Employees make a company. As a start-up, it is more critical that you hire the right people as they are the differentiating factor determining whether your business would be a success or a failure. The initial set of employees needs to work long hours and put in everything to take your business from being just-another-startup to a thriving business.
A startup does have the luxury to afford to fire and re-hire employees due to limited funds. Here are some talent management and recruitment tips that you must implement in your startup to hire the right people.
Build the brand
Building your brand effectively helps the prospective candidates have a better idea of the company and its vision and goals. It also helps them understand the long-term goals of the company and evaluate whether they would fit into your startup culture or not. However, remember not to oversell your company. If the candidates have any questions about investors or financial stability of the company, be open and honest about it.
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Choose the right job posting platforms
Putting up job postings on the right platforms is critical to attracting the best candidates. Standing out on various platforms will make the vacancies more visible to the applicants. Ensure that you post on job portals that are easily accessible from mobile devices. Few ways to stand out are:
- Making the job descriptions catchy
- Having humorous content
- Including ‘current’ pop culture terms to attract the millennials
Don’t forget about the posting on popular social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as they are popular platforms that candidates regularly check for vacancies.
Related Post: 6 reasons why you should hire millennials in your startup
Check employee’s background
This is an extremely important step when you begin hiring. You need to make sure that the candidate is being honest about his/her talent, skills and experience. Start by verifying the candidate’s employment history — ask for references and contact their previous employers. Take a look at their criminal record as well to ensure that you are hiring a trustworthy and honest candidate. And it’s best to conduct pre-screenings and simple drug tests, just to be sure.
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Talent v/s Experience
You might get loads of resumes — some rich in talent while others filled with experience. So which one do you pick? As a startup, you should pick talent over experience as you would need new and raw talent that none of your competitors would have. You must take new approaches to old practices as it will decide whether or not your startup would succeed. Unless there is someone, who has an incredible pool of experience that you think no other candidate can offer, then choose experience. The perfect mix would be to find the right balance between the two and hire people who add immense value to the company.
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Embrace Technology
Technology is your best friend during the hiring process. Not only does it cut down the manual intervention but help you achieve faster and better results. For example, you can conduct an online personality quiz to weed out the candidates who don’t seem fit for your company. Take a look at their social media accounts to get a better idea of who they are.
Employing a social media integrated ATS would be a great idea. Here are some features of an ATS that would greatly benefit your business.
- Easy job postings to social media and free job boards
- Sponsored job postings on premium job sites
- Excellent branding
- Ability to customize job applications
- 360-degree view of candidate profiles
- Intelligent filtering of potential candidates
- Efficient tracking of applicants through various hiring stages
- Easy collaboration with different teams
- Easy scheduling of interviews
- Generates real-time, intelligent reports
Related Post: Four tips to keep in mind while hiring candidates for your start-up
Revamp the interview process
Ditch the traditional and formal interview processes. Rather, make it a fun experience by setting up the interview in a non-formal place like a cafe. This would make the candidates less nervous and speak more freely. Have multiple rounds of interviews to determine the talent and passion of the candidates. Involve non-HR personnel as well to get a different perspective. They can help you give a better feedback about the technical abilities of the candidate.
When you have a talent acquisition software in your business, you can be assured of an easy and effective recruitment process, thus helping you hire the best candidates for your company.
Author Bio:
Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager specializing in HR and is responsible for leading Jobsoid’s content and social media team. When Kelly is not building campaigns, she is busy creating content and preparing PR topics. She started with Jobsoid as a social media strategist and eventually took over the entire digital marketing team with her innovative approach and technical expertise.
