Stacy Lee December 21, 2021 There are 472 million entrepreneurs worldwide and 305 million total startups annually. Thus, 100 million startups open each year.
Yet, about half of startups survive the first five years. Only 40 percent of startups become profitable, and one over 200 become actual scaleups.
Even though all leaders develop their companies dreaming of exponential growth, only a limited number will succeed. But what does it even mean to establish a successful startup?
In the early phases, most startups experiment with product features, customer acquisition cost (CAC), and market segmentation, striving to build a scalable business approach. They become scaleups after repeatedly scaling their revenues.
But 70 percent of startups scaled too soon in some business aspect, causing them to fail. That’s because they fail to grow exponentially and foster a sustainable model.
Companies shouldn’t rush the process, or they risk not being able to keep up with challenges. Hence, if you want to scale right, you must ensure that expansion doesn’t consume your revenues or resources.
The same applies to scaling recruitment. Once your startup starts growing, you might feel pressured to fill the job openings and address the growth.
However, that’s when you can make the most mistakes. Avoid rushing and reject the belief that you should hire any candidate that seems to meet the job requirements.
You might think that if you don’t recruit someone fast, your startup will stagnate. Yet, if you don’t pay attention to every step of the process, you could choose an underqualified job applicant or an inadequate culture fit.
The Most Common Mistakes Recruiters Make When Scaling Recruitment
1. Not Paying Attention to Candidate Sourcing Channels Differences
Most startup founders rely on their professional network to source qualified talents in the beginning. Once the company grows, it will slowly move from internal hiring to expanding its candidate sourcing channels.
However, business leaders and hiring managers often fail to consider what makes these sources different and beneficial for their recruitment needs. Instead, they focus on identifying the best match and onboarding them quickly so that the new employee can start working.
But not every channel offers a candidate pool with active job seekers. For example, if recruiters center their efforts around social media, such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, they’ll likely encounter passive talents. These undoubtedly offer a wide range of top candidates but might not suit each opening’s requirements.
On the other side, job boards and employee referrals are more likely to lead to qualified talents immediately entering the selection process. Ignoring these candidate sourcing channel differences could cause an increased time-to-hire, futile recruitment efforts, and missing out on top candidates.
2. Letting the Desperation Drive Your Recruitment
The time that passes between deciding you need new employees, receiving a job requisition approval, and shortlisting job applicants can be nerve-racking. Although you know you must stay focused on every detail of the funnel, this period can be overwhelming, particularly when a startup is growing fast.
That’s when many hiring teams start feeling frustrated and eager to conclude the process. When that happens, you must avoid recruiting out of desperation.
Moreover, don’t select a candidate because it’s convenient, or it’s time to choose someone. Be clear about what requirements the ideal job applicant should meet, and only hire when you’re sure the individual will fit the team well.
3. Tracking Inadequate Metrics
When deciding about the new job openings, let the facts drive your decision-making. Be data-driven and rely on key performance indicators.
Use KPIs to determine skills gaps and what teams require reinforcement. Ensure you’re hiring for the right job roles and positions, or you risk creating additional issues without addressing the existing ones.
But pay attention to whether you’re tracking the adequate metrics. Check if these KPIs match the business goals, and recruitment needs to avoid relying on inaccurate data.
How to Scale Your Hiring the Right Way
A growing startup means much more stress for recruiters and newly involved stakeholders. The number of job openings and candidates increases, and if HR leaders fail to establish the right foundations, startups risk mediocre results, lack of efficiency, and qualified job applicants.
Be thorough and not skip any steps in the recruitment process to get the best match as fast as possible. That requires patience and going about scaling the right way.
Avoid hiring only to fill positions, and understand the complexity of the hiring flow in growing startups. Establish a system that fosters transparency between all involved parties and ensures everyone is held accountable for their responsibilities concerning recruitment.
You can achieve that following these steps:
Create a Strategic Recruitment Plan
Accelerated growth demands a strategic recruitment plan that supports your company dynamic. Before the job requisition, think about the activities you perform manually and what you could do with the help of technology.
You might be able to manage on your own one job applicant moving through the funnel, but that will be beyond taxing with dozens at a time. When recruiting at a high volume, you should keep the process under control and take an organized approach.
Be confident about job requisition prioritization and budget management. Finally, keep all the activities visible, so you remember every detail.
Define Why and Who You Hire
Wanting new employees because the workload is increasing might not be enough. You should understand where the skills gaps lie, what departments require additional reinforcement, and how bringing a new person to the team will benefit the company.
Hiring five sales representatives is one thing, and another if you’re looking for 30 employees for each unit. Think about what types of job roles you’re recruiting for, as that could influence what recruiters you require for a specific assignment.
Moreover, consider the recruitment team structure and what resources they need to ensure a seamless hiring process. Encourage the executives to participate in the discussion before the job requisition, as that gives you insights into the headcount plan and how many workers the company needs.
Build an Efficient Team
When scaling the recruitment process, you should ensure your hiring function is big enough to hire multiple people in a short time. Instead of recruiting multiple recruiters to fill 25 positions, establish vertical hiring teams.
For example, one recruiter could take the role of a project manager and supervise the hiring process, coordinating support role efforts. That way, startups could have different recruitment teams for data scientists, user experience, or backend engineers.
Each of these units likely has junior recruiters, researchers, or candidate sourcing professionals, who could manage the funnel. Ensure every team can reach specific and attainable objectives and will collaborate efficiently on identifying ideal job applicants.
Be Data-Driven
Recruiting at scale requires relying on facts instead of allowing the pressure, assumptions, or gut feelings to dictate the recruitment process. Back up every action with data by tracking KPIs and focusing on impartial insights.
Double-check everything before deciding, and leverage technology to reinforce your hiring strategies with reports and analytics.
Ensure Compliance
As your startup grows, it will be more challenging to manage compliance. Your business might expand internationally, bringing in additional policies and recruitment laws.
Think about these requirements before hiring new employees, research international employment legislation, and decide what precautions you could take. For example, you can use innovative technology to stay compliant throughout the recruitment process and not worry about the latest updates and requirements.
Track Every Step of the Process
Inevitably, the hiring process will become increasingly complex as your company expands. Because of that, you should track every activity and detect inefficient practices in your workflow timely.
Check if some sources are failing to prove their efficacy. Consider what recruiters are continuously referring to highly skilled candidates.
Establish recruitment KPIs and measure their effectiveness. HR technology can help you track your efforts and performance, allowing you to tweak your strategies timely.
Choose the Right Technology
Nowadays, HR technology is a must for streamlined processes and efficient recruitment. However, consider what solutions would work best for your business needs and help you scale recruitment the right way.
Research the market and find systems that match your requirements and might help you maintain the quality while speeding up the hiring process. For instance, recruitment SaaS has multiple features that enable you to boost your efforts and identify the most compatible candidate fast.
How can Technology Help Rapidly Growing Startups?
Increasingly, growing startups should leverage every available tool to increase efficiency and eliminate mistakes that recruiters often make when hiring at scale. Seventy-eight percent of employers said that using an ATS in their recruitment helped them find stellar talents easier than ever.
Thus, recruitment software has had a favorable impact on 94 percent of recruiting professionals’ hiring processes. It’s no wonder that the human resources tech market is booming, and many executives are eager to invest and expand their HR toolkit.
The latest HR technology is data-driven and relies on intelligent algorithms and AI to streamline the processes and help recruiters improve their decision-making. As a result, they can accelerate their activities without reducing quality.
Instead, HR professionals can access multiple features in a centralized dashboard and avoid wasting time on repetitive tasks or delegation. Most functions are at their disposal in one place, which is crucial when recruiting at scale.
That way, recruiters can use various features to establish strategies based on facts, track the process, and measure effectiveness. Moreover, they shouldn’t disregard details or skip critical steps, and innovative tech tools help them manage their activities and consider every part of the funnel.
HR technology is also beneficial in enabling startups to keep up with compliance and ensure recruiters continuously perform in the legal framework. Besides, rapidly growing companies can leverage the collaborative tools for team communication and share relevant information with third parties.
Although various systems can cover all these points, the recruitment SaaS features go beyond what traditional HR software typically offers.
What is SaaS Recruitment Software?
SaaS represents the acronym for Software as a Service. However, SaaS is also known as on-demand software, meaning that its databases and functions are hosted on the cloud.
Hence, startups and HR professionals can subscribe for specific features that match their business needs and recruit at scale requirements. It’s a cost-effective solution because it doesn’t oblige you to pay for more than you require.
Instead, you can alter your subscription level once your needs expand, which is advantageous for rapidly growing startups. Recruitment SaaS relies on web delivery, so you need an internet connection to access your account.
However, that also means that it’s accessible to you everywhere and whenever you’re online. You also don’t have to worry about maintenance and upgrades because the vendor ensures your software is always up-to-date.
On top of these perks, you also don’t have to invest in employee training as the recruitment SaaS is easy to use and doesn’t require an IT infrastructure for implementation. Thanks to that, you can focus on activities that add value and allow you to recruit at scale without missing any detail.
Artificial intelligence is at the core of this software, removing second-guessing from the process and making your decision-making factual and efficient. These features give speed to your recruitment and insights that let you know if you’re making progress.
Here’s how the functions of the recruitment SaaS can help you scale your hiring.
How to Use the Recruitment SaaS to Scale Recruitment
Recruitment SaaS features can help you scale up your recruitment process and align your actions with the business objectives.
Here’s how you can achieve that:
1. Identify the Most Compatible Candidates Fast
When your startup starts expanding, you might feel pressure to fill job openings, but rushing the process could cause more damage than benefits. Recruitment SaaS includes candidate sourcing features that enable speeding up the hiring without diminishing the talent pool quality.
For example, you can import LinkedIn profiles or parse job applicants’ public information and add it to their application. That way, you can identify qualified candidates faster and have their data in one place.
Moreover, you can share your job ads on various job boards and social media channels and reach talents that fit the vacancy requirements. Finally, you can centralize all your employment website applications instead of having to log in to various sites every day and review multiple resumes and cover letters.
2. Use Algorithms to Match Candidates to Job Descriptions
Receiving AI-driven recommendations on candidate compatibility would be great, wouldn’t it? With the recruitment SaaS, this can become a regular practice in your hiring process.
The recommendations feature analyzes the available vacancies using intelligent algorithms and matches them to the most suitable job applicants within seconds. The AI-powered engine shortens the time you need to shortlist candidates and suggests those who already fit the non-negotiable criteria.
You can alter filters to get the best match and review job applications that passed a thorough screening. Besides identifying the most compatible individual faster, you’ll also streamline the process and provide a better candidate experience.
3. Collaboration Tools Nurture Transparency
Once your startup starts growing, processes will no longer include only the hiring manager and recruiters. Instead, new stakeholders are involved in the recruitment, which requires continuous and open communication.
Recruitment SaaS includes tools that help you foster internal and external collaboration, such as team chat, integrated emails, roles and permissions, and job requisition planning. Thanks to these, you can ensure everyone knows their responsibilities and does their part to achieve the team goals.
4. Drive KPI Effectiveness
Key performance indicators help recruiters get insights into whether their recruitment efforts are efficient and contribute to progress. Reports and analytics are one of the core recruitment SaaS features and enable you to get AI-powered data and access your KPIs in a customizable dashboard.
Moreover, you can track multiple significant activities at once and follow your team’s progress, allowing you to tweak strategies as needed.
5. Optimize Time Management
Recruitment SaaS can help you save time and plan your activities directly in the dashboard, ensuring you don’t forget any part of the funnel or schedule details. This feature allows adding assignments and events to your interface, receiving reminders, and establishing efficient time management.
6. Boost Your Employer Branding
Startups that are in the process of scaling up should ensure their brand is recognizable and can attract the most compatible candidates. Because of that, they should leverage their career pages to highlight their culture, benefits, and values.
Recruitment SaaS offers career page templates that you can customize to reflect your employer branding and send the right message to your target audience.
Conclusion
SaaS leverages AI, enabling you to make the hiring process more data-driven, reduce bias, and ensure a more inclusive experience that helps your startup expand the talent pool. Its features help scale the recruitment and maintain the quality of hire.
Experiment with the possibilities of the recruitment SaaS and discover the realm of a multifunctional dashboard and AI-powered algorithms. Start scaling up the hiring process and try a 14-day free trial.
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