- Recruit the Best, Think Long Term Startups face unique challenges when it comes to recruiting. Finding the right talent is time-consuming and burdensome, especially for smaller teams with limited marketing budgets and lower salary payouts. It can take startups weeks or months to open new positions, interview candidates, and finalize hires. And because early-stage companies are relatively unknown, they may not have a reputation in the open market. They have to work harder to capture the attention of potential job seekers. Once applications come in, leaders can’t afford to waste hours sifting through low-quality resumes when they have so much else on their plates. Given these realities, teams should be focused on growing their business, not on recruiting, which is a specialized skill on its own. In the startup world, there is also little room for recruiting errors. Companies can’t bring in mediocre teammates if they intend to disrupt or transform the status quo. Additionally, potential hires not only need relevant skills, but they also have to fit culturally with the rest of the group. With today’s professionals jumping quickly between opportunities, it’s difficult to retain talent long enough to get young businesses off the ground. In short, recruiting and retaining good people at startups is hard. Hiring talent is never risk-free, but it weighs more heavily on early-stage companies. We did some research to see what the best of the best had to say about recruiting for startups and scale-ups. Over and over, we heard the same advice spoken in different ways. Even as the startup ecosystem has changed, two broader tenets still ring true:
We extracted these themes from the following video interviews and compiled a consolidated version for you to share with your group:
Hire the Best Without fail, startups must hire the best talent for their specific needs and vision. Not everyone is cut out for the pace and ambiguity of young companies. Those who are looking to scale operations for innovative services and products need employees who can charge forth with little guidance. Startups need people who aren’t just looking for a paycheck. They need personnel who are passionate about building great companies. Once businesses grow beyond a certain size, founders can’t be involved in every decision. They have to delegate to others, which is much easier when everyone on the roster is an all-star. Don’t settle. Although it may take longer to find the right people, the effort is worth it. So much of a company’s success depends on the talent involved. Give yourself the best chance to be one of the 10% of startups that survive by hiring well. Think Long Term Startups live in the tension of addressing the urgent versus planning for the future. It’s easy to focus time and energy on putting out daily fires. However, you can’t neglect the long-term trajectory of your business. Hiring decisions, especially for the first 10-50 employees, compound over time. The people you bring in execute your strategy and help you fight through the unique challenges of building a company from scratch. Your hires also go on to recruit others and have a major impact on how you scale over time. If you recruit a B-level player, that person will likely recruit 3-5 other B-level players throughout his or her tenure. Before long, your company is filled with average talent that performs...average. And average isn’t good enough. Work with Funded.club For fast-growing startups, hiring the best and recruiting for the long term are extremely hard to do effectively alongside all other critical needs. After 20 years in recruiting and 5 years in startups, Ray Gibson set up Funded.club to provide startups and scale-ups with a cost-efficient way to grow their teams with the right people. As entrepreneurs, we know what it’s like to be in your shoes. Our expert recruiters work closely with you to develop an ideal candidate profile. We run all of the marketing and advertising for your open positions. Through our selection process, we’ll identify 3-5 exceptional individuals for your team to interview and manage every step after that, too. Overall, we set you up for success without burdening your team or burning your capital. Hiring Advice From Legendary Founders![]() If, like us, you believe in rainbows, unicorns, 10x developers and hungry sales hackers, come and join our club! Start a chat or book a call to receive free hiring tips from startup veterans with >20 years experience in HR and recruiting.
10 Comments
Robert
1/6/2020 12:42:35 pm
If I'm in a small startup and no-one knows us yet, how am I going to get people to apply?
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1/6/2020 12:55:18 pm
Think of who you know in your network (or could get referred to) that could be attracted to your business. You have such an advantage working with people you like and trust as you have already done the getting to know you stuff. You know how to turn them on, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and they know yours. Beware of hiring buddies with limited skills just because you want to give someone a job though. You can lose an employee and a good friend in one day when things go wrong… and it usually does!
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3/9/2020 05:49:16 am
I want to get some advice on my career. I have not been doing a great job about deciding. I had already graduated from school for almost a year now, and I have not been doing anything new. I feel like I need to do all sorts of stuff, but I simply do not want to do it. My ability to decide is just not good, but I want to completely change that fact, I want to do all sorts of things.
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3/9/2020 06:02:00 am
hi Rushessay, in times like this I can fully recommend 2 different books to help you find your passion and strive for something that will make you happy, motivated and successful.
Antonio
1/6/2020 12:43:31 pm
These are good thoughts. Obviously, we'd love to hire the best but struggle with how much to offer in exchange. What do you recommend?
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1/6/2020 12:50:56 pm
If you have to buy someone’s motivation to join you and stay in the company you have probably missed the opportunity to win that person’s heart and mind with your vision OR you are dealing with a cold mercenary soul who will just as quickly leave you for more cash somewhere else.
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2/20/2020 05:51:53 am
I just read this article also, and between the two of them, gained a ton of knowledge. Thank you!
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10/9/2020 10:42:26 pm
Thanks for posting this useful information over here; I really hope it will be helpful to many to know about hiring the advice from legendary founders in detail. Appreciative content!! I loved reading this article.
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AuthorRay Gibson is founder and CEO of Funded.club. He brings 20 years of experience in recruiting across Europe, North America and Asia and 5 years running his own startups. Subjects
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