Attracting and retaining sought-after tech talents is generally not an easy game, especially in tight markets such as the main technology hubs in Europe or in the USA. Moreover, in our globalised world, more and more remote jobs are available to great tech talents so your competition (and the subsequent salary benchmark!) are not even only local anymore.
If you’re just starting up, you’ll soon realise that early stages startups are not this attractive to everyone, especially when you are not VC-backed or haven’t received any significant awards or press coverage but are yet looking for experienced/seasoned professionals who would be able to drive autonomously their activity. The competition for talent is strong and candidates will often be dubious if they’ve never heard about you or your company before. Asking for referrals or introductions is an easy way to get ahead of the competition, especially with passive candidates.
This is where employer branding and HR marketing come into play, and it’s pretty easy to comprehend - think about it the same way you think about marketing your solutions to your customers and getting your prospects to engage with you. To maximise your chances to catch the attention of your target candidates, here are a few tips:
💎 Be cristal clear - Be articulate about what your vision and mission are, what you’re trying to achieve, what problems you’re solving for your customers, what you strive for, what you value, how you work towards it... I know this can seem obvious to you, but people are not in your head and you have to learn to convey this to others. Rest assured that you’ll never communicate too much about this.
👀 Be attractive - Founders' personal LinkedIn profiles, your company website and your company social media pages are the first things that a prospective candidate will look at before even deciding if they’ll answer your message or apply to your role. Make sure that your LinkedIn, AngelList and Glassdoor pages are well looked after. A career page on your website listing open roles and giving insights into the team, company culture and/or tech stack is definitely a plus.
👋🏽 Be relevant - Make sure that all your pages look professional and relevant to your industry and thoroughly benchmark your competitors and ideal customers websites. It is a good idea to list all your recruitment competitors, and keep an eye on what they do and how they convey their message to make sure you’re at the right playing level or to be able to differentiate yourself. Then, be where your target candidates are, i.e. to specifically attract developers, make sure that your company/tech leaders are visible on GitHub and/or Stackoverflow.
📢 Be sincere - Make sure that you are clear about what the role and environment entail, what exactly will be expected from them, their level of autonomy, their activities and responsibilities, what resources and support will be available, how you will work together, how decisions are made, how you communicate and collaborate.
💬 Be exhaustive - Build your employee value proposition (EVP) with care, it’s not only about base salary : have you listed commissions/bonus opportunities, benefits, shares/stocks, time off, flexibility, opportunities of growth, development, travel, to have a real impact, to get exposure, philanthropic/community projects...?
At Thriving Tribes, we help early stages businesses getting everything “people” right, so we can help you build or develop your employer brand, which is the starting point of your whole employee experience (EX) journey.
You can ask us any questions in a comment on LinkedIn or get in touch if you’d like to discuss how we can help!