How to recruit talent for my startup?

Transcript

1. How to find and retain talent for my startup? October 2022
2. The biggest IT recruitment platform in Latin America. 2 1,300,000+ Sent applications 30,000+ Hiring processes
3. Hiring challenges for a startup are way, way different from a traditional company.
4. 🚀 Startup 🏢 Classic corp Upside Stability Flexibility Perks Ownership Political power Potential Impact Coolness Reputation
5. More and more enterprises are creating startup-like environments to attract talent: • Innovation labs/hubs • Corporate Ventures • Company Builders • Centers of Excellence
6. Among startups themselves, competition intensifies.
7. 7 tips
8. 1 Think about culture and org value proposition from day 1
9. This is NOT culture
10. This is NOT culture, either
11. Culture is the decisions you make. Who you hire and promote. Who you let go. Who and what you reward. How decisions are made. What happens when something bad happens. What happens if you criticize your superior publicly. How much autonomy an employee has. How many requests do you have to fill to get post-its. What perks do you, or do you not, offer.
12. You just can’t unbundle comp from culture. And for your teammates, they are just the same thing.
13. Compensation ⬇ Incentives ⬇ Priorities ⬇ Values ⬇ Culture
14. Employee value proposition reflects organizational culture.
15. What kind of people has the best chance of feeling happy with your org’s culture?
16. 2 Screen not just for skills, but for risk tolerance and mission fit
17. Offer equity. • You need to retain your key talent • It’s a great way of measuring risk appetite • It helps see clearly whether the person matches the startup’s potential and mission
18. What for some is a turn-off, for others is a turn-on.
19. 3 Embrace remote work, right from the start
20. The main purpose of remote work is not to be a perk… …it’s amplifying your talent base 😉
21. Remote work is your competitive advantage. While traditional companies shoot themselves in the feet with hybrid/local work, you have the entire world at your fingertips.
22. Having remote teams forces you to be explicit about: • Culture (how we behave) • Values (what we prioritize) • Knowledge (what we assume as true)
23. 4 Embrace inclusion
24. Inclusion also broadens your talent pool (and helps you weed out intolerant people).
25. Inclusion does not mean “anybody”. It means that mission fit and talent are the two things you care about, and that gender, nationality, race, social background, or disabilities are not hiring criteria.
26. Communicate in gender-neutral language. Don’t assume the gender of anyone on your team. Create a culture free of frat houses or cliques. Foster safe spaces from day 1.
27. 5 Pay decently
28. “We are a startup and just getting started” should be a competitive advantage to attract talent, not an excuse for not paying decently.
29. 😩 “But big corps are throwing cash at anyone with a GitHub account…”
30. What is “decent” pay? • Peace of mind: the person can cover all their needs • Market: according to seniority level and what companies that compete for the same talent as you are offering 👀 • Fair: proportional to what the rest of the company earns, including equity
31. Equity does not replace cash. (Utility bills don’t accept stock options or your governance token as payment)
32. 6 Have a CTO 
 (and make them hire their team)
33. Tech stack choice is strategic. It can make the difference between survival and failure. When there’s someone in the driver’s seat, making strategic decisions on the tech stack, it shows.
34. There are so many ways your tech stack can make your startup fail: • Overly complex architecture • Exotic frameworks/programming languages • Premature optimization • Single points-of-failure • Too much overhead
35. 7 Accept.
36. Friction and change are the bread and butter of a startup. The company will eventually cease to be the “dream place” for some.
37. People grow, get bored, have families, increase expenses, shift priorities, and optimize locally. They will go.
38. 100% retention is not only impossible but undesirable. Stay true to what the company needs to make its customers happy. That’s what’s truly important.
39. sergio@getonbrd.com Gracias.