Making the jump from a startup to a growth-based company can be challenging, primarily when relying on new talent to drive said growth. As your startup begins to need more members outside of your founding team, it’s essential to go about the hiring process in the right way. If you’re looking for your first tech hire, here are five things you should know before fulfilling the role.
1 – Where to Find Top Tech Talent
When hiring tech talent, you can’t just pick anyone off the street and hope for the best – you need to know where to find them! Unlike established brands, startups have complex challenges to overcome when hiring, like having the resources and brand awareness to attract quality candidates. The obvious first step is to use job sites to post your job openings. But there are severe cons to relying on job boards for recruiting – the cost, time required to maintain, job market competitiveness, and lacking a good candidate screening process are to name a few.
For startups, it can be much more cost-effective to find candidates through:
- Social Media: Post your job openings on your business’s social media accounts to broaden your search – be sure to share your post on your personal accounts!
- Networking Events: A great place to make connections is to attend networking events. It will enable you to find more talent and spread the word about your business.
- Referrals: Ask peers, colleagues, friends, and family if they know anyone in their network looking for their next tech role. You never know who others may be able to put you in connection with.
- Recruiting Agencies: Recruiters in the tech industry will have access to a broader talent pool, find qualified candidates for your company’s needs, and save startups time so you can focus on growing your business.
2 – How to Build an Attractive Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
The job market is in a candidate shortage, so job seekers can be as picky as they want with their next career move. Therefore, ensure your startup has a great EVP that gets people excited about working for you. Competitive EVPs include:
- Diversity and inclusion initiatives
- Competitive salary
- Robust benefits package
- Opportunities for growth and other financial rewards
- Great company culture
- Job role support
If your startup requires help in developing solid EVPs and broadcasting your benefits out to job seekers, ITAC Solutions can evaluate critical differentiators that set you apart from the competition and incorporate those features into your company’s EVP.
3 – Hiring the Right or Wrong Person Has a Big Impact
Hiring the wrong person can be costly, but it could be catastrophic for startups. Therefore, it’s important to thoroughly screen your candidates to ensure they are ready and capable for the task at hand. Here are some great interview strategies to be confident you’re hiring the right person:
- Conduct multiple interviews.
- Require a skill assessment.
- Don’t rush to make an offer – though don’t wait too long either.
- Require references and call them.
- Ask questions relating to their previous work.
- Run a background check
It can be challenging for startups to allocate time and resources to finding the perfect candidate for their open roles, but it’s an essential piece to any company’s success. Hiring a staffing agency to locate candidates can give startups the confidence in knowing they’re hiring someone with expertise and credibility.
4 – How to Create a Positive Candidate Experience
While vetting your candidates is essential to making the right hire, you don’t want to miss out on quality talent because of a poor candidate experience. With the candidate shortage, it’s more important than ever to ensure you retain interested job seekers throughout the interview process. You can improve the candidate experience by:
- Ensure job descriptions are clear and showcase your EVP.
- Make it easy to apply.
- Have consistent and prompt (or even automated!) communication.
- Give an honest timeline of the hiring process.
- Tell candidates what to expect during an interview (what to wear, who will be attending, some questions you will ask, etc.).
- Inform unsuccessful candidates they did not get the offer and provide helpful feedback.
- Have a solid onboarding process for new hires.
It’s a daunting process when you’re hiring new employees on your own – no matter how large your business is. A company’s expertise is typically not in staffing and recruiting, and, with startups especially, you need time to focus on business development. Working with a staffing agency is an excellent option for many startups because their expertise is finding the perfect candidates for their clients. A part of that process is having a fantastic candidate experience ready to go.
5 – How to Create a Solid Onboarding Process
You’ve made your first hire – congrats! Now it’s time to onboard your new team member. A good onboarding process is imperative to not only the new hire’s success but your company’s longevity. When creating your onboarding process, you’ll want to ensure you cover not only the tasks they’ll be performing but go over company culture. Typical onboarding processes include:
- Teammate introductions
- The history of your company
- Key aspects of company culture and core values
- Training and development
- Performance overviews
ITAC Solutions Helps Startups Find Their Next Top Tech Talent
Is your company in the startup phase and ready to hire its first tech hire? ITAC Solutions has a broad talent pool of tech talent prepared to help your business grow to the next level. Contact our team today to hire top talent.
