Startups need better recruiting results now more than ever. But how?

2016 has been a watershed year for the startup ecosystem in India. As fierce competition gripped the startup scene, many ventures were forced to shut shop and some others saw investor purses drying up. It is abundantly clear that pressure to be efficient – cost and time wise - is up several notches. And, among the many key factors to be looked into, recruiting the right talent is one of the most prominent ones. Startups, now more than ever, cannot afford to have bad hires. Identifying and recruiting the ‘right fit’ is emerging as one of the biggest challenges.

Startups have been perpetually competing with large corporations to get the best talent on board, but the war for talent has grown more severe in the past months. Most young startups today are faced with scarce resources and funding. In this scenario, setting up an elaborate recruitment mechanism not just becomes impossible but HR as a function invariably takes a backseat. But before we discuss how start-ups can set up an efficient recruitment process, it is important to understand why it is critical for startups to hire right.

Start-ups cannot afford a bad hire. Start-ups require candidates that are able to perform roles that go beyond the typical job description and are also the right cultural fit. This makes the task of hiring the right candidate ever more complex. In addition, HR managers at times need to fill positions ‘quickly’ which increases the odds of a bad hire. With limited funds at their disposal, fierce competition and struggle for growth, a hiring mistake can prove to be very costly in a startup. Besides the monetary loss, the loss of time spent in recruitment and productivity by bringing on board the wrong candidate is an additional setback.

Start-ups do not have the luxury to invest in training. Unlike large organizations that hire and train large number of new joinees, startups are looking for people who are ‘job-ready’ and can learn quickly on-the-job. However, the low employability of job seekers poses a bigger problem for startups here. According to the National Employability Report 2016, only 3.84% of the country’s tech talent is employable for a start-up technology role while 8% of them aspire to join a start-up as compared to a large organization. This increases the challenge manifold for HR managers as they not only need to find the right talent but also address the perception issues to make them chose a start-up over a well-established organization.

These issues have created a major roadblock for start-ups from an HR standpoint and propelled the need to invest in and revamp their recruitment mechanisms to identify and attract the right talent. The question now arises on how start-ups can address these issues.

The answer lies in leveraging technology to build the right set of assessments that can accurately and objectively assess skills and better predict a candidate’s job performance. The assessments can offer dramatic insights into the skill set of candidates for over hundreds of job roles and competencies. The scientific assessment tools already available today can play a significant in talent filtering and in helping start-ups hire the right people for the right job.

Some of the key advantages that scientific assessments offer are -

1. Access to quality talent – Traditional test cases and recruitment mechanisms have proven to miss candidates that could have been good performers. In the fiercely competitive ecosystem, losing out on such talent and hiring the ‘next best’ candidate can make a huge difference to a startup’s success. Scientific assessments in this case offer an objective and in-depth analysis of the candidate’s skills and can help HR managers make a much more informed decision with the scores acting as a strong indicator of his/her employability.

2. Reach – Most startups do not have adequate resources or infrastructure to find quality talent across the country. Unlike large organizations that can organize nationwide recruitment drives to scout for talent, start-ups are unable to do so due to lack of time and resources. Scientific assessments and tools herein can help startups access quality talent across the country without much effort. This also allows HR managers to move beyond tier I cities and get access to equally qualified and competitive talent that goes unnoticed in other parts of the country.

3. Efficiency in hiring - Scientific assessments can help start-ups hire in a standardised, scalable and cost-effective manner which can significantly improve recruitment efficiency. Given the volume of applicants for each role, HR managers end up wasting a lot of time in scanning resumes and scheduling interviews for candidates who may or may not be the right fit. Scientific assessments in this can help create a fast and reliable mechanism. Organizations that are already relying on these assessments have been able to cut down recruitment time and cost by as much as 70% while increasing their reach manifold.

Leveraging assessment technologies can address some of the major challenges that startups today face in recruiting the right talent. With talent fast becoming the key differentiator, a well-oiled HR machinery is now indispensable for startups. As the race for reaching the billion dollar or ‘unicorn’ club continues, startups who are adopting and investing in newer technologies will be able to successfully hire and retain the right talent and be a step ahead of competition.