Finding, recruiting, and hiring new employees is a crucial part of a startup’s early growth. Your first new hires will play a critical role in shaping your company’s future. Thus, it’s important to be intentional about finding the best employees for your startup.
Hiring great employees is hard for any business. For startups, it’s often even more challenging. Startups don’t usually have the hiring resources of big-name companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. For these big-name companies, the best candidates are lining up to submit their applications.
Startups, on the other hand, have to actively find and recruit many of their potential hires. Hiring a highly-qualified candidate to choose your startup over all their other options can be difficult.
That is why we created this guide for startups looking to hire new employees. Below, you will find strategies to make your startup stand out to potential candidates and 10 quick tips on how to recruit talent for a startup.
Sell your company’s mission with a clear vision
In the early stages, your startup may not have an elite reputation or the financial resources to outbid industry leaders. But, what you are lacking in these areas, can be made up for in other ways.
A clear company vision that gets prospective employees excited is crucial. Share your vision for the company in a way that paints a picture of the future. Start by summarizing what your company stands for with a mission statement and by establishing core values. These defining aspects of your company should inspire the applicant to want to bring your vision to life.
Build your company culture
Once potential employees have engaged with your vision, it is time to sell them on the culture of working for your startup. This is your opportunity to tell potential employees what makes working at your company unique. Introduce them to your current team members and highlight the best things about working at your company.
Early-stage startups often have a small-team dynamic, so adding another person to the team can have a big impact. Look for people who will fit in with your existing team, while also providing the skills and experience needed for the position.
The most qualified candidate in the wrong company culture can cause problems for everyone. Yet, a good applicant in the right environment can elevate to another level, adding even more value to the company.
Explain your business plan and company goals
Values, vision, and culture aren’t enough to get the best employees to join your team. You also need to prove that there is a real opportunity for your startup to be successful. Be transparent with your potential hires. Be honest about your company’s current position. Be clear about your plan of action to get the company to where you want to be in the future.
While you may not be profitable yet, it is important to display the areas where your startup is making progress. Show them your market research, walk them through your projections, and present your business growth plans. This can convince high-quality candidates that your startup has the potential to grow into something bigger.
Recruit new employees with unique incentives
Your startup is not bound by red tape and legacy “that’s-how-it-has-always-been-done” systems. You have the power to shape the employment experience at your company with new employment benefits. By offering unique incentives you can attract and hire the best talent.
Provide opportunities for ownership or equity
As a startup, you are rarely in a position to offer a newly hired employee a big salary with a flashy signing bonus. But, you do have another financial incentive that can be used to balance the scale.
By offering a new employee equity, or partial ownership, you are adding a different type of financial compensation to the equation. Equity incentivizes employees with a chance for a big financial return when the company becomes successful.
Remote work and time-off policies
Maximizing earning potential is not always the top priority for a job seeker. Today, more people are seeking employment opportunities that make it possible to have a good work-life balance. If a candidate has many offers you can offer incentives. For example, gym memberships, entertainment, flexible vacation, and time-off policies, and team-bonding experiences.
Startups have started to break the mold of the traditional workday. Many startup employees are no longer expected to sit in a cubicle from 9-5 every day. If your business doesn’t require employees to be in a specific location, then you may be able to offer employees the flexibility for remote work.
Remote working is a no-cost perk that lets the employee work from home, or anywhere. Plus, remote work can make hiring for startups easier. It widens your pool of candidates to help you find top talent. Hiring remote employees opens the doors to some of the best people in the world, not just the people living in your area.
These are some of the unique incentives and selling points that your startup can use to hire the best employees.
Excite top talent with engaging work
When recruiting a new startup employee, it is your responsibility to sell them on the type of work they will be doing. Highly talented people aren’t going to simply fall into your lap in this competitive job market. If you want to hire the best people for your startup you will have to attract them with engaging and interesting work. Startups are a challenging environment that offers a variety of exciting opportunities for the right hire.
Encourage wearing many hats
The small-team dynamic of startups often requires employees to wear many hats and to fill a variety of business roles. Sometimes that means an employee will need to lend an extra hand in areas of the business that aren’t their specialty. This presents a great opportunity for startup employees to learn about the different areas of business through first-hand experiences.
You can touch on the variety of roles and experiences in your startup during the recruiting or interview process. This also allows you to gauge the potential new employee’s comfort level with the challenges of a startup job. Are they immediately overwhelmed by the variability in job requirements? Or do they get excited by the challenge?
If they are excited, it creates an opening for you to highlight this valuable opportunity for professional growth.
Empower your team with project ownership
The early hires at startup companies can be responsible for projects that directly impact the business. In contrast, that level of influence is typically reserved for executives and the C-suite at larger companies.
When recruiting candidates, be sure to let them know if you intend for a position to have full control over a project. The opportunity to take ownership of a specific project or business area can attract interest from top talent. Startups can empower employees by giving them ownership and control over their projects.
10 Quick tips on how to recruit talent for a startup
- Be proactive: the best candidate may not be looking for a new job—you may need to find this passive candidate and recruit them to join your team.
- Write a detailed job description that lays out how the role contributes to the bigger picture and identifies the responsibilities/skills needed for the position.
- If you can’t afford a full-time employee, consider engaging an independent professional to fill your immediate needs.
- Use your network: Ask friends and acquaintances for referrals to find great hires.
- Go to tradeshows, conferences, job fairs, and events that ideal candidates will be attending.
- Talk to a recruiting agency, headhunter, or enterprise staffing solution.
- Be active online: Post about your startup’s hiring needs and employment opportunities on social media, employment/job posting websites, and more.
- Have a detailed career page on your website that provides information about your company. Tell prospective applicants how to apply and who to contact.
- Take interviews seriously—this is an opportunity to evaluate an applicant’s fit for the position and for you to sell great talent on why they should work for your startup.
- Follow up. Stay in touch with great candidates. The right people may not be available at the moment, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be an opportunity for them to help in the future.
