When it comes to hiring a development team for a tech startup, every action and decision is absolutely critical. Since most startups have small-sized development teams, one extra software engineer can massively accelerate the entire development process and significantly reduce the project’s turnaround time. In retrospect, however, they can completely disrupt the entire workflow, ultimately leading to delays in the delivery of the project.
The cost of a bad hire in startups is significantly higher, considering the contributions of a single member of the development team can tip the scales in favor or to the detriment of the project. For this reason, startups need to streamline their hiring to reduce the risk of high turnover as much as possible. And since most tech startups are often looking for passionate self-starters that are professionally driven, it can be extremely challenging to find the right hire.
If you’ve been grappling with the question of how to hire the right talent for your technology startup or even how to find talent for startup, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ve identified the most common recruiting challenges that tech startups face, as well as try to answer the questions as to why it’s important to have a good recruiting team, how to recruit talent for tech startup, and how startup tech headhunters can help.
Common Recruiting Challenges for Tech Startups and Why You Need Good Tech Startup Recruiters
The best developers are hard to come by and slippery to catch. According to a report published by The Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is estimated that the software engineers famine in the US will surpass the 1.2M mark by 2026. And this scenario is replicated almost everywhere in the world, which goes to show the dire shortage of tech skills globally.
Intense Competition with Big Corporations
From the above scenario, we can all agree that companies are struggling to acquire the best talent. And with great tech talent hard to come by, it almost inevitably triggers intense competition among companies. Toss in the tech behemoths to the mix, and it becomes almost impossible for tech startups to consistently make good hires. With the help of an offshore startup recruitment agency, however, startups can easily overcome the bottlenecks of geographical locations and hire from offshore locations.
Unreliable Candidates
With the demand for development skills surpassing the supply, tech companies have often found themselves having to compete for the top tech candidates. Still, most applicants have the luxury of choosing the company they want to work with and may keep you waiting after receiving multiple offers. Whilst the behavior is understandable, some candidates go as far as using a weak offer to negotiate better terms elsewhere. This means the chances of them joining a startup significantly diminishes, as it is hard for them to continually bleed their resources trying to pursue multiple leads. With offshore tech startup recruiting, small startups can access developers from countries like Ukraine, where the average salaries are relatively low, yet the engineers are equally qualified.
Limited Skills
Another major and mostly overlooked tech hiring challenge for tech startups is the lack of requisite tech skills and expertise in their in-house team. Unfortunately, this limited understanding of development essentials can lead to lowering development standards, especially when evaluating developers. Even large companies with well-oiled HR departments may lack the required technical proficiency to screen and evaluate developers, leading to poor hires and lost opportunity costs. Offshore startup recruiting firms thoroughly vet potential candidates, ensuring that startups partner with the most skilled tech professionals.
High Salaries
Any candidate joining a new company generally expects a lofty compensation raise. Many tech startups find it extremely hard to pay lucrative tech salaries, especially for top development positions. Even with external funding, these startups still lack the financial muscle to compete with larger multinational corporations with deeper pockets. To overcome this, some startups offer employee stock ownership plans or results to offshore startup developer recruiting agencies.
The Best Model to Hire Startup Recruiters
Depending on your development needs, you can choose to assemble an in-house, freelance, or offshore tech startup recruitment team. Whilst all of them have their benefits and a fair share of downsides, the benefits of hiring a dedicated startup staffing agency far outweigh those of the other two hiring models.
And now, let’s take a look at the three major benefits of hiring dedicated startup headhunters.
Cost-Efficient
Most startups operate on a tight budget, especially during the infant stages, meaning they don’t have enough funds to have in-house recruitment teams of their own. In the same breath, recruiting is a critical aspect of any business, and it cannot be overlooked by all means. As such, small startups can hire dedicated SaaS startup staffing teams or agencies on a part-time or project basis, eventually saving the costs associated with having a permanent in-house team.
Global Reach
Startups have to fight tooth and nail to compete against large companies for the limited number of skilled candidates. This cut-throat competition is largely fuelled by the fact that most skilled tech professionals aren’t actively looking for any job opportunities. For this reason, startups have to go the extra mile to find them in their domains and ask them if they are interested. Any reputable startup hiring recruiter or head-hunter maintains an enormous repository of candidates making it easy to source and screen passive candidates.
Technical Expertise
Dedicated IT recruiting firm startup services providers continuously collaborate with multiple companies from all over the world collecting the necessary skills and experience in recruiting tech professionals. And just like any in-house HR department, they have all (if not more) prerequisite skills and experience to screen a candidate using their qualifications, experience, and body language.
Why Consider Ukraine as an Attractive Destination for Hiring Dedicated Startup Recruitment Agency?
If you’re serious about hiring a dedicated startup recruitment team for your tech startup, the success of your development projects is pegged on your recruitment destination. And since it gets even harder to make this critical decision, we’ve prepared a list of top reasons why you need to hire Ukrainian developers. They include;
- Global recognition. Ukraine is one of the few countries that has managed to gain global recognition in the global technology domain. In 2019, the country was ranked 20th position as the best outsourcing destination by Global Services Location Index. It was also named 2017’s “Offshoring Destination of the Year” 2017, by the Global Sourcing Association UK.
- Advanced tech infrastructure. Ukraine has one of the most robust and thriving tech communities in the world. Almost every major city has its own IT cluster, which gathers technology companies, specialists, local authorities, and educational institutions to cultivate the local tech environment.
- Quantity and quality. The Ukrainian tech community consists of 166,000 professionals and the country is ranked among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of the highest per capita tech specialists. Quantity aside, Ukrainian software engineers were recognized by SkillValue among the world’s best, scoring an average score index of 91.26%.
- Great value for money. The average salary of a Ukrainian developer is relatively lower compared to that of engineers in places like the US, the UK, and France. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Gartner ranked Ukraine as the number one country in Eastern Europe in terms of offering the best price/quality ratio.
Why Partner with Our Company in Hiring Top Startup Headhunters?
Distributed Recruiters is an innovative staffing service provider– we use advanced recruiting tools to source, filter, and engage the most qualified tech talent, and we do this better, faster, and more cost-effectively. Whilst your best job recruiter could be bringing you some pretty decent hires, none of them can match our speed, accuracy, and quality.
What makes us different? A lot!
- Technology-oriented. We’ve developed a data-driven startup talent acquisition model and strict vetting processes, which makes it a piece of cake to attract candidates that truly match your company’s hiring needs and culture. Whether you’re looking to assemble a recruiter marketing startup team, an IT staffing startup recruitment team, BioTech recruiters, or a FinTech recruitment team.
- Speed and accuracy. Whilst our competitors could be pedaling fast, Distributed Recruiters have found a jet-propelled engine in the information superhighway and we are blasting way ahead. On average, we’re 45% faster and 70% more accurate compared to our competitors in the staffing industry.
- Cost-efficient. Our startup recruiting process is up to 60% cheaper compared to traditional contingency search organizations.
Our Working Process
- Briefing. We meet offline/virtually with you to understand your hiring needs and the ideal candidate profile.
- Benchmarking. Next, our team of recruiters soaks up everything they can lay their hands on to understand your company’s needs, values, and business culture. Once we’ve clarified everything, we use the collected data to begin sourcing prospects that specifically fit your needs.
- Creating a compelling employee value proposition. After understanding your needs, we proceed to paint a clear picture to the candidates by drafting a catchy advert.
- Searching. Using our active search, a proprietary repository of candidates, and a robust referral-based system, we start sourcing and pre-screening the eligible candidates.
- Screening. We interview multiple potential candidates using role-specific questions to ensure personality, culture, and job requirements fit.
- Hiring. Once we find a recruiter tech startup candidate that fits your organization like a glove, we hire them and congratulate them on the hire.
- Offer. The chosen IT recruitment startup recruit is given a job offer.
- Client’s interview. Forward the most qualified candidates to you for a job interview.
- Onboarding. Once you’re certain, we begin the onboarding process.
