“Acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was -and still is- the most important thing we do.” – Marc Bennioff, Founder and Chairmant and co-CEO of Salesforce.
Congratulations! Your company has succesfully raised funds for the next stage of growth! Hiring will be one of the most urgent matters, so making sure that you have a team with the right soft-and hard skills is more relevant than ever. However, there are a couple of things to take into account when ramping up your hiring efforts. Consider the following aspects from a candidate’s point of view. Let’s assume that you’ve just posted your jobs on a variety of platforms and that on a weekly basis you have to review hundreds of them. How can you make sure that you pay the right attention to the right profile?
As we know, recruiters tend to look approximately 7(!) seconds when assessing the quality of resume. Hence, both candidates and hiring managers need to know how to be relevant – and simultaneously how to extract relevance in this almost split-second moment.
1. Scan for impact
To begin with, when scaling up your company, priorities need to be set. Do you start with onboarding an experienced developer, or is it just as important to have someone who clearly overlooks the finances? In this highly dynamic environment, both are equally important and hence, you will need to take into account, – if for example- the ideas of both the developer and the ramifications of the head of finance align. In this case, you’ll make sure that the candidate has room for impact, experimentation and growth and will more likely stay longer. Remember, retention is just as important as onboarding, and most often more cost-effective.
2. Don’t judge too fast
People applying to start-and scale ups typically have a relatively high intrinsic motivation to make the differene. As an experienced hiring manager, you should know that sometimes intrinsic motivation is more relevant than a good track record. To explain further, a good track record might not be that relevant anymore as industries change.
3. Understand deeply
Nowadays, candidates are more diverse than ever. No developer is the same just as no sales manager is the same. If you understand your professionals well when it comes to personal and professional development, you will come across as attentive, which generally increases your chances of the candidate having a positive experience.
4. Be grateful
Understand that even though you can be critical, candidates are nowadays more able than ever to consider multiple offers simultaneosly and some of them can even work fully remote. Hence, always have a kind tone when first reaching out and learn what the drivers of the candidate were in the first place.
5. Understand that there is competition
As mentioned above, understand that the pool of options has siginicantly increased for professionals, hence, understand your competitors, their strenghts and weaknesses and use them to your advantage. Example : competitor X offers pacakages including a personal learning and development budget valued at $XXXXX. Use this to your advantage!
6. What is good, comes fast – Capitalize!
It is more important than ever to be fast and precise. Did you mutually just have a great feeling? Follow up fast. Talent doesn’t wait!
7. Think short-and long term
Understand that a company that is going into a growth stage has a significant amount of challenges and projects to be realised, and that more often than not – these companies fail. This is not something to take personally, as this is a norm – hence, understand that sometimes it’s better to choose fast and fail faster, than to wait for a longer time without any sinificant hire. The faster you make mistakes, the faster you learn!
8. Consider multiple vendors
If you aren’t happy with the candidates coming in, consider onboarding a multitude of vendors so that you can evaluate them accordingly. Diversification here is key so that you have a good quality standard.
9. Stay critical, but understand the risks of your jobs
With such high volumes being done, there is no chance that no mistakes will be made. Make sure to always double check your information and assumptions and listen as carefully as you can when both having intakes for the vacancy and for the experience of the candidate.
10. Be yourself
There is nothing better than being yourself on the job. Don’t lose your personality in the process by being too critical/burnt out – but learn to plan accordingly so that you can be the best version of yourself, for yourself, but foremost for the candidate. Candidate experience is key!
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