Challenges of Start-ups - Hiring

This article is my personal experience as I am currently going thru my journey of a start-up. Though the issues that I am underlining may sound too skimpy but trust me they are more of foundation pillars and will enable success of your start-up.

First thing first, not all start-ups are backed by venture capitalists and private equities which means you will not have the luxury of spending at your will, hence you need to place a cap on each and every expense. The first requirement of a start-up is human capital and if you don’t have luxury of paying handsome amount or a big brand backing then be prepared to have tough time ahead.

As a start-up when you approach colleges for hiring fresh talent, even tier 2 or tier 3 B-schools show up their tantrums and may behave absolutely contrary to what you must be expecting. I personally reached out to 10-15 colleges in Delhi-NCR and hardly 2-3 seems to be supportive. I had to personally follow-up to check the status and whether they are really going to support me.

Next resort of hiring post not so great experience with B-Schools was to either go for third party recruitment consultants or job posting on portals. Here are the pros and cons of these two options.

When you post a job on job portals be judicious of your requirement and choose the portals wisely. Linkedin may not be a great tool for freshers and you may like to go for localized vendors. Job portals are much cheaper in comparison to hiring recruitment consultants who want a bomb (one month’s salary). If you have people who can take care of shortlisting candidates, calling up and interviewing then job posting will be a wise choice else go for recruitment consultants.

The conversion rate of profiles received to really interested candidates is not promising and that’s the next challenge. If you end up hiring via job portals be ready to listen ‘NO’ from candidates for start-ups and not so great salary packages.

So, net-net it’s going to be topsy-turvy ride and it will consume good amount of time. Just be prepared for the same.

Written by: Ms Priyanka Jindal.