When hiring for startups, the choices you make are even more critical than in a larger business. When you’re hiring from the ground up, you need to ensure that you find a diverse range of skills, perspectives, and backgrounds. That way, your company will have a solid foundation for growth heading into the future.

What Makes Hiring for Startups Different?

First, of all, hiring managers must understand the difference between hiring for a startup and any other company. There are a few critical unique differences.

At startups, the focus has often been on the product in the initial phases. However, now that it’s time to expand, you must put the same level of emphasis on making good hires.

One of the most significant differences is the size of the company. The cost of a bad hire could be the difference between your business breaking even or not. You might be surprised by how expensive it is to make a bad hire. From the hiring process, lost productivity during training, and then the inevitable refilling of the position, it adds up!

Hiring for Startups – 8 Top Tips

Start with Skills, Not the Role

Many startups start hiring when they decide ‘we need an administrator’. Or it could be ‘we need a finance person’, or whatever other position it is. However, startups are not traditional, and approaching hiring in a non-traditional manner may be more effective.

Start by figuring out where your skills gaps are. Maybe you’re not great at marketing, and you’ve been running the social media. Perhaps you have your administrator handling HR and payroll processes, but they don’t have the time. Only once you sit down and do a skills audit will you see where the gaps are. That’s when you can start defining the roles you need to hire.

Create a Killer Job Description

Now that you have what you need to be sorted out, it’s time to write an engaging job description to catch people’s attention. There’s no need to use made-up titles like ‘marketing superstar’ or ‘administrative ninja’. Keep it understandable and readable. Be specific about what you’re looking for and what are the requirements of the position vs. the nice-to-have skills.

If you have developed a brand voice in your marketing and social media posts, you can write in a similar tone to that. There is no need for a job description to sound super formal and stuffy. When hiring for startups, make the job description a living document that actually engages people.

Figure out Alternative Compensation

As the owner of a startup, you may never have had to deal with salary negotiations before. To determine compensation, remember that it’s about more than just salary. Other benefits count towards the full compensation package as well. For example, many startups prefer to encourage a good work-life balance. This can be done by offering extra paid vacation days, flexible working arrangements, or even shorter working weeks.

Defining a competitive salary is also essential. To find out how much the usual market rate is, you can use any number of different online tools. Decide which percentile you can afford to offer. Remember that even if you can’t hire the highest market rate, you can still attract talent with other benefits.

Use Freelancers for Lower Overheads

The gig economy has been excellent for hiring startups, with more freelancers out there than ever before and with even better skills. Hiring someone, whether full-time or part-time, is a significant investment for a startup. Rather than committing to a yearly salary, you may benefit from using freelancers on a project basis. This gives you more flexibility, as you can put projects on hold if you are lacking funds and don’t have to continue paying a staff member.

As the company grows, you may find that you definitely need someone permanently, and you can look into hiring then.

Smart Advertising

Once you’ve decided you need to make a permanent hire, the next challenge is where to advertise the role. Did you know that there are job boards that specialize in startup recruitment? This could be a great place to start as you will source candidates who mainly want to work in a startup environment.

The job board Work in Startups is a great example. They work hard to find candidates with the right skills to show your advertisements to.

What Traits to Look for

When evaluating candidates, there are a few traits you might consider looking for that are specific to working in a startup. One is the ability to work in a continually changing environment. By nature, your business will always be evolving and changing. If someone can’t cope with change, a startup environment is not for them.

Another is that you may consider hiring for drive, initiative, and enthusiasm over experience. Why? Those with experience in businesses that are not startups may struggle in a startup environment due to the pace, uncertainty, and more. Hiring people who have the innate ability to deal with this might be more successful.

Get More Information via the Application Form

Many application forms only ask for the most generic candidate information such as name, contact details, and experience. This is an opportunity to add more fields to help you find out more about the candidates.

Why not ask some simple questions such as ‘What drew you to apply for this role’? Or ‘What interests you about working for our company?’. Or ‘What most inspires you at work?’. These types of questions are simple to add to the application and can do wonders to help you differentiate between candidates when reading applications.

Use Candidate Screening to Your Advantage

Figuring out which candidates might be the best for your business can be a tricky task. If you add something like cognitive assessments into your screening process, this can help tremendously. These assessments allow you to test candidates on the skills required for the position. This can help you to make a more well-informed hiring decision based on data. Get some objective facts about the likelihood of this person succeeding in the role.

If you’re about to head into a recruitment phase for your startup, a few easy tips can help you to hire some incredible staff to elevate your business to the next level. Hiring for startups is not easy, but you can follow these to make better decisions and benefit from a high performing team.