How To Make Startup Hiring A Cakewalk Getting the right set of people for your newly incepted company is the most difficult task.
By Swati Sinha
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I have hired for Big Four Companies ,Telecom giants , Multi-National Companies but the most challenging and equally satisfying job has been hiring for startups. You can compare it to the adrenaline rush it brings to the job, some kind of restlessness to bring the best talent on board, need to do my job with perfection and most important to get perfect fitment profile. For a startup, the toughest thing is never to raise money, close the deal or doing sales , its RECRUITING the best talent. Getting the right set of people for your newly incepted company is the most difficult task.
I have formulated a 5 step regime which helps me connect with the best of talent .
1. Have a know-how of your requirements:
A startup involves a lot of work and the most ignored part is hiring. Generally, people don't realise the difference between funnel of potential candidates and actual Onboarding. The first rule is to have only such people in pipeline who can be a potential recruit. Proper filtration of the profile saves time of the candidate as well as a hiring manager. Allow only those people to come in, who match your requirements. It will save your energy and also anyone who is involved in hiring will have a clear picture of your expectations.
2. Inbound recruiting is the keyword
Good recruitment means to be available for all those people who CAN BE interested in the job. We have a misconception that only active job seekers look for your advertised jobs. But the fact is whole world is busy on google, they love to explore things when free, getting bored at work, sitting idle at home. You should have something interesting to offer them. Be on social media, blogs, and google, serve them with interesting topics, build a trust, maintain a good PR and be in a news for good reasons. Your most interested candidates will come through this channel, who are inquisitive about your company and product.
3. Let your potential hire see the forest while you are just a tree
A good recruitment strategy is to organise events, give talks at seminars, let people know your bigger vision, show them where you mean to reach and why you have started for the first reason. People should believe in you and your mission and it can happen only when you are present among them.
4. Be Creative while advertising the job
Job it resonates with a boring thing which most of the readers do from 9 to 5. As you have found a new product or innovated something, let's do some innovation in your work culture. Your work environment should have something really inviting, like a pet day, mostly quiz session, work vacations ( People travel to some good locations and enjoy time after work exploring the nature and unwinding), some kind of competitive games to evaluate the work and track work progress.
Company can also announce some perks of working with them. You can give some kind of independence and authority for decision making and exploring their creativity and innovation. Autonomy to chose their team and decide the work progress. These are few tangible things but when you are known for trusting your employees, employee will trust you in return. Yes, things may go wrong at times, but largely it brings good results.
5.Hire before raising funds
Do the major hiring before raising funds, it will help you get those people who are joining you for a reason and believe in your idea. After funding, hiring becomes easy but you may not be able to judge if a person is coming for easy money or some strong motivation.
It's true hiring for a startup is Herculean task, as you are explaining the motive and idea behind the startup to every person who are targeting. It's time-consuming finding the right talent who would fit in the culture and who would be ready to take up any upcoming challenging situation. The team is like a family in small set up and one wrong entry may effect the culture in wrong way. One has to be alert at every stage while deciding.