Recruiting for a startup is one of the first and most rewarding hurdles to overcome in a new business, whether in tech or fabrication. To propel your dreams that may have been developing in your entrepreneurial mind for years, you need some help. But the job market is troubled and quality talent is hard to find.
Fortunately, there are tech tools and strategies to optimize your hiring process, no matter the size of your enterprise. Startups can enjoy time and money saved by researching – before hiring new talent – ways to make your startup hiring process streamlined, fair, and effective.
1. Create a Wishlist
One of the most efficient ways to sift through copious amounts of candidate information is to create filters from a wishlist. Using technology can automatically eliminate any candidates who do not fit certain criteria.
Each person hired costs $4,700 on average, so being strict with your company’s values and desires will help mitigate those costs. These wishlists don’t have to be just hard skills, either, like having a certain academic degree. They could also represent company culture, such as individuals who have added specific skills to online applications, such as problem-solving and team-building.
2. Solidify Your Brand Identity
Even if you do not yet have a graphic designer or creative team, there are free online tools to help build a brand identity. You can choose fonts, colors, and iconography that speak to your brand’s mission. You will also want to consider brand voice because social media can be a profitable and organic way to publicize your job openings. The style you post in could entice professionals to research further.
Free graphic design tools like Canva, GIMP, and Photopea – and countless free brand identity brainstorming templates – can jumpstart any branding campaign until you hire more qualified staff. Professionalism will go a long way in helping candidates be tempted to apply, especially if they know you’re investing time in creating a company that will thrive for the long term.
3. Make Specific Job Descriptions
Vague requirements in job descriptions are attractive to employers since it requires less effort to be specific. To applicants, it could reveal the employer hasn’t given the position enough consideration. Therefore, the responsibilities of entrants could be muddled. Non-specific descriptions can lead to a surplus of applications that could become impossible to manage.
Job candidates want transparency in job descriptions, such as specific job titles, salaries, and explicitly mentioning company benefits. This means putting exact starting salary information instead of a range.
Especially with startups that don’t have household name recognition, it helps create credibility with employers to load descriptions with information. Startups have inconsistent reputations, and this provides applicants with the sense that they shouldn’t fear submitting because they know the company is stable.
4. Get Immediate Face-to-Face Contact
The pandemic forced the adoption of higher-quality video conferencing tech for video interviews and allowed professionals to network digitally, unlike in previous years.
Startups can use platforms like Facebook and MeetUp to find local career events for meeting candidates in person without wasting time scheduling and sifting through applications. Embrace the value of going to in-person hiring events, as it helps employers get genuine first impressions that a written online interview may not reveal.
It also helps put text to faces. Most applications are screen-focused, and job-seekers have unique personalities and concerns that aren’t reflected in an automated application.
5. Implement Smart Screening Software
Automate processes that aren’t worth your time. You’ll save hours by leaving various responsibilities to different software. Many career platforms like Indeed and LinkedIn use applicant-tracking software (ATS) to expedite processes like:
- Creating a talent pipeline
- Optimizing application flow
- Gathering applicant intelligence
- Sending automated communications
- Advertising positions
- Requesting paperwork and tasks
AI is even helping refugees obtain jobs because it can analyze the gaps between languages. It allows everyone worldwide – especially as remote jobs become more commonplace – to communicate easily while providing equal opportunities worldwide.
6. Highlight What Professionals Want
Job seekers are looking for more than just salaries from workplaces nowadays. They look for flexible schedules, work-life balance, ongoing learning opportunities, and definite career advancement. The Great Resignation proves that new and seasoned professionals are realizing employers should have greater respect for their workers.
You can decrease turnover and simplify startup hiring by being as honest as possible so professionals with specific and high standards know what they’re signing up for when they apply. This involves creating an employee value proposition (EVP) or a portfolio of what comes along with their job offer.
Avoid candidate rejections after weeks of wasted time when they find the salary or remote work opportunities aren’t what they expected.
7. Don’t Ignore Onboarding
The hiring process isn’t just about the interviews – plenty of hiring aspects come after you send the offer letter and before your new hire takes on their first assignment. There’s tax information, procedures, and vacation protocols, among all the other rules about your startup, to brief new hires on. This part of the process is easily streamlined with the help of technological aids.
Ignore lengthy background checks and printing out paperwork for drug screenings. Create a robust learning management system (LMS) that houses videos, informational paperwork, processes, and first-day expectations without even setting up a formal meeting.
Smooth Out Your Startup Hiring Process
Startups lack the financial support to engage in lengthy hiring processes and excessive interviews that yield no entrants. Recruitment for startups is highly competitive, as young professionals see the potential in areas like Silicon Valley and sometimes put startups on a pedestal, believing they lead to quick career development.
Startup recruiters are responsible for creating enticing but also realistic expectations, and to provide young professionals with a seamless and transparent hiring process that briefs them on their responsibilities and benefits. Despite the financial and time investment needed to find the perfect candidates, the benefits will become apparent when profits soar in the coming years.
Emily Newton is the Editor-in-Chief of Revolutionized, an online magazine showing how technology is disrupting many industries.
