So you have set on your eyes on starting a new business. You have conducted market research to understand the scalability of business products, the target customers, getting a co-founder on board, presenting proposals to prospective investors, while designing the company’s overall blueprint. What remains is the need to recruit the right people with relevant skillsets to accentuate business plans on blueprint to reality.
Building a new business is never easy. Not only risky, launching startups require strong determination that will not be eroded through time. If you execute the business plan with right start, it will have a major impact for the business’ opportunity to grow. However, if you take wrong early steps, it could damage the brand instead.
Recruiting new hires for startups can become very challenging – from talent sourcing, candidate background screening, interviewing, and finally making the final deal. So what are the dos and don’ts for recruitment for startups?
Dos
Some founders do not even understand what skills and characters that they are looking for in a candidate, this greatly affects their judgment during the hiring process. Therefore, state clearly and exactly of everything you need and what you do not need from a new hire.
Before announcing job opening, define skills and expertise needed by the company to achieve the desired results. Not only hiring the right talent, this could also involve speeding up the recruitment process such that no time is wasted.
At the start of the business, startups might not be financially promising for anyone involved in it. You need to emphasise this notion to every candidate during the interview to see how far their determination and willingness are.
Observe their passion and interest in the developing startups, whether they have the same value and vision for the company or not. Without strong passion, usually people tend to become more volatile and eventually choose to leave half way.
Some say that hiring the first time for new startups is almost like sales. Since the business is relatively new, not many people even know and hear about it. Hence, it is important to create a buzz to attract the attention of potential talents towards the startup.
The founder’s broad network and good reputation could help build employer’s brand to draw people’s attention to the company. Take advantage of the hiring process as a medium to introduce the business to broader audience and develop a global network.
Probation could be very useful to evaluate, if whether someone is a good fit for certain job role before they become permanent employees. Additionally, through probation you can assess if someone fits your company culture and value system, while they contribute to the overall company growth.
See: Best Onboarding Practices for Companies
Don’ts
Make the recruitment process as simple as possible. Do not bring your startup reputation down with complex bureaucracy, since it will scare away the applicants. To keep everything short and efficient, you must own foresight into the screening process such that only potential candidates are invited to the interview round.
Just because you want your new startup up and running smoothly does not mean, you have to rush in selection of candidates without proper analysis of their background in detail. While you need to keep it effective, take your time to examine more deeply about a candidate before you hand them the acceptance letter.
Why should you limit the scope of your workers? In this increasingly global world, the best talents for the job are sometimes miles away in a whole new region. While recruiting people online might sound like a risky bet, there is nothing wrong to trust your intuition and go with it. As long as you can arrange and work through it, remote workers can make for a killer team that can develop business quickly.
If you have not found someone whom you can work with, then do not give up easily. Sometimes, it needs time and efforts to find the right people for a job role. ‘Always be hiring’ should be your next recruitment strategy for startups. Leave the hiring tap running, because you never know who will turn up to stay and grow with the company for long.
Read also: Top 10 Tips for Creating an Autism Friendly Workplace Culture
