How to Recruit Tech Specialists For a Startup?

We at Lucky Hunter often help startups find tech professionals.For more than two years of our work, we've faced various challenges:

1

Found exotic on the Russian market Rust developers.
2

Recruited .NET developers within 16 days.
3

Selected Senior C ++ specialists for a project with.
4

Assembled a distributed team of tech talents within a month, etc.

This experience allowed us to figure out the difficulties that startups face when searching for tech specialists, but what's more important - we know exactly what founders should do to find their ideals without crucial changes in the requirements for candidates.

If you are searching for your tech talent right now but you are completely confused about what to do next, you are in luck! In the article, we are talking about how to hire the best candidates, even if your project loses out to other companies in the tough competition for the candidates. This article is based on the Lucky Hunter personal experience.

What problems do startups have?

We aren't going to tell you obvious things, like "there are too many startups, but very few candidates" or "working for a startup is always a risk, so not everyone is ready for instability". Well, it's not the case.

Inconsistency between requirements and working conditions

The requirements laid down by the startup founders don't always match the working conditions. You can search for a Senior hot-eyed specialist in the office located far away from the city centre. Nobody forbids you, and in addition, you can find a suitable pro who may agree to join your project despite such tough conditions.

But, as it happens, but there's one hitch: you have to offer something worthwhile in return: high salary (options don't work in this case), interesting work with ambitious tasks in a promising project, the possibility of quick career growth.

In a new normal, it has become even more difficult for startups to fit for the market: candidates consider the founders' offers less willingly, choosing companies that hold strong positions on the market. Therefore, you'll have to make the specialist sure that you can provide him with a decent standard of living and stability for at least the next six months or a year.

It turns out that in order to attract a specialist for a startup, you need to create comfortable working conditions. But what kind of working conditions are comfortable for a specialist? A proper determination of your IT talent profile will help to answer this question. This is the second and perhaps the key problem of startup founders.

Candidate profile determination

Perhaps you understand what hard skills a specialist needs to have in order to cope with the tasks in your project. But what about soft skills? How to determine the required experience? How to understand how to motivate a particular specialist?

All this you should figure out before you start the search. It's good if you wonder: there are cases when the founder doesn't bother with the image of the desired candidate. Unfortunately, this approach rarely leads to the desired result.

It turns out that before starting the search, take some time to decide who exactly you want to see in your team. Perhaps you need a hot-eyed Junior-level developer or, conversely, it is more important for your specialist to be a pro in the field. It's up to you.

If you are having difficulties in determining the profile of the ideal candidate - don't hesitate to contact IT recruitment agencies. Experienced specialists can understand who you are searching for by asking leading questions about your project and your desires.

I have adequate requirements, and I know exactly who I'm searching for. What's next?

Go ahead

Post an opening, the description of which, we are sure, you've made in accordance with all the rules :)
Don't wait for the candidates' applications, search for yourself. There are a lot of channels in IT recruiting, like LinkedIn, Telegram, Facebook, special recruiting services, job boards.
Build competent communication with developers.
Schedule interviews with candidates and speak about your opportunities transparently. Honesty and openness in conversation is the key to the heart of your ideal :)
Make offer the best candidates (and the faster - the better), and if your candidate has received a counteroffer from the company, immediately send him this article :)

A few more useful life hacks for founders

According to our (let's not be shy) rich experience, one of the key success factors in hiring an IT specialist is competent motivation. Emblaze the eyes of the candidate, prove that the work in your startup is cool, inspiring and interesting. Show a maximum of your charm :) And, as it seems to us, this is possible only if you are interested in the project for yourself.

If you work together with recruiters, don't think that you've successfully delegated work on specialists' motivation: it's important for the candidate how you talk about the project and what you think because in the future they'll work for you, not for the agency.

In addition, recruiting specialists for a startup (and not only for them), we've noted that everything goes well when the work processes are fast: quick feedback to candidates, the minimum number of selection stages (and in the case of hiring in a startup, with a complete rejection of the test assignment), a decisive offer.

Any delay and the candidate will leave for another company. This is a bitter truth, but, as they say, forewarned is forearmed.

Polina Barabanova

Content Manager at Lucky Hunter

Specializes in tech staff recruitment, startups, tech research, career, HR, and news topics. With her expertise, she provides valuable insights and practical advice to navigate the ever-evolving tech industry.