Starting from scratch is a challenging yet exciting process at the same time. Not everyone has the idea for startups. If you have a brilliant idea for your startup but don’t have the right individuals, say, dedicated development teams, to implement your idea, then your project will be at a loss.
That’s why recruiting the right people in your team is the most important and beneficial step in startup hiring. However, recruiting the right candidates for a startup is easier said than done, especially when it comes to hiring software developers, whether on-site or remote developers. So what are the common challenges faced in startup hiring?
The Challenges of Growing Startup Teams and Startup Hiring
While recruiting the right individuals in your team, you may face huge challenges. Some of the common challenges faced by enterprises are discussed below.
1. Hiring the right candidate
It’s an extremely tough job to hire the right candidates for your startup because this is the job on which the whole progress of your startup depends. For example, if you have a task but you don’t have the right person to execute that task, then you can be at a loss. So always make a wise choice while hiring the best candidates for your startup.
2. Right distribution of roles within the team
Due to being inexperienced, most startups find it difficult to allot the proper job role and responsibilities to the candidates. This causes a lot of operational issues, leads to distrust, and can even lead to candidates quitting early.
3. Finance management
Finance management is a difficult task, whether you are paying from your pocket or you have investors backing your startup. Financial mismanagement can lead to serious issues and even force you to shut down the organization. Thus, most startups nowadays hire a financial consultant to negate these issues.
4. Security threats
In today’s digital world, cybercrime is prevalent, and it is growing with each passing day. Even well-established businesses have fallen prey to cyber-attacks, causing them major tangible and intangible losses. A startup can fall prey to such attacks, as they make an easy target. While these attacks cannot be prevented altogether, having a cyber security expert is recommended in startup hiring.
6. Communication issues
Keeping the whole team on one note in a startup is another main challenge faced by the startups as there are communication gaps between the employees. Things sometimes do not go as they were planned. For example, there can be communication issues in the dedicated development team if there are multiple hierarchical roles within the team.
7. Building a customer base
It’s the most important part of establishing your business. Customers play an important role in the progress of the business. If you don’t have enough customers, your business can’t grow. So it would be best to market your products in such a way that customers buy them without much thought.
8. Lack of local talent/skills
One of the biggest challenges faced in startup hiring is finding local talent. The problem scales up if the startup is in a tier-2 or tier-3 city. However, due to the pandemic, hiring remote developers has gained prominence and can help solve the issue. As remote hiring becomes more common, we can see startups hire remote developers frequently and on a large scale.
What to Look For In Developers/ Team?
If your startup is creating or building tech products, then software developers work as the central heart of the entire project. Software developers are the ones who transform your ideas into real-world products. Be wise in selecting the right candidate when you hire software developers for your startup.
What qualities to look for in the developers?
Selecting the right candidates for your startup is a difficult task. You will receive hundreds of resumes for the software developer positions, but you should also keep in mind the fact that perfect persons do not exist.
You will not have enough time to select the suitable candidates who are best in experience and their skills, but it also doesn’t mean that you may hire the first coming candidate for your startup. So how do you hire software developers who are the perfect fit for your organization?
For recruiting the right candidates for the position of software developer, you must understand the needs of your startup. For example, you may decide which qualities do you want in your software developers or what type of work you want to get done for your startup. Following are some normal questions that you must answer before hiring the candidates as this is important for the appropriate hiring of the candidates:
- Which technology does your startup use?
- Which hard skills are you looking for in the candidates?
- Do you want fresher candidates for your startup, or do you want experienced ones?
- Which experience level does your candidate need to have?
- Do you want your candidates to lead the team or work in a flow?
- Which personality traits are you looking for in the candidates?
- Is hiring remote developers the right choice, or should I consider only on-site dedicated development teams?
By answering the above questions, you will be able to know which candidates you should choose and which ones will be the right choice for your startup.
How to Get An Idea From The Resume That A Candidate is Passionate About Coding?
This is again, a tricky question to answer. No one can get an idea of if the candidate is passionate about the job or not by merely looking at his resume. A resume only gives an idea about the basic attitude and knowledge set of the person.
For exploring the person more, you should invite them for an interview as this will let you know in-depth about the person’s interest skills and also about the project they have worked on.
Exploring the background of the candidates
Check the background of the candidates. You should know the fact, how they have started their journey as software developers. This will give an idea to your hiring team that the chosen candidate is worth it. For example, if the chosen candidate was earlier a technical writer and then he moved on towards software development, then this means that he is following his career.
On the other hand, if there is such a person who is from a casual background or they do not know about technology and software, how could they be the right choice for your startup.
Getting an idea from their previous jobs
Hiring an experienced candidate for the position of a software developer is the best choice for your startup as a person who has done such kind of work previously will work efficiently for your company too.
Additionally, look for the way how a person describes his previous job as a software developer. You will get an idea of how efficient he was in his job and how efficient he will be in the coming future for your startup.
Hobbies of the candidate
If a candidate mentions his hobbies in the technology field, you may get an idea that he is interested in the given job role of a software developer. Their hobbies can be like if he was a part of a technological discussion or he is a tech writer or for anything related to technology.
Tips For Startups To Hire Expert Software Developers
Following are some efficient tips for startups to hire expert software developers for themselves:
1. Get everyone in your team on the same note/track
It would be best if you keep up all your previous employees on the same note. For hiring the best candidates, you should first keep in mind that your earlier employees are working by the company’s missions, values and aspects. So that when new candidates get hired, they get a feeling of positive vibes and cooperation in the team. Also, they feel that the decision for choosing your company was not a wrong choice.
2. Make the company’s values clear to the candidates
Many startups use big words to describe their company’s culture and values. For example, some may describe it as “open”. Now, what does “open” mean? Is the company open to changes, criticism, or anything else? So make it clear while describing them.
3. Enforcement of the right process for hiring
Some startups make a hiring mistake by implementing so many employment development programs, which only leads to the wastage of resources. So startups must follow a simple rule of the hiring process, which includes employee referral onboarding and an effective feedback process.
4. Creating growth opportunities for your team
If a person is not satisfied with his job, then they will leave. So startups should focus on arranging personal and professional development growth opportunities for their employers as this will show them that how much you value them and how much their satisfaction related to this job affects the company.
5. Showing out your competitive qualities
The market is full of competition. So it’s time to show off your competitive qualities to the candidates. Let them know why they should choose your company over any other company in the market, why your company is best in the market. You can express your qualities like your outstanding products, employee perks and great teamwork etc.
6. Make your candidate feel valued
After you have selected the right candidate for your team, make him feel that they are worth it. Make them realize that your company cares for them and their objective is not just to fill the vacant position.
7. Examine the flaws in your hiring process
Are you sure about the fact that your hiring process is not scary for good candidates? But if many candidates are leaving behind the interviews in the middle, then your hiring process might be at fault. Do check it so that good candidates don’t go away from your hands. You can include multiple recruiting levels in the hiring process rather than a single one. Also, each level must serve a specific purpose.
8. Keeping in track the hiring process
A good choice to scale your team during the hiring process as the recruiting process can be good at the beginning but become a mess at the end. What you should do is make use of efficient management tools to keep track of your hiring process and also improve it for the future.
Conclusion
Startup development team extension is one of the issues that often can be underrated in the first stages but later lead to troubles. Founders are obviously at the core of all processes, but they should consider team extension from experienced custom software development companies to keep the focus on product planning and business development to reach their product launch.
After a thorough analysis, they should decide whether their startup hiring needs dedicated development teams, or they can hire remote developers to get the job done, or do they need a mix of both.