Recruiting the Best Employees for Every Stage of Your Startup

Hiring the proper personnel is critical to the success of your business, as we’ve discussed in prior blog entries. It’s critical to understand the sort of employee you’ll need at each step of your company’s lifetime. Here’s a step-by-step approach to recruiting the appropriate people at each stage of your startup:

Phase 1 (one to fifty employees): Thinkers

The beginning of a new company is the most turbulent. Your team will face the greatest amount of unpredictability, and issues will alter substantially on a daily basis. As a result, you’ll need to recruit thinkers at first, individuals who thrive on creative problem solving and planning. They will be creating — and re-creating — your goal statement, product, business procedures, and other elements. According to Carrie Simonds, vice president of people and brand at Pocket Gems, you’ll want to recruit strong generalists. These personnel include entrepreneurs, innovators, designers, and R&D professionals with expertise generating new products and enterprises, or just innovative ways of doing things.

Recruiting Pointers:

Consider recruiting fresh college grads seriously. While kids may lack experience, their youth frequently brings new ways of thinking about, adjusting to, and dealing with difficulties. Furthermore, their desire and enthusiasm are important resources to have when it comes to getting a firm off the ground.

Make certain that all founders and early employees are actively engaged in the hiring process, from recruiting through onboarding.

Explore all of your team members’ alumni networks.

Attend business conferences and events to network.

Builders and Improvers (Phase 2: 51-150 Employees)

As your startup takes off, you’ll need personnel who can help you build your company quickly. At this point, your startup will need builders, individuals capable of managing the high rates of change that precede the introduction of a large new product or service.

You’ll also need improvers, or folks who know how to reengineer and improve wasteful processes. Hiring the correct people at this stage of your business is critical to ensure your development is sustainable. According to Adler, by bringing scalability and structure to your company’s processes, improvers offer direction and control while eliminating needless bureaucracy and bottlenecks.

Recruiting Pointers:

Put your networks to the test. Request that your staff advertise job postings on social media. According to Simonds, word-of-mouth recruitment is crucial as your business establishes itself.

Request that your investors go through their networks to assist you in finding the suitable builders. They have a financial interest in your company, therefore they should be eager to assist.

Begin by engaging specialist recruiters who can help you develop a successful recruitment team.

Producers (Phase 3: 151-200)

If you’ve been employing the proper people, company operations should be running well by this stage of your startup. You’ll be able to forecast your company’s requirements considerably farther in the future. This implies you may begin employing producers, individuals who can adhere to defined procedures and perform jobs at a high degree of quality on a consistent basis. According to Alder, producers are “the lifeblood of every successful firm.” The greatest manufacturers pay attention to detail and provide excellent customer service.

Recruiting Pointers:

Look for folks that are driven and willing to learn early in their careers. Good producers strive to develop a solid skill set in order to subsequently become builders, improvers, and thinkers.

Your recruiting procedure should be properly discussed and recorded by this point. According to Simonds, this holds both hiring managers and recruiters equally responsible for attracting the top candidates.

At this point, online recruitment networks like as LinkedIn, Startuppers, and Angellist are useful tools to guarantee you’re employing the proper people.

Phase 4 (around 200 people): Specialists

If you’ve progressed to this point in your firm, the need for highly specialised staff will increase. Work that you previously outsourced to contractors now makes more sense to do in-house. Consider recruiting experts in public relations, social media, and international consultancy, advises Simonds. Hiring the correct staff becomes the most challenging at this point since you’ll need individuals who can do highly particular duties successfully, and these people may be outside your present employee networks.

Recruiting Pointers:

Make the most of all available recruiting opportunities. This involves utilising in-house recruiters as well as recruiting companies.

Offer significant signing incentives to attract highly recognised professionals, as well as large referral bonuses to workers.

Make sure to increase your startup’s visibility at job fairs and expos.