A reliable recruitment strategy is the basis of any advancement in a tech startup company. Without new employees that bring their expertise and help you improve your product, your startup will stagnate or go backward.
However, the leaders of many startups usually don’t have the time or resources to develop their recruitment strategy. Even though people leading the startup might be very experienced in their field of work, they often lack insight into how the hiring process work.
From finding candidates for a position to screening them and finally hiring them, building a reliable recruitment strategy will allow you to create a streamlined hiring process.
Importance of hiring process for startups
Your startup won’t grow if there aren’t reliable people with technical skills to work on your product. However, finding those people can be very time-consuming, and diverting your attention from product to hiring can slow down your development process.
The HR department is too expensive for most new companies, thus they need to utilize other channels for finding new employees and building their recruitment strategy. The smaller your startup is, the higher the power of each worker is. The cost of a bad hire is much higher than spending time and resources on a scalable recruitment strategy.
A bad hire doesn’t only cost you money. They can lower the overall productivity in your workplace, have harmful interactions with other employees, compromise the privacy of your company, and the time spent on their training will be lost entirely. Financially, bad hires can cost you $17,000 on average. Investing in a recruitment strategy will save you money in the long term.
What does the hiring process include
A hiring process is much more than people think. You will need to find the potential candidates or attract them, evaluate them, screen them, interview them, and onboard them. Depending on the type of your company and the number of candidates, you might need to add more steps.
The hiring process requires you to understand the role that the person you are hiring should fulfill and his duties. On top of this, at the end of the hiring process, only the best candidates should be left and considered for hire.
The candidate with the best tech skills isn’t always the one that’s the best for hire. Using pre-employment assessments, workers should be tested for soft skills and their ability to adapt to a workplace and work with people.
How to build a Reliable Recruitment Strategy
Every recruitment strategy has multiple elements that differ from each other. They all require unique attention and skills to be adequately accomplished. Without a good source of candidates, you won’t get anywhere, and without adequately testing them you will make bad hires, etc.
1. Source talents
The key to sourcing talents is knowing where to look. Thankfully, the internet offers us endless possibilities regarding job boards and places to look for candidates. There are platforms such as Upwork and Fiverr where you can get freelancers to do one-time jobs or longer projects.
On the other hand, Linkedin can significantly help you in finding new employees. The way that LinkedIn functions allows you to both actively invite candidates for an interview, or let them come to you. You can do the essential evaluation of your candidate by looking into their profile and potentially dismiss him immediately.
On the other hand, a detailed and inviting job description paired with the profile of your startup will mainly invite suitable candidates for the position. The key part before setting an advertisement for your job, no matter the platform, is first getting straight your job requirements.
As someone who runs a tech startup, or works in an HR department, you must know the details of the position and its benefits.
2. Attract talents
Attracting talents is in some ways harder than simply sourcing them. Since you have no direct impact on whether your company will attract employees, this method isn’t as effective for startups. However, what’s in your direct control is how you will brand yourself on the internet and in the world.
Through a well-planned marketing campaign, you can most definitely attract talents suitable for your job. However, you should make a section on your website where they can sign-up for work. By not having a call-to-action on your website, and a confusing hiring page, chances are that you will lose potential workers.
Good experiences from your past and current workers will do the best marketing for your staff. If your company is considered caring to its coworkers and pleasant.
3. Screening your candidates
Screening candidates is often an overlooked part of the recruitment process. It can be completed relatively quickly, speeding up the process of writing off unsuitable candidates.
Screening is done through a test that’s online or in-person. This type of test can be done through a questionnaire or a form, and it gives a quick insight into the person that’s signing up for the job. Applicants can be tested for soft skills through long questionnaires, at the end of which they get a specific score which allows you to see whether they are suitable for your company.
But depending on the type of your company, screening tests should be “personalized.” For example, there is no reason to test candidates for social skills if your company works remotely. However, by implementing questions on their degree, years of experience, or by using tests, you will filter your applicants in a way that only the best of them will be left for evaluation.
Screen candidates for technical skills using coding tests (100 words)
For example, suppose your tech startup is working with back-end languages. In that case, you can screen candidates with TestGorilla’s PHP coding tests to ensure that only the most knowledgeable candidates get the position.
For example, in large tech companies, applicants need to solve puzzles through programming such as Fizz-Buzz, but coding tests have advanced much further.
4. Evaluating the candidates
In the evaluation process, you might be interviewing dozens of people, or even more, every week. Even though this process might sound time-consuming, there is no better way of getting a complete picture of their personality and skills than through a face-to-face interview. In the worst-case scenario, through video call.
During the period of interviews, you should make a schedule and track them accordingly. If you are late to interviews with candidates, they can see this as a red flag, and you might be the one that’s rejected.
Evaluation is the last major step of the recruitment process before recruiting the candidate. Out of all the info that you’ve acquired about the candidate, you will have a somewhat complete picture of his personal and professional skills and characteristics.
Evaluation of the candidate can be achieved through specific employment software, or you can consult with your other workers each candidate.
5. Implementing an onboarding process
So, now that you’ve hired your candidate it’s now time to onboard him to the team. Senior specialists in the field can onboard the new employee, or it can be done through onboarding software.
According to research, only a small number of companies do an excellent job at the onboarding process. However, this is the first contact of the new worker with the culture of your workplace and its internal processes.
So in the following period, your company should do its best to provide the employee with the belief that he made the right choice, or he will soon be looking for another workplace. Everything from workplace culture to introducing him to the tools and software that your company is using should be straightforward.
Through onboarding software, you are potentially saving the time of multiple people. Yourself, if you were the one who would onboard him, a specialist would have taught him the required knowledge for the role, and the time of your HR.
Onboarding software allows for a streamlined onboarding process that introduces the novice employee to the workplace culture and ethics, rules, and even technical skills. There are multiple types of onboarding software so you should have a detailed look into each one before making the final choice.
Even though this software might be expensive, it creates a streamlined onboarding process for all future employees. Another one of its benefits is that it increases the productivity at your company.
Is it possible to build a reliable recruitment strategy from scratch?
Even if you aren’t experienced in hiring people and leading them through the onboarding process, there are many ways through which you can make this process effective. Through software or through hiring freelance HR specialists, you can filter out the candidates for your company through many different tests and only hire the best ones.
With a good recruitment strategy, your startup will continuously grow and increase profits and bring innovation to its field.
