Recruiting the right employee for your organization is a challenging task at all times for organizations. These challenges grow tenfold if you are recruiting for a startup. Let’s take a look at some of the common recruitment challenges faced by them.
The Brand
We should keep in mind that most candidates make employment decisions based on three things
1)Salary
2)Designation/Position
3)Employer Brand
In our experience, if two of these three aspects are strong, then the third aspect can usually be negotiated with. In the case of a startup, typically the Employer Brand proposition is not a strong draw for candidates, and this is one of the biggest challenges a startup faces in the recruitment market. Most savvy startup employers will focus on the Employer Value Proposition over the Brand Proposition.
Priorities
Everyone in a start-up is wearing multiple hats, and trying to get a lot done within a finite timeframe. In such a scenario, it is imperative to prioritize recruitment goals. It is important to understand business drivers to analyze your recruitment approach. In many cases, starting with Business Leaders is a robust plan. It also helps to get Human Resources on board at the earliest to help with all the tasks that accompany rapid scale-up and the documentation deluge that is typical of startups.
Personality Types
We cannot stress on this point enough – no matter how good a candidate looks on paper, everyone is NOT suited to a startup environment. What seems like excitement, and a fast paced journey of discovery to one person, can seem like a chaotic nightmare to another. It is imperative that we screen candidates for their affinity towards the startup environment.
Compensation
Salary is a very important consideration for all candidates when they consider a career move, and it is imperative for a startup to invest in the right employees. At the same time a startup has limited funding and needs to keep an eye on spends. This very basic dichotomy has to be addressed decisively by all startups. Most startups deflect the salary spotlight to employee stock options - a very robust move, thereby engaging employees by linking future profitability to present perseverance and inputs. However, startups need to be absolutely clear about stock options and tangibly explain the specifics to candidates to attract them. The right mix of salary, benefits and stock options is needed to attract and retain the right candidates, and this mix will likely vary from person to person, so startups need to be flexible and savvy in their approach to salaries.
So, while we can definitely agree that recruiting for a startup is challenging, with the right mindset, approach and people, the journey can be as rewarding as the goal. To know more how we can help you with recruiting the right candidates for your startup, please mail us at [email protected] or call at +84903258508.