
- Make the hiring experience a personal one. Take the time to get to know the best candidates, and let them get to know you.
Remember, first impressions count.
If you come across a talented candidate, make them see how appreciated their skills would be on your team. Most employees care as much, if not more, about how their work is valued as they do about how well it’s paid.
Opt for Freelancers to Keep Your Budget Under Control
Launching a startup business takes guts, drive, and a willingness to put yourself out there. However, it doesn’t automatically come with a healthy recruitment budget from your angel investor. But don’t opt for low-quality hires or resign yourself to trying to wrestle progress from a new business without having a skilled team behind you. Your start-up deserves better than that.
Freelancers, contractors, and self-employed professionals are a step between getting your business off the ground and having the capacity to offer generous remuneration packages. Managing a remote team can be a challenge, but it’s vital to keep your hiring budget under firm control, and a freelancer can work part-time or on a project basis f to add value without being a long-term financial responsibility. Learn about how best to measure productivity in the workplace.
Quality Over Quantity—Always
If you find one employee who has been part of a startup before, snap them up, quick!
Experience counts, and a self-starter can:
- Get going immediately, without needing weeks of training.
- Operate efficiently without ongoing supervision.
- Learn quickly, and offer suggestions to level up your processes.
- Manage priorities, deadlines, and juggle responsibilities with ease.
Candidates with startup experience are way better equipped to adapt to the pace and energy of that environment than someone who has been working in the corporate landscape for the last decade. The right individual can make a profound difference to your growth, so they’re worth maybe two or three counterparts who can’t offer as much to your new business.
Create an Unforgettable Job Description
Here are a few of your startup recruitment options:
- Social media
- Word of mouth
- Networking
- Local media
- Recruitment agencies
It doesn’t matter which you choose; they all require a great job description.
You want an ad that grabs attention and gets the best candidates excited about the job. Standard templates, lists of duties, boring layouts—they’re mediocre.
You are not.
Applicants scan an ad and know within about five seconds whether they’re actually going to apply for a position. Use your job description to showcase the characteristics that form your unique selling proposition (USP). This is what makes your company different from your competitors. It’s what makes your business stand out, so you want employees who are enthusiastic about it.
Make your ad charming and synonymous with your company’s personality, and the ad will act like a portal showing a glimpse of what life would be like in the inner sanctum of your startup business. The chances are, you’re going to get applicants that match exactly what you’re looking for.
Guru makes it easy for employers to post a job online and find expert professionals for their startup businesses.
