4 Recruitment Challenges Startups Faced

Recruiting top talents can be really difficult for multinational corporations. But what if you are a startup? Then, it might be even tougher.

Startups face lots of challenges when it comes to recruiting the right person to develop the company alongside the founders. With the right mix of people, you can definitely bring your startup to new heights. So, what are the challenges surrounding recruiting talents for a startup? We interviewed founders and early members of startups from E27 Echelon to find out more.

Finding the Right Fit:

YogaTrial: “They can be very talented but they can have different mindset, the speed of accomplishing the work also matters. It is not easy to find someone that fits into every aspect of the company.”

For most startups, culture is of utmost importance. Hence, it is crucial that a new hire can fit into the company’s culture seamlessly. But it is difficult to distinguish a candidate that would fit perfectly into organization from the start, so many startups have to go through the guessing phase and weed out the misfits later on. This process could be time and resource consuming for the company.

Hiring the Experienced:

Staydilly: “However, as we seek the more experienced hires, we have found it more difficult as the more experience the candidate is. I am of the opinion that this is the main challenge for start-ups, is to hire experienced senior team members who can call upon their wealth of experience to lead a more junior team.”

With someone on board who has been there and done that can make a huge difference. They have the connections and also the experience that fresh graduates do not have. But these senior and experienced personnel most probably have a very stable and well-paying job, the challenge here is, can you convince them to join you?

Lack of Financial Resources:

Swememo: “Yes we have difficulty hiring talent, I think many other also have the same problem as well. When it comes to hiring top talents, you also have to pay top bucks for them. The problem here is that startups like ours have very limited resources.

The amount of financial resources for a startup equals to the runway that your startup have. The further you can stretch your dollar, the more chances your startup gets to succeed. But without top bucks you cannot poach or recruit top talents, especially when you are competing with larger and more established corporation for the same person.

Retaining Talents:

Swememo: “Another problem that we faced is that after investing the time and effort to train a new employee, they leave us after a few months. People don’t think that there is a future in startup.”

After getting the talent, how do you make sure that your startup is not just another stepping stone for them? Wasting the finite amount of resources a startup have on training and salary all for nothing can be a huge problem. This situation should be minimized at all cost and the founders of the startup should consider using non-monetary incentives to retain the talents.

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Many founders of startups have not been in the shoes of an employer and have no idea how to attract talent or how to retain them. But all of a sudden, they are thrown into such a situation where they have no choice but to be competent. As such, the more important skill that a founder should possess is adaptability.

3 Reasons Why You Should Work For Startups

Would you rather work for a startup or an established company?

Most of us would choose the latter, but, should we?

Here are some very good reasons why you should work for startups. These reasons are not just from us, we have interviewed founders and early members of the startup teams at E27 Echelon in Singapore. And these are their responses.

Challenge yourself

Gibbon: “Our team at GIBBON believes that joining a startup goes beyond rising above challenges. In fact, we emphasise specifically on people who are able to adapt and stay resilient despite the lack of clear cut structures and a pretty tenacious and shaky future. GIBBON looks for character among all other things.”

Eunogo: “We are looking for someone that can grow everything together with us, so these specific types of people are not really looking to go for the big-name companies. We are looking for people that are very interested in the product and also believe in the company’s potential.”

Not everybody is suitable to be working for a startup, you have to be very disciplined and also have a huge passion for the company and its industry. It is going to be a very challenging journey ahead due to the uncertainties and also due to the fact that these startups are in relatively new industries. And so, if you are the type that hates stability and wants an exciting working experience, you will be suitable for a startup.

More to learn

Swememo: “The students back in Vietnam wants to work for the big-name companies and get internships there right after they graduate from school. We don’t think that it is a good choice, yes, these big-name companies do look good on their resume or portfolio, but you will just be doing very simple tasks so you do not gain so much experience. But in startup, due to its smaller scale operations, you will get to do everything.”

Cygen: “People think that going into multinational companies will help them, but they are wrong, being in a startup, you can learn processes from end to end. I was from a multinational company before I started my own company, the experience I had in a multinational company was nowhere near what I had learnt from a startup.”

Eunogo: “In startups, one person can be in charge of many different functions such as sales, management and many others. So, if you are to join a startup, you should be willing to take on such responsibilities and view it as a growth opportunity. ”

When working for multinational companies, you will be given very specific duties and very rarely will you get the opportunity to do something else. But startups present an opportunity to do anything and everything within the company itself. These opportunities allow one to develop more skill sets and have a greater understanding of the company.

Be different

Cygen: “If you have a chance to go to a startup, please go. Having a startup experience now could be more valuable for a multinational company. You can grow yourself to be more of an all-rounder after the startup experience.”

When most of your peers are working in a multinational company, take the opportunity and try out for a startup, take a look at what you can learn and how it can help you develop your existing skill sets. One thing that is guaranteed is that, your experience will be vastly different from that of your peers. And who knows, this might be the reason you will stand out in a crowded and competitive environment.

So, why not take a look at what some of the startups are offering and see if it resonates with you. Maybe this could be an eye opening experience that you will never forget.