Executive Recruitment Coach Katherine Wiid writes:
As a recruitment and retention specialist, I am often brought in to support start-ups with their initial rapid-growth stage.
Some of the Challenges of Start-Up Recruiting I see are:
- Rushed recruitment. Start-ups often find themselves growing rapidly, with the need to quickly recruit new staff.And in doing so, the recruitment pages and job descriptions end up rushed and miss the mark with candidates! This can put off potential talent, making them feel underwhelmed, and as though they won’t be important.
- Founders find themselves thrown into leadership roles. During rapid growth, start-up founders and CEOs don’t have the time to stand back and look at themselves. There’s no time to evaluate how they make decisions, what their leadership style is or what they need their new employees to be like to complement them. Consequently, they end up writing job descriptions based on their own skills, experience and education - closing down a pool of potential talent who could be an excellent fit and just what the business needs.
- Overheads. Start-up companies are usually working on a tight budget, with funding yet to be secured or extremely limited. They often don’t know how long they will need certain skills for. So instead of committing to a full-time employee, they choose contractors or freelancers. The problem with this? Not only are contractors expensive, but they also hold all your intellectual property in their heads, and could walk into a competitor tomorrow! That could be a costly loss.
- Identifying who to hire permanently. Employees who will thrive in a start-up environment are unique. They enjoy the higher risk of a first to market environment. They thrive when work is fast-paced, requires out of the box thinking and problem solving. But will this first round of employees stay motivated as the start-up develops and matures? Identifying who will work well at what stage of the business is essential to start-up success.
Keeping ahead of the competition is key for start-ups. But with a short-term approach to recruitment, they risk losing out on their key asset – their people!
One start-up who successfully put recruitment first during their rapid growth stage, was Nymbly. We worked with the company’s Co-Founder and Director, Jerome Joaug during their pre-recruitment stage. Jerome knew that the key to continuing growth and success would be to build a solid, motivated team. We used the LAB Profile to look in-depth at who their ‘ideal candidate’ would be, and how the company could appeal to those people. Not only did this allow Jerome to rapidly identify and recruit the right employees, but also ensure they remained motivated and dedicated to their roles.
Read our Nymbly Case Study to find out how we help start-ups like Nymbly have a sustainable approach to recruiting. The key is to hire candidates who feel part of the team, and will keep their developing skills and knowledge within the company as it grows.