Building a team is one of the most important tasks for any startup founder. The team is the one that is going to make the founder’s idea into a reality, the team is the one that executes the founder’s vision, the team is the one that is going to take the startup from 0 to 1.
Being a startup it’s obvious you cannot take the traditional route of using staffing firms or job boards to source job-seekers. Both of them are expensive and do not get committed job-seekers who can stick with the highs and lows of a startup journey.
So how do you source good job-seekers at zero to low cost and build your team?
There is no one answer and you need to use multiple of the following strategies to build your team.
#1 Peer to peer referral
Be shameless and talk about your startup at every conference, party, coffee shop meetup, or ceremonial gathering. Express your vision every time as if you are talking for the first time. Your eyes should literally spark when you talk about your startup every single time. And in due course of time, you will be surprised in having people referring you to job seekers that would align with your vision and are looking for startups like yours to work for.
#2 Use personal social media handles
Before you startup, spend a couple of years building the network both personally and on social media sites. I found LinkedIn to be the best source for networking with like-minded people. But you can use traditional social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram or domain-specific sites such as Angel.co, stackoverflow.com, Quora, Whatsapp Groups, etc.
Once you are active on social media sites, push your job-seekers requirements and ask for referrals. Share job requirements on your handles with good hashtags that could make the post viral.
#3 Whatsapp Status Page
Yup, that’s right, your Whatsapp status page is one of the most often visited pages by your phone connections. Keep posting regular updates on your startup and job-seekers requirements. Use freely available graphic tools such as Piktochart or others to build high-fidelity “We are Hiring” cards. Push these cards on Whatsapp and all other social media handles with good tags to attract eyeballs.
[Image courtesy: https://www.postermywall.com/]
#4 Startup focused job boards
Startup-focused platforms such as Angel.co, Internshala, and others are good water holes where a lot of potential job-seekers come searching for startup openings. Create your startup profile with a clear vision and what you could offer in return to potential job-seekers.
#5 Firing is a lot expensive than hiring
Don’t be in a hurry to recruit people. Take your time and assess them properly. Anyone who says “I don’t have time to attend your MCQ assessment” or “I am over 10+ years experienced and don’t want to show my coding skills”, say thank you for your time.
Remember this or best put it on a sticky note “Firing is a lot more expensive than hiring”.
A lot of professionals use startups as a springboard or temporary rafts before their next big jump. Which is fair for their careers but is a disaster for your startup. Finding the right job-seekers is literally like finding a needle in the hay, you need to take your time.
Conclusion: These 5 strategies are no magic bullet that would guarantee success but would certainly get you started. So get out there and take the leap to build something amazing.
Please visit hirex.ai to know more about our free plans to access job-seekers on aptitude, coding, communication, and many more. Also, please do like this post on LinkedIn to spread the message.
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