Need to Attract Top Talent to Your Startup? Follow This Recruiting Plan

Need to Attract Top Talent to Your Startup? Follow This Recruiting Plan

Each year, about 100 million startups are launched worldwide. That’s about 3 startups per second! Crazy, right? Unfortunately, more than half of these startups end up collapsing after four years only. Among the many reasons behind their failure is hiring the wrong team. The wrong team means poor workmanship and low productivity. For this reason, you’ll need a recruiting plan if want your startup to withstand the test of time. Here are some simple tips on how to attract and retain top talent in your small business:

1. Build a Great Place to Work

Before you can even think of creating spot-on job adverts, you need to first build a company that people want to work for. A huge number of talented people are ready to leave a well-paying job for a good working environment. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a sleek homey office with a state-of-the-art yoga studio or any other perks you might think of. It’s all about simple things such as transparency in your leadership, less management, and flexible work hours. Basically, aim to offer what large corporations can’t offer their employees.

2. Get Some Publicity

As a startup, it’s likely that your business is unknown and thus, you’ve to make an effort to build your identity. Besides, how are your prospect employees going to know about your company’s values and culture if you don’t sell your brand? Having a website and social media platform is a good place to start. But, you need more than that. Participate in local events, organize meet-ups, and talk to people about your company’s mission as well as the products and services you offer. This way, you’ll be offering new recruits an opportunity to grow with your brand and to equally contribute to its growth. Consequently, a dynamic team of employees will want to be part of your company since your company’s growth also contributes to their professional growth. Additionally, involve your current employees in these networking forums and let them interact with potential candidates. If your startup offers additional benefits that can’t be found in other organizations, they’ll be happy to share the good news.

3. Value-Based Recruiting

Some employees may take working for a startup company as an opportunity to be lackluster, given the flexible working hours offered. To ensure the employees remain productive without compromising on your company’s culture, aim at hiring individuals whose values are aligned with your company’s mission. They should care about the same things you do. So, look beyond their hyped resumes and find out what motivates them.

4. Broaden Your Scope

If you can't find top talent in your local area, it’s time you broaden your hunting ground. Hiring from other areas gives you an opportunity to choose from a wider scope of talented employees. However, with the cost of commuting daily to the workplace, you’ll have to offer flexible working hours or freelance positions.

5. Up Your Hiring Game

Don’t be afraid to be a little unconventional in your recruitment plan. Ditch the ordinary job seekers portals and embrace more focused hiring strategies to help you refine what you’re looking for. For instance, you can advertise your job vacancies in magazines that fit your niche market. Remember to ensure your recruitment invitation reflects the tone and style of your brand as well as the kind of talent you’re looking for.

6. Hold Onto Your Existing Team

If you already have a couple of talented employees, that’s your ticket to getting more of such employees. High-profile employees love to work around other equally talented individuals. This motivates them and helps foster a growth momentum for your company and in their own capacity as professionals.

7. Offer Challenging Projects

Hiring top-talented employees can backfire on you if you offer nothing out of the box. This can be in terms of the projects and tasks to be worked on. Why would a high-profile employee leave their high-paying job in a high-end corporation just to join your company and work on the same boring projects they’ve been working on? You’ve got to offer stimulating and challenging tasks that prompt high-octane employees to be part of your company. More so, this can also be a great way to keep your employees engaged and make them feel they’re contributing to something great.

8. Build an Open Recruitment Process

More often than not, startups are quick to create a good first impression of themselves, which isn’t a bad thing. But, the problem comes in when startup founders aren’t honest about their small size when recruiting. This reduces the employees’ turnover once they get the true picture of what’s like to work with you. Be honest in what your startup can offer if at all you want to attract and retain self-motivated employees. It can be frustrating to promise an employee expanded responsibilities yet it won't happen for months down the road. To avoid this, ask candidates what they’re looking for in their next role and their work environment preferences. If you can't offer them what they wish for, be downright honest. You can learn more about building a successful business from Ramesh Dontha’ useful startup resources.

9. Hire People for Their Attitude

The definition of top-talented employees is a concept that escapes the understanding of many startup owners. As much as it may mean demonstration of high proficiency in accomplishing a task, an employee with a bad attitude and behavior can be a misfit regardless of their brilliance. You can always train a good employee on how to get the job done, but you can never fix a bad attitude through a few training sessions.

Create a High-Yielding Recruiting Plan Today

Competing for top talent with established companies can be hard for startups. However, by honing your recruiting plan, you can undoubtedly win and retain the best employees for your business. Need ideas for your next startup business? Check out these business ideas with no investment costs!