7 Recruiting & Talent Attraction Tips for Startups
Whether you’re a startup founding team member or a People team of one, getting high-quality talent in the door is often a top priority after determining the market fit for your minimum viable product.
1. Create a Flexible Headcount Plan
This doesn’t have to be (and very likely shouldn’t be) something rigid. Take a look at the cash your startup has available to compensate talent and loosely define a prioritization key. At my current startup, we prioritize based on how the role will impact growth, quality, and then differentiation. By the end of this exercise, you should have a number in mind for the headcount you are looking to add for the year. Be sure to build in a buffer for potential turnover!
2. Define Your “Source of Truth”
Now that you have your headcount goal in mind, you can more easily determine tooling for your Applicant Tracking System (ATS). If you only hire a few people this year, you can lean into a shared Google Sheet or free Airtable account. Beyond that, you’ll want to invest in a real ATS.
If funds are particularly tight, I’ve heard JazzHR works well. If you aim to purchase a best-in-class tool, you should look into Lever or Greenhouse. A good ATS can refine your candidate experience by creating consistency with communications, easing scheduling, and providing scorecards to reduce bias in the hiring process.
3. Leverage Your Talent Community
With your ATS in place, you can source from a pool of warm leads who presumably already know your brand and what you do. Just because a candidate wasn’t a direct fit for one role doesn’t mean they aren’t a fit for another in the pipeline. Additionally, you can create a jobs newsletter using the email list of previous applicants in your ATS. This will keep candidates engaged in what your company is doing and abreast of the opportunities available there.
4. Referrals, Referrals, Referrals
According to Drafted’s 2020 Referral Programs Benchmark Report, referrals are the number one source of hire regardless of company size and age. This may likely be due to 70% of employers feeling that referrals are strong cultural fits. If a candidate has a good experience interacting with your company, you may want to ask them for referrals as well.
External referral programs can be incredibly successful when executed correctly. Both current and prospective employees can be motivated to make referrals extrinsically and entirely unrelated to their own financial gain. Your customers may be motivated to refer potential employers to ensure a higher quality of service offered to them too.
Even if you don’t have the funds for a significant financial bonus, many companies have seen success with experiential awards such as dinners or even contributions to a charity of the referrer’s choice.
5. Optimize Job Descriptions
Posting a role on Indeed, LinkedIn or Glassdoor can cost your startup serious money. Why waste that on sponsoring non-inclusive job descriptions? It costs zero dollars to write your job description in a way that attracts talent from all walks of life. A few tips on this include the following.
First, remove cliche startup language. You’re a CFO, Kevin, not a rockstar ninja.
Second, use the pronoun “you” whenever possible to help the candidate envision themselves in the role.
Third, remove arbitrary degree requirements. You don’t need a Harvard MBA to be a Business Development Representative.
Fourth, do not list a specific number of years of experience. Statistically, women (especially women of color) are less likely to apply for a role if they do not meet the exact requirements listed per Harvard Business Review. Swap out “5+” for “several” or “1-3” for “some.”
6. Be Linked In
You don’t need to pay LinkedIn $10,000 for a Recruiter seat if you intentionally build your network each day. Interact with posts that resonate with you or your company’s brand. When I started recruiting, I began building my network by reaching out to those in leadership positions who I admired the most.
This was useful for a few reasons. First, influential leaders often have a lot of connections and, therefore, a big following. If they like, comment, or share your post, LinkedIn’s analytics will blast it out to their networks. Second, you get to learn from some potentially great content of theirs! I made it a point to connect with every Director, VP, and Chief HR Officer in the greater Boston area working in industries that interested me or companies with strong employer brands) so I could replicate that for my own network. The same can be applied to marketing leaders too!
I also sent connection requests to 25-50 people daily who had a job title that I would likely need to hire for in the coming months (Account Executive, Marketing Manager, Software Engineer, Product Manager, Controller, etc.). Over time, when you share new jobs at your startup, you’ll already have folks lined up who may be a fit, and you don’t have to pay to message a 1st-degree connection.
7. Net-WORK It!
Don’t get me wrong - networking during the middle of a global pandemic is not as easy as it used to be. However, there are still various groups and sites that host virtual events to make more connections right from your living room! Most big cities have a Startup Week, and you can find affinity groups on sites like meetup.com to connect with. You can also search your area for accelerators to get to know founders locally, along with recruiting events. Partnerships with colleges and nonprofits can be excellent sources for more cost-efficient talent as well.
In summary, if you want to attract and recruit great people, you need to think like a marketer to entice candidates to apply just the same way you found your product or service’s first customers. There is great power in networking, so be sure to leverage connections whenever and wherever possible to grow your company’s headcount.