Startup: Three tips for attracting talent

30 % of new employees who have signed a permanent contract in a startup terminate their contract in the first year. This figure illustrates how difficult it is for employers to properly compose their teams. A failed recruitment costs a company between 12 and 18 months' salary. For these startups, which by definition experience strong growth, the stakes of successful recruitment are therefore all the more important.

 

Cith these start-ups in the business world, the teams under construction are not necessarily equipped to meet their HR needs, particularly on the issue of recruitment, and cannot always afford to budget to outsource interviews and selection to a specialized firm. Indeed, a recruitment firm requires between 20 and 30 % of the recruited candidate's annual salary. Although these are very attractive companies on the recruitment market, startups nevertheless face new challenges brought about in particular by the new generation of job seekers.

For startups, although the skills of the candidates are important, their personality is also a fundamental criterion. Indeed, the small team that is typical of these new companies imposes a high quality of interpersonal relations. The first employees who will form the core of the startup must share the same values and the same vision of the project. Noam Wasserman (Harvard University) has shown that interpersonal difficulties were at the root of 67% of the difficulties encountered in startups.

It is therefore necessary to define upstream the fundamental values inherent to the start-up as well as its expectations. In addition to technical skills, it is therefore better to attach great importance to "soft skills".

It is undeniable: these innovative companies embody an image of Épinal and create a certain attraction with a common project that flatters its participants. Nevertheless, these startups target a generation that has the specificity of not wanting to sacrifice everything to its professional career, and that assumes it. Thus, while Generation Y is attracted by startups, by their dynamism and their atmosphere that is both creative and flexible, it is also very attached to a balance between its private and professional life.

Candidates are now free from the taboo of hours and holidays during interviews and approach them without embarrassment. An "uncomplexed" discussion during the interview on these subjects, sometimes considered as secondary by recruiters, will help remove any doubts candidates may have and allow them to project themselves into their new environment.

Generation Y seeks to give meaning to its activity. Thus, startups oriented towards the solidarity economy or sustainable development, sharing and solidarity, generate a sense of pride. Highlighting the usefulness of the startup is therefore a good way to attract this generation on the lookout for "useful jobs".

 

This generation is also looking for a corporate culture. Following the example of its big American sisters, the image of the startup companies has earned them the reputation of being overwhelmed by a hierarchy that is outside the traditional corporate conventions of twenty years ago. In order to attract talent, they must now be valued. One way to do this is to let employees have a say in the decision-making process. Thus, we should not hesitate to highlight the autonomy of employees inherent to these small structures, and even involve the founder of the startup during job interviews. For a candidate, having direct access to the company's manager as soon as he or she is hired is a concrete and unequivocal illustration of the managerial proximity often mentioned in interviews.

 

A recruitment process is the company's showcase. It must be in line with the values on which the startup wishes to communicate, with the image it wishes to leave to the candidate. The seduction of candidates likely to be of interest to these companies requires an understanding of the asserted and sometimes contradictory expectations of a generation.

 

Let's not forget the little "extras", the differentiating actions with the highlighting of innovative premises such as a showroom, organizing a session ofescape game specialized in recruitment: as in many other fields, it is the indelible "experience" that will mark the candidate, and that will push him to project himself (or not) within your startup.