Recruit Top Talent Before and While Raising Capital. Hiring is an ongoing endeavor. You know you’re doing it right (at least partially) when you’re always doing it, even if you’re not actively trying to fill roles. One of the CEO’s main jobs should be recruiting top talent. Unfortunately, most CEOs don’t put enough systematic effort into recruiting and it falls to the wayside. Then when panic strikes and you desperately need 3 top developers “yesterday”, you’re screwed. One of the key times in a startup’s life is when it’s raising capital. Money does make some things easier – like hiring. And that’s a mistake and lost opportunity. While in the midst of raising capital, you should also be recruiting top talent. They also need to get paid. Running the two processes of fundraising and recruiting simultaneously is incredibly challenging. That means when the money hits your bank account you’re going to be able to move that much faster and focus on the next stage of your startup, instead of sputtering out of the gates.
10 Steps to Sourcing and Recruiting Top Talent for Your Startup. Hiring people remains one of the biggest challenges and mysteries for startups. Since most CEOs and founders aren’t trained recruiters, they generally have very little idea about how to recruit properly. And because they’re so busy running their startups, they rarely invest enough time in the recruiting process. Hiring at startups is extremely difficult Even for startups that have tons of attention it’s hard.
You absolutely need attention and buzz in order to hire. That’s why I advocate that startups turn themselves into recruiting magnets. I also believe that recruiting will evolve into something similar to inbound marketing. Sourcing is an art and science unto itself. Here’s what you need to do: Get a decent contact management system. I realize this might sound a bit cold and mechanical, but it doesn’t have to be.
Recruiting at startups is about putting yourself in a position to attract the best. Image provided by shutterstock. The Key to Hiring for Startups is to Build Buzz and Attract Talent To You. Hiring at startups is hard. Get a handful of startup people in a room and ask them about their biggest challenges and hiring is always at (or near) the top of the list. Typically startups don’t offer the same salaries and benefits found at larger companies. Some argue that the risk is higher (although I don’t think so). At minimum, there’s a perceived higher risk working at a startup.
And in a lot of cases (especially in markets that aren’t as startup-centric), university graduates don’t even realize that startup opportunities exist. So how can you hire successfully for your startup? First and foremost it takes work. And one of the best ways to improve your odds of finding people is to build a magnet. Magnets attract things to them. Get successful enough at turning your startup into a magnet and people will be coming to you for a job. And how do you turn your startup into a recruiting magnet?
It really comes down to building buzz. Sidebar: Attend events. I told you it would take work. The Future of Recruiting is in Inbound Marketing and Inbound Recruiting Tactics. Successful recruiting is more complicated than most people realize (except for those who are actively recruiting on a daily basis). Getting a ton of applicants is easy.Hiring people is easy. But successful recruiting isn’t. Successful recruiting means a few things: Maximizing tight budgets to use money wisely in attracting people.Attracting the highest quality candidate possible, not the most candidates possible. This means shrinking the size of the top of your funnel so that conversion rates at each stage increase (job seeker / person -> applicant -> hire -> successful hire).
If the top of the funnel is absolutely huge, chances are you’re bringing in too many unqualified candidates and wasting time.Understanding the changing needs of your employer in terms of who to hire, skill sets that are relevant, etc. And understanding the changing needs of employees as well. Like I said, successful recruiting is hard. One of the key ways companies should be actively (as in right now!) The Future of Recruiting is Trust Agents. I’m currently in the middle of reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.
Combined with reading Inbound Marketing I can’t help but think more about how inbound marketing and trust are related to recruiting. The reality is that the future of recruiting is trust agents. Trust agents are experts at relationship building, personal branding, networking, giving (before getting), and creating social capital for themselves. They’re changing how businesses market, sell and provide customer service. And in all three disciplines – marketing, sales and customer service – trust agents can (and will) dominate. As organizations re-think how they market, sell and service customers, they should be thinking about recruiting existing trust agents. In an ideal situation, the people in charge of marketing, sales and customer service would already be trust agents. And what does this mean for new recruits, fresh out of college or early in their careers?
Simple: Become Trust Agents.