How to recruit when you are an early-stage start-up Setting up a startup is a long and sometimes difficult adventure, which requires the right people. And yes, if you hire people more or less randomly and do not flesh out your HR strategy from the start, you may well regret it later. A failed recruitment costs between €40,000 and €100,000 to the company, and when you are a startup, this represents a huge cost, which you cannot afford. But then, how to successfully recruit a startup when you don’t really have HR and not necessarily all the knowledge? Here are our tips.
Recruitment: a major challenge for start-ups
A startup project evolves quickly in the first years and each person who integrates this kind of structure can have an impact on its future. The means are often limited and that is why it is necessary to ensure effective recruitment.
Recruiting a person represents expenses (posting ads, etc.), but also time to train, integrate, equip, etc. In startups as in all other forms of business, it is important to perceive recruitment as a long-term investment. The more care you take to recruit the right person, the more likely you are to limit HR costs and ensure the sustainability of your business.
How to recruit well in a start-up?
As you have understood, recruiting well is essential for a startup for which each person is a cog in a machine that is being built and evolving. But then, how to find THE rare pearl and make it adhere to your structure for better or for worse? Here are some steps and tips dedicated to startup recruitment.
Define the right profiles to recruit
Before embarking on recruitment, you must think in-depth about your needs. Take the time to define the key positions that cannot wait and the additional positions that can be opened later. Don’t forget that certain dual-hatted profiles (accounting/administration, comm/marketing, etc.) may be of interest to you, rather than recruiting two different people and doubling the cost.
Find qualified candidates
Once you have defined the different job descriptions, you must start looking for relevant candidates. For this, you can use different channels:
- Social networks: the ideal place to take care of your employer brand, distribute your ads and attract candidates. Choose professional networks like Linkedin.
- Job boards: essential tools for distributing your ads to a very large audience and obtaining applications quickly. Among the best known: Pôle Emploi, RegionsJob, Monster, Indeed…
- Matching algorithms: available on different recruitment platforms like Bruce, they automatically select relevant profiles based on your search criteria, to save you time.
To find the right people, you don’t always have to wait for them to come to you and respond to your ad. The talent you need may not know you, so you have to do everything to find it. To do this, do not hesitate to prospect yourself to find people who meet your expectations, especially on professional networks.
Set up an effective interview phase
Organizing job interviews are an important part of startup recruitment. You must both succeed incorrectly judging the candidate while making him want to join your adventure.
To save time, offer the first phase of video interviews (live or delayed), to allow candidates to introduce themselves, talk about themselves and introduce themselves to the world of your startup. You will be able to reduce your list and make the first selection.
After that, you can organize physical interviews within your premises. During these exchanges, always make sure to keep an open mind and not to focus only on the experience or technical knowledge of the candidates. If certain basic skills are necessary to occupy the functions, do not neglect the soft skills and the human qualities of the applicants, which can be very important in small structures such as startups.
Build employee loyalty
Once you have recruited your ideal candidate, you must do everything to make them want to stay. To do this, remember to take care of the employee reception from the first days within your startup, having taken care to prepare for his arrival, presenting him to your teams, and helping him as much as possible to integrate well into the first weeks after hiring.
Over time, remember to make points with him to find out his feedback, make sure he has no special needs, and put in place appropriate management to retain him as much as possible over time.
What tool(s) to recruit well in start-ups (and elsewhere)?
Startup recruitment is not an easy task, but it is far from being an insurmountable ordeal, provided you follow the advice provided in this article and equip yourself with the right recruitment tools. If you really want to save time and recruit efficiently, bet on a complete recruitment platform like Bruce. This will allow you to:
- Publish your ads on all the most used job boards,
- Centralize and sort applications,
- Use a matching algorithm to quickly find a shortlist of candidates meeting your search criteria,
- Organize video interviews to reduce the volume of applications,
- Manage the administrative part of the recruitment
The opportunity to recruit well while saving time! Two essential aspects for early-stage start-ups.
