Build a recruiting program for startups in 10 easy steps
Plus, Pocket, the bookmarking service to find now and read later
Welcome to another edition of ProductiveGrowth 🌱, monthly stories about productivity, leadership, motivation, and anything else that allows us to work less and achieve more.
First time reading? Sign up here.
Everything You Need to Know if You’re Hiring for a Startup
Hiring for startups isn’t an easy job. You have to compete with bigger companies, and startups don’t usually have the budget to offer the same salaries, benefits or career opportunities. Enterprises also usually have a larger employer brand presence along with a recruiting budget and team, allowing them to be at the top of candidates’ minds.
If you’re responsible for hiring at a startup, it’s common that you feel like Sisyphus moving a rock up a hill only for it to fall back when you’re almost at the top.
But hiring for a startup isn’t always frustrating, it can also be an excellent opportunity to:
Build processes from scratch
Hire a team that’s aligned with your business values
Learn from people with different backgrounds
Embrace diversity
Build a culture of work-life balance
Grow together
Here’s a simplified overview of how you can build a recruiting program for a startup, but you can also incorporate it into your hiring program despite the size to make it more agile and effective. Let’s dive in!
Hiring for startups vs enterprises
In essence, all hiring programs are the same. If you’re in charge of hiring, you:
Define a business need that must be filled by someone.
Come up with a job description, salary range, and a promotion campaign that varies depending on your recruiting budget.
Review the candidates, conduct interviews, make an offer, and close the position.
One of the biggest differences between hiring for enterprises and for startups is that you can’t make people go through a lengthy and annoying process for free.
Big companies like Apple, Amazon or Google can make the candidate go through eight different steps before they hire because they have a reputation that stands by them. While I don’t agree with making applicants do all this work for free, it’s a reality that these companies have that leverage.
People who apply for a job at one of these big companies know that it will be good for their careers. They’re going to have a good salary, and that there’s prestige in working for them. So they put up with that lengthy hiring process.
A startup that asks for the same won’t get many applicants unless you’re paying for each one of those steps or you’re offering a very attractive salary. It’s not that your business is less important, but it’s certainly not as popular.
Another key difference between hiring for larger companies versus startups is bureaucracy.
“At an enterprise company you'll experience more bureaucracy when it comes to recruiting which can lead to a longer time-to-hire,” shared Amanda Arvizu, People Operations Manager at OpenSpace. “Recruiting at startups is usually much faster as decisions on candidates can be made quicker. However, it’s more likely that positions are put on hold (usually due to funding) or candidates drop out of the process as they accept offers from competitors.”
In either case, it’s really important to have a clear understanding of the job description and to find candidates with the right skills and cultural fit.
When is hiring better than outsourcing?
It’s very common for startups to outsource some of the work. In some cases, it can be less expensive than hiring someone full-time, and it’s easier to end the contract in case you run out of funding. However, not all practices can be outsourced. These are some scenarios when you should consider hiring instead of outsourcing:
When you have an ongoing need. For example, in the beginning, it may make sense to have legal services outsourced, but as you grow and you find yourself needing these services more than, let’s say 25-30 hours a week, it may be time to look for someone to do it in-house.
When you think you can find someone who can do it better in terms of costs and quality. This usually happens when you need someone to be fully devoted to your business, and that’s rarely the case when you work with agencies. They have the same people working on multiple projects at the same time.
When you have a role that will differentiate you from competitors. This is particularly helpful when you offer a service that your main competitors don’t. For example, let's say you sell plants online and you offer a free yard landscaping consultation. Similar websites are regular marketplaces for people to buy plants without any additional perks. Since the landscaper differentiates you from competitors, you consider having them as your employee.
Hiring or outsourcing is a “decision that’s usually based on a few factors such as: comparing costs of both options, quality of talent that outsourced agencies or consulting firms can provide, and making sure you adhere to any legal compliance that differentiates a contractor vs an employee. If the company highly values providing a uniform and unique company experience then you probably want to hire internally,” explained Amanda.
How to build a recruiting program (A step-by-step guide)
If you’re responsible for hiring, you need to come up with a standardized process. This can obviously be adjusted over time, but as your company grows it’s important to have something written down as a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that you can eventually delegate to others without any additional hassle. Here are some steps that you should follow to build your hiring program:
1. Identify business needs
It’s crucial that you can identify what you need this person to do and how it will benefit the business. Some questions to answer during this step:
Has the workload increased drastically?
Is this going to be necessary long-term? (If not, outsourcing can be a better option.)
How will the business benefit from hiring this person?
What are the daily responsibilities this person will handle? How do those responsibilities translate into workload? Does the business need a full- or part-time hire?
Can someone else do this job?
2. Come up with the job description and organization structure
Once you’ve defined that the business need is valid, you need to write a document that lists all the responsibilities that this person will be expected to perform. If possible, add expected results in three, six and twelve months. Define where this person fits under your startup structure and who this person is going to report to.
This is a step that can be tiring but shouldn’t be overlooked. If you have a clear description of what this person will do, the rest of your job will be much easier.
3. Define your candidate persona and work on your employer brand
Just like brand managers need to work on their buyer personas to identify and humanize their target audience, you should work on understanding who is the ideal persona for your company and roles. To do so, you should define:
Their level of education
If they have a higher degree or any certifications
Their years of experience
Their values and principles
Geographical location
Professional and personal goals and motivators
Communication style
Work preference (remote, hybrid, office)
Salary expectations
Any other quality that’s relevant to your startup
According to Amanda Aarvizu, you should also make sure you’re consistently working on your employer's brand. This is one of the things that will help you win candidates over well-established companies.
“As a candidate moves forward in the interview stage they will more than likely do their research,” Amada shared. “If you're not putting effort into your employer branding the postings and jobs won't attract top talent.”
4. Define the salary range
Salary range means how much you’re willing to pay to fill a certain position. It should have a minimum and maximum value that you can offer the candidate depending on their experience. This also helps you standardize levels within your company and ensure you’re offering everyone fair pay. If you have two people doing the same job, they should be getting paid a similar amount that may vary based on performance. Amanda says there are several steps to define a salary range, including:
Evaluate the job description requirements. Take into account years of experience, educational background, job responsibilities, and seniority.
Define the candidate's persona. What your ideal candidate should be earning based on their experience, previous company, and industry.
Define the geographic location. The cost of living changes depending on a candidate’s location. Research the market where you’d like this role to be located.
Use salary benchmarking tools. Some good options include Glassdoor, The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Salary.com, Indeed, and LinkedIn Salary.
Look at other similar job descriptions. Many offer salary ranges which can be used as a salary benchmark. Update your job description if needed.
Review your salary range once you have interviewed a few good candidates. See if their expectations are above or below your range and adjust accordingly.
You should also match this with your available budget and other benefits like equity.
5. Write the job posting
You need to be able to explain exactly what you’re looking for so you can find candidates that match those requirements. A good job posting isn’t the one that’s extremely long; it’s the one that’s clear.
Some companies add the salary range to the job posting. That way, you’ll only get candidates who find it to be an appealing offer.
6. Define where and when to publish
Just like you wouldn’t pay for an Instagram ad to promote your ice cream shop in Oklahoma to people who live in Jamaica, you should hand-pick the job boards where you’ll share your open positions. Some good options are Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, JustRemote, Google for Jobs, and SimplyHired.
It’s also crucial that you take advantage of your network. Ask colleagues, friends, family, and followers to share your post with others who might be interested in increasing your chances of getting the word out there.
7. Review candidates and invite them to an interview
If you’ve done all the previous steps, it’s likely that you’ll have some candidates to review. The first thing you should do is read their resumes to see if their experience matches your job search. Come up with an internal evaluation system that lets you define the candidates you'll be inviting to an interview, those you might invite to interview for other roles, and those who don’t fit the role.
After you’ve created a list of interviewees, contact each person to schedule an interview. Make sure you explain your hiring process beforehand. Disclose how many interviews they’ll have and if they need to do any type of assessment.
8. Interview candidates and evaluate their skills
You can have async or live interviews to screen your candidates. Make sure you come up with an evaluation system to ensure fairness across all hires. Some examples of how to review and rate candidates are:
“First, I rate them on their work experience. Next, culture-add. What are they bringing to the company and how will they help make us better? Third, I like to rate their experience with tools and systems. Finally, I rate us to see if we can provide what they are looking for in the next 2-5 years in order to retain them and keep them engaged,” explained Amanda Arvizu.
“We typically rate candidates on a scale of 1-5. One being the lowest and five the highest. We rate candidates based on their skill set, experience, and fit with the company. We also consider how well they were interviewed and whether they seem like a good cultural fit,” shared Kate Zhang, Founder of Kate Backdrop.
9. Build a pipeline of candidates and manage them through a talent management system
Startups need to be agile. A great way to be ahead of business needs is by having an updated pipeline of candidates who are ready to be offered a position at your company.
Get a talent management system or an applicant tracker to simplify the way you work. While this isn’t something to implement right away, it’s good to look into options for when you start to grow and automate a big part of your hiring process.
10. Bring them onboard
Lastly, you’ll want to be ready to onboard them, teach them how your startup works, and give them all the information to set them up for success. While an onboarding plan is rarely a priority for an early-stage startup, as soon as your team has a little bandwidth, it’s crucial that they create an onboarding process together. It will simplify your hiring process and will allow you to be sure that everyone is doing their job as expected and following the right procedures.
TL;DR - Building a hiring program for a startup of fewer than 30 employees
If you need to build a hiring program for your startup. Keep these things in mind:
You compete against enterprises for the same talent
Define when you need to outsource or hire
Come up with your end-to-end hiring process and pay attention to:
Identifying business needs
Writing a clear job description and posting
Building your employer brand
Offering a competitive salary and sharing it upfront
Posting on the right job boards
Building an evaluation system to rate your candidates
Growing a pipeline
Focusing on the onboarding process
Are you ready to hire your next employee?
Thanks for reading,
Camila Mirabal
Edited by: Lauren Maslen
EDITOR’S PICKS
How To Learn Stuff Quickly.- Having access to free, unlimited content doesn’t mean that learning has become easier. It’s certainly more accessible, but self-guided learning can be hard, especially for software developers. This article shares seven tips to become a better learner by having a mindset of change and mixing different ways of learning.
Why Now’s the Perfect Time to Retool Your Hiring Process and Get Creative.- It’s possible that your recruiting team is struggling to find the right candidates, or maybe your company has stopped hiring. In any case, you should consider reviewing your recruiting process. This article shares seven ideas to rethink the way you attract candidates.
4 Hybrid Work Initiatives to Keep Your Business On Track.- We’ve all heard that working from home doesn’t affect productivity. In fact, many people would rather be doing it than commuting to work every day. But there are some things that a video conference can’t replace, so the hybrid work model seems here to stay. In this article, Heidi Zak, Co-founder and CEO of Thirdlove, shares the four initiatives she’s implemented at her company to make the hybrid work model work.
DISCOVER:
Reading articles related to your field of study or areas of interest can help you stay on top of new findings and make you a better professional. But you probably forget to save the blog links you find interesting, and when you do save them, you might forget where you left them. Pocket is a bookmarking service that lets you save, tag, and share interesting articles for you to read later. Download the Google extension to Save to Pocket.
SCROLLING THROUGH
This tweet by NessLabs founder, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, shares a helpful framework to identify why you’re putting things off. Ask yourself these questions and reduce your procrastination.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The best AI note-taker for remote and international teams.- We asked seven English speakers from all over the world to read a script, recorded the sessions through four different AI note-takers, copied the transcripts and compared them to the scripts. We then assigned a percentage of accuracy per theme and accent. Which AI note-taker was the best? Read our findings by clicking the link.
Unleash Your Productivity By Performing Weekly Reviews. - A big cause of procrastination is not knowing what to do first. Weekly reviews are a way of organizing your work that is pending, done and in progress. They also help you prioritize your work and reduce work-related stress. Read how to do them in the link above.
Naps: The Best Productivity Booster.- Resting is the only thing that will make you not feel tired. But there are some ways to shortcut that resting process during the day so you can meet all your responsibilities without feeling sleepy. This article shares the power of naps and introduces the concept of coffee naps.
WORLD EXPLORER
Would it be worth crash landing on a remote plateau if it meant getting a waterfall named after you? In 1937, that’s exactly what Jimmie Angel did. He crashed his Flamingo monoplane, El Rio Caroni, on a remote Venezuelan tepui overlooking a giant waterfall. Trekking 11 days down from the Auyan-tepui back to civilization, Jimmie, his wife and his two other passengers managed to survive the Venezuelan jungle by reaching the village of Kamarata on the other side of the tepui.
News of Jimmie’s crash spread far and wide, making his name synonymous with the falls he first reported accurately on maps in 1933.
Turns out the giant waterfall was the world’s tallest, uninterrupted waterfall, and the trek hasn’t gotten much easier since Jimmie Angel’s day. Want to try to reach the falls yourself? Here’s how you can:
After getting to Venezuela, fly from Puerto Ordaz or Ciudad Bolívar to Canaima.
From there, hire a guide to float up river—a trip that typically spans 2-3 days—exploring tepuis, waterfalls, rivers and lagoons along the way. Check out Canaima lagoon and several waterfalls such as Hacha, Sapo and Sapito. One night is spent in the camp near Angel Falls while the other can be spent in Canaima or another spot.
After days of traveling, it’s finally time to hike to the base of the falls.
If you want to follow in Jimmie’s footsteps, try a flyover of the falls for spectacular views.
Have you visited Angel Falls? Tell us about your experience!
What did you think of this issue? 🤔
Amazing 🙌 • Good 👏 •Meh 👌 •Bad 😴
See you next issue,
Steve 👋
SUPPORT, CONTRIBUTE or SPONSOR
If you liked this issue buy us a coffee to support our work.
Ask a question, Write a guest post, share your story, or recommend an article: reply to this email or submit it here
Sponsor a post or social media by getting your media kit: here
If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, consider sharing 📨 it with friends, or subscribing if you haven’t already.