"It’s a Partnership: How the TA team needs to hire with speed and work as a partner with business, to attract the right startup candidate"
Talent Acquisition (TA) as a function has evolved in startups today. Hiring the right “WHO” has become as important as raising the next round of funding. Being a TA partner in a startup, your role automatically changes in this kind of an environment . Let’s look at how hiring for startups is a completely different ball game than in a traditional corporate. Because you need to hire with speed and work like a partner in the business to acquire the perfect candidate for startups!
Here are the main points to consider while hiring for startups:
Hiring with speed
Unlike MNCs, startup hiring needs are always on an urgent basis. Since decisions are always taken quickly at startups, it becomes equally important to find out WHO will do WHAT? And this leads to faster results.
Closing a position > Process = Phase of Business
Building hiring processes along with the phase of business is very important in a startup. While It need not be high-process oriented yet, because the business is still figuring its “WHO”.
Going beyond the role
Hiring for startups majorly depends on the attitude and skills of a potential candidate and not heavily on past work experiences. The candidate should be ready to take up any role for the growth of the business and hence his or her responsibilities are not just limited to the job responsibilities. Hence a startup requires that the hiring methodology of a recruiter switch from the traditional way of sourcing and screening to look for holistic qualities in a candidate.
Sell your business model first
You need to sell your business model and your company’s vision to your candidates when you are hiring for a startup. Looking at the bigger picture rather than immediate success and fortunes of the company while selling the role to a candidate becomes much more important.
Data oriented Recruitment
Being a startup, you are probably still figuring out the “WHO” ( the ideal candidate) for the role. Your hiring criteria might change and so might the sourcing. Analyse your data and Keep your numbers on and deep dive of where there is an actual gap is and not on top funnel always (ie.Share more resumes) thus Hire faster with solving specific problems in the funnel.
Work like a partner with the hiring manager
The biggest success comes for hiring in startups is when you have to work like a business partner on solving the problem “WHO”. Share your learnings with the hiring managers on what kind of people are available in the market, how other startups are working or do we need to look for someone different from what we decided at the start .
The game is not about increasing the top funnel and to go blindly with the hiring manager’s way. You should have an equal partnership in the hiring candidate decision making process.
