The start of the 4th Industrial Revolution calls for a globalised workforce to fuel proper training and research to create new technologies and innovations at a faster pace than ever before. This unleashes a global competition of young talents as start-ups endeavour to innovate the next ‘big thing’. With little resources, time and often an exorbitant amount of work, recruiting can seem like a big burden and challenge to your start-up. In this post, I would like to point out the top four common recruitment challenges and talk about how to overcome them.
Lack of time and HR experience
The most common start-up struggle is the lack of time you have to not only carry out your day-today routine tasks like your services or product development, but also to cater to the small things that will make your business grow – like recruitment as this involves creating attention for the job opening, answering all enquiries, pre-screening, interviewing and ultimately choosing the perfect person for the job. That’s another thing, the lack of recruiting experience. As a young start-up how do you know who is truly the right person for you with similar values, vision and can keep up with the vigorous speed of your growing business.
How can you combat this? The important thing here is time management and efficiency. Scouting for the right person needs as to be attended to by using online channels, getting external help or even word of mouth within the internal start-up bubble. You have the whole “start-up” world to your disposal!
Unknown Start-up
As a birthing start-up, it is impossible to have much of a reputation. But presence is important, people want to know that they are contributing to something bigger especially when the nature of a 21st century start-up is more outcome/problem solving/efficiency enhancing based than it is luxury based. So be present as much as possible, online and on ground. Be present at meet ups, be present in different online entrepreneurship groups, make a name for yourself and meet people in different branches in the start-up scene – you might just find the assistance you are looking for.
Limited budget
Let’s be honest, one of the key three struggles a start-up faces are its finances, time and human capacity. But similar to my previous point, it’s time to whip your PR skills. With an incredibly close knit community, you’d be surprised how fast the word can spread like wildfire across the community! Think of perhaps getting a young intern that is eager to learn and experience the entrepreneurial lifestyle who is just as skilled and committed as a graduate. The good thing is that with short term programmes international students may be able to intern in your start-ups during their break which can give your business some exposure to the international consumer market.
Formalities
As fancy as hiring an international may sound, it also comes with a lot of formalities. The EU has made things easier for hiring on a continental scope, but formalities go beyond visas. There are contracts that need to be signed, insurance that need to be settled, if we talk about freshly graduated international students it would seem necessary to find them a place to stay or at least assist in house hunting. There is an entire list that goes beyond ‘just hiring’. Again, get help. There are a couple of organisations that assist with these formalities and some even take care of the whole recruitment process for you. For more check out Empower Austria, which will run again for the 6th time this Summer.
The important thing to remember is that you are not alone. With the booming start-up market, I’m sure that you can find someone to talk to regarding your problem and the amazing thing about this tight knit community is that it allows you to share your experiences and give advice to each other. Also there are so many institutions that cater to young start-ups, do some research and I assure you, you will find the right person for your start-up!