How to Hire Confidently with a Start-Up Business
Determine Your Needs
The first step in hiring for a startup is to figure out what positions need to be filled and exactly what qualities you are looking for in a candidate. To make finding the right candidate easier, ensure your hiring needs align with your company’s core values. Employees in startups often have multiple responsibilities and may gain more as the company grows. You will want candidates who are flexible, open to change, dependable and can multitask. Big shifts and changes occur in startups so you want a candidate who can navigate these challenges.Recruit
Since your startup probably doesn’t have an in-house recruitment team, invest in job posting tools to assist with your hiring process. These job tools will help eliminate time-wasting aspects of the hiring process by enabling you to filter candidates by your specific needs. Write a clear, detailed job description to attract quality candidates. The more detailed the description is, the better. Include all necessary skills, education and other knowledge needed for the position. Try to avoid overly broad descriptions as it may be harder to sift through the candidate pool once you start receiving job inquiries.Interview
Interviews take a lot of time, which is something most startup managers, unfortunately, don’t have a lot of. To ensure you only bring in top candidates for an in-person interview, consider conducting phone interviews to help you narrow down your candidate pool. Phone interviews won’t take up as much of your time and will help you determine which candidates you want to invite in person. An over the phone conversation almost acts as a pre-screening method before a face-to-face interview. Phone interviews can help you:- Discover how interested the candidate is in the position
- Clarify the candidate’s experience
- Assess the candidate’s communication skills
- Get a sense of the candidate’s salary requirements
- See if the candidate will fit in with your company culture
