Technical Recruitment Advice for Scaling Start-ups

Posted on: 15th October 2020

IT Jobs and Recruitment Insights

You may have seed funding and are thinking of hiring your first few employees. Hiring can be challenging if you do not have someone well versed in recruitment best practices. If you are a  scaling start-up and thinking of building your team without a dedicated Human Resource (HR) team, we might have some useful tips for you.

Here are a few suggestions to consider before starting the recruitment process:

1. Identify the skills you’re looking to hire for: The person in charge of hiring must have an in-depth understanding of the role you are hiring for. This will make the rest of the recruitment process easier and faster. 

   A few of the questions to be discussed at this stage are :

   - Why are you hiring this skill? 

   - What are the roles and responsibilities 

   - What technical skills or experience are required to excel in this role 

   - What is the future roadmap for this role. 

   Spending a bit of time on a job specification and a person specification based on the above-mentioned questions would eliminate the screening of irrelevant candidates. Also, hiring candidates who can take multiple roles can be very cost-effective for scaling startups.

2. Plan the selection process:  Once you have identified the skills that you are looking for, the next step for you is to plan the interview process. Keeping the current pandemic in mind, relying on video and phone interviews in lieu of face-to-face interviewing would be ideal. It is always good to have the same interview panel throughout the process. Each interviewer must discuss amongst themselves before interviewing every candidate. Interviewers should also prepare on a checklist to sell their company and the role, such as:

    - How does the role ties into your organization's plans for the future?

    - Highlight the organization's culture.

    - Why would someone want to work for your company?

    - How does this position positively impact the organization?

   If you are conducting panel interviews, determine who will ask which question and in what order. A scaling startup with only a bunch of employees cannot not afford to spend more time to interview all the applicants. In such cases using online assessment tools like Hackerank, Devskiller, Codility, Coderbyte, or CoderPad will help to filter the candidates based on their coding ability. This is highly recommended while hiring junior roles. Arranging an "assessment day" for a larger group of candidates who have cleared the initial screening round can be more effective than interviewing throughout the month. Also, familiarise yourself with the employment law for employers and employees, to ensure you have a fair assessment process in place.

3. Account for a positive candidate experience: Candidate experience should be given utmost importance throughout the process. Always remember there is a connection between the employer brand and the candidate experience. The recruitment process is the first step for a new potential employee to develop a perception of the employer-based on experience. Our survey shows that a good number of candidates have rejected an offer due to bad candidate experience. 

   Here are a few suggestions to maintain a good candidate experience: 

   - Make sure your job application process is hassle-free 

   - Be transparent about the interview process 

   - Prepare the candidates for interview 

   - Always give them the interview feedback.

   - Communicate frequently

4. Ensuring company diversity along with culture fit: While it is equally important to assess candidates based on culture fit, it is also important that the companies should consider diversity as one of their recruitment aspects. “It’s important to keep in mind that you can share the same values with people different from you,” says Corey McAveeney of Kulturenvy. Most companies who do not think outside “culture fit” lack diverse teams. Displaying your company culture is one of the critical parts of the recruitment process. You can highlight your company culture using video marketing and leverage the right social platforms. 

5. Type of employee benefits being offered: To attract talents from a larger organization into your organisation, you must have a strong recruitment strategy. Candidates are not just looking at a competitive salary, they are also interested in what more a company offers in terms of benefits packages. It is important to communicate the benefits your company can offer in terms of- health insurance for self/ family, work from home flexibility, work-life balance, employee referral package, membership at a health club, additional parental leave packages, Spotify or Netflix Subscription,etc.

6. Engaging with a recruitment agency: As a scaling startup, it can be challenging for you to identify and attract top talents. Recruiting trends and tactics are always changing as employers get more crafty with their sourcing techniques. Also, most startups cannot afford to spend more time on their recruitment activities. In such cases, it is highly recommended to seek help from a recruitment agency, as their services help deliver a seamless hiring process. There are many advantages of partnering with a recruitment agency. Agency recruiters will have a good experience managing candidates across different skills as they serve multiple clients. These recruiters are specialized in hiring for specific roles. A recruitment agency can also give you an accurate market rate using salary data and local market knowledge. They will prepare the candidate for an interview and provide them with knowledge of your company and industry. Most importantly they create a positive candidate experience throughout the process.

   If you are looking to quickly fill open roles with qualified candidates, connect with one of us today.