How to Attract Employees to Work for a Small Business or Start-up
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In my last role while working for a private equity start-up company, one of my remits as the Head of Recruitment was to develop a strategy to encourage candidates to consider us as an employer.
What makes it difficult for small businesses is that they are either the new kid on the block or in many cases, candidates have not even heard of them even though they have been established for some time.
Most candidates want to work for large companies as they sometimes perceive them to be a safer option, however as we have seen over the last few years, working for larger companies no longer guarantee that you have secure employment.
For larger companies, their biggest overhead is headcount and the only way they will be able to see a difference in the bottom line, would be to retrench employees. This is sometimes the complete opposite for smaller companies as in most cases they already have a small workforce and by letting someone go, can have a major impact on them, therefore for them they would have to in most instances focus on efficiency of processes.
As a small business or start-up, you can include some of the following points when selling why a candidate has to come and work for you:
Working for a small company, they will often not only not be considered as a number but they would be easily remembered and recognised. This can have a 2-fold effect in that if they do well, they will get the recognition, however if they do not perform or mess-up, there is no place to hide.
They will have easy access to the senior management team and in most instances, in smaller companies, hierarchy is not an issue.
Given that the teams are smaller, they have a wider scope of learning new skills by taking on additional roles and will not be forced to only focus on a specific role.
Should they perform well, their potential would be easily recognised and the opportunity for promotion will be easier as there would be fewer people vying for the position.
It is easier for them to get an overview of the whole business and get real close to the core and see the bigger picture.
If they are one of the employees who starts with the business from an early stage, they have greater opportunity of career progression as most companies would want to promote first from within.
Within a smaller company, the processes and procedures will not be as rigid and there will be less bureaucracy. The decision-making process will definitely be much shorter.
By being one of the first employees to start with the business, they will be part of a process where they can provide input as to what the processes and procedures should look like – they would not have to come along and just inherit what they have been given.
There would be the advantage of that they would be able to create or improve upon what is already there.
Given that they are a smaller company, they might have more flexibility on working from home on some days, or even have flexibility on start and end times.
