10 Hiring Strategies For Your Startup

Picking the perfect employees for your startup isn't always an easy task. Keep reading to learn 10 hiring strategies for your startup.

When you're launching your startup, few things are as important as the people you hire. After all, no one can do it all alone- and thinking that you can is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. And yet, many business owners and entrepreneurs fail to take this crucial activity seriously...and pay for it later. Luckily, there are a few hiring strategies you can use to ensure you hire the best talent. Read on to learn how you can hire the most motivated, productive, and enthusiastic employees for your startup.

Don't Hire Without Reading These Hiring Strategies

After you have your funding sorted, your next biggest barrier is hiring. You need to have the right people, in the right positions, at the right time. These strategies will help you make smart hiring choices:

1. Know Your Values

Before you begin hiring, you need to know what your values are as a business. Maybe you value innovation, teamwork, and kindness. Or perhaps you think hard work, velocity, and enthusiasm are more important. Once you know your company's values, you can begin looking for employees who embody those values.

2. Build Your Brand

By now, most business owners understand that they need to build their brand with their customers. But it's also hugely important that you're building your brand with the people who may one day work for your company. These days, people are prioritizing working with companies that they respect. So if you want top-tier talent, you need to build a brand that people will want to work for. As you begin hiring, encourage employees to post reviews on social media and review websites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor.

3. Use the Right Technology

A survey by Jibe found that recruiters are finding it difficult to keep up with millennials- the mobile generation. As a result, they're becoming more obsolete to the tech-savvy job seekers in this generation. When you're attracting talent, you need to use HR tech that will make life easier for both you and your applicants. It needs to provide an up-to-date interface for your prospects, and should also monitor your analytics so you can see which hiring strategies you're getting right, and where you're going wrong.

4. Consider Hiring Remotely

The freelancer economy has changed the way we all do business. Remote work is becoming more and more popular around the world. If you're not considering remote team members as one of your hiring strategies, you're missing out. Employees have realized that they no longer need to go into an office and can instead excel at their jobs from anywhere. This is great news for start-ups. Instead of spending on expensive office space, you can invest more into the people who will make your company great.

5. Ask the Right Questions

Once you've found some prospective team members, it's time to get started with interviewing. The last thing you should do is ask for information that's already on their resume. Instead, your goal should be to find out how their actions relate to your company's values. You can do this by asking behavioral questions. Behavioral questions help predict how that person would perform for your business. Here are some examples:

What do you consider your greatest achievement so far?
How do you prioritize your work each day?
What made you frustrated at work last month?
What were your personal goals last year?

6. Watch out for Bottlenecks

Sure, it's important to properly screen and interview all candidates. But if you're putting them through two phone interview, a coding interview, a team meet-and-greet, and an on-site project don't be surprised when you have a high drop-out rate. Your hiring strategies shouldn't be torture- for you... or the people you hire. You need to be continually tweaking your processes to see when your onboarding and hiring funnel need work.

7. Make it Special

This is one of the most important hiring strategies. Prospective employees want to feel wanted. And they also want to know that they're joining a team that will value their work. Once you're ready to offer a position, it's important to have many different touch-points with that candidate. This is especially true for start-ups- your employees are facing a degree of uncertainty when they agree to work with you. Take your new employee out to dinner with their partner or spouse. Ensure you immediately reply to any questions, and encourage other team members to reach out and introduce themselves.

[TWEETBLOCK text="Tweet this"] Your startup team is one of the most critical pieces to success. -Aaron Vick[/TWEETBLOCK]

8. Always Move Quickly

The best candidates are always in high demand. Many businesses have turned to headhunting and try to lure top talent away from their competitors. If you're interviewing someone and you know they're perfect for the job, move quickly. It's likely that they'll also be interviewing elsewhere and may receive several offers at a time. Be responsive, keep in contact, and be ready to move immediately once you've found that perfect person.

9. Prioritize Diversity

In this day and age, diversity should be one of your key hiring strategies. Bringing together people from a range of backgrounds is one of the best ways to ensure success for your startup. This is particularly true if you're focusing on innovation- when people are bouncing ideas off each other and bringing their experiences to the table, magic happens. Look at ways that you can create inbound interest from people who would meet your diversity definition.

10. Keep it Ongoing

Even after you've hired all the people you need, you should always be recruiting. That means continuously engaging potential employees at networking events and on social media. That will build you a roster of potential employees for the future. Ensure that you're protecting your company culture. Offer your employees growth and development opportunities so they stay engaged. Provide praise and feedback so they feel valued, and you'll gain a reputation as an excellent employer. It's also a good idea to keep your brand top-of-mind for your prospects. Even if they're not ready to move to your company, keep in touch. Send a Christmas card, forward on an interesting article, or give them a quick call once in a while to see how they're going. This will mean that when they're ready to change companies, you'll be the first person they think of. Are you using the above hiring strategies? Or maybe you'd like to learn how I can help you grow your startup? Get in touch today and let's talk.