As a start-up, you need to connect with them and feel they understand your businessHiring the right staff is a tricky process, especially if your business is a bit quirky or is a start-up that is big on ideas but short on budget. You need to be able to compete with the big organisations to recruit top staff, which means you may need to find quirky ways to recruit the best employees.
As a start-up, you need to connect with them and feel they understand your business. Established companies can afford to hire head-hunters to scout around for the best jobseekers and can offer top salaries, bonuses, pensions and other perks to attract people.
Recruit your kind of people on social media
Rather than be a passive recipient of job applications, why not be pro-active and reach out to your kind of people? As a start-up, you might be looking for achingly-trendy people to join you or innovative people in the high-tech world. If this is the case, why not handle the recruitment yourself rather than using a traditional recruitment agency that won’t necessarily understand where you are coming from?
A quick internet search will find the influential and cool people in your field. Find out where they hang out online and put out your recruitment. You might find your ideal employees through Twitter or a blog. You could also shoot your own short recruitment campaign and put it out on YouTube to show people that your start-up is a fun place to work.
Invite applicants to an open day at the office
When you are looking at a pile of emails from people wanting to work for you, how do you decide which ones to interview? This is easy; invite them all. Throw open the doors to your office and invite everyone to come along on the same day.
Not everyone will turn up, which means you have immediately eliminated the potential candidates who are not really interested. Those who accept the invitation can have a look around your workplace, talk to their potential colleagues and find out whether the opportunity would suit them. You can also see how they interact with one another and with your employees.
You can hold group interviews to find out more about each candidate and see whether they are capable of bouncing ideas off each other and respecting one another’s point of view.
Give them the freedom to work their own hours
Many creative people, either artistically or in the IT world, feel restricted by regular office hours; therefore, why not let them work when they want? If they are forced to work 9-5, they may spend time clock-watching rather than getting creative.
Their best time may be 4am, or they may prefer burning the midnight oil. If this is the case, let them work when they are at their peak.
Other companies that have tried this approach have found their employees are more productive and put in more hours, which means everyone wins!
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