The perks of recruiting for a Startup

One of the main challenges as a young and thanks to a scalable business model fast-growing startup is to get enough and even more important, the right employees. During the last five years, we learned a lot about what makes the difference in talent acquisition.

It’s essential that you know about your advantages AND disadvantages: No need to argue that a young startup can’t compete with the salaries of a settled company or a group.

We learned what separates us from the big players and what being a startup actually brings to the table for potential new employees.

The path isn’t the same for every company and sure differs from AppLike to other startups — but we found some valuable insights that we are going to share with you in this article.

Let’s get started with the benefits that catapult us in the pole position versus big and long-established companies:

Speed, Agility and Flexibility

By far the biggest asset of smaller businesses is the agility and pace in every process. The chain of command in small teams and therefore the acceptance processes are very short — resulting in the fastest application process possible. From direct contact with one of our Talent Acquisition Managers to first working day can take only one or two weeks. The hiring process for our Manager PR / Communications, for example, required exceptional fast execution and was realized in just five days from the first phone interview to the signing of the contract thanks to the flexibility of the Management and fast reaction of our Talent Acquisition team.

Career Perspective

One of the major benefits that we as a startup can offer for a young and talented professional is a sped-up career path and a high level of early responsibility. In smaller teams with flat hierarchies, it’s much more likely that employee’s ideas and performances are not only more visible but lead to faster recognition and reward. One of the prime examples of career possibilities in a startup is our current Director of Business Operations Felix: Starting as a Project Manager in April 2017, his dedication, commitment and great ideas were not only a key to AppLikes success, but in addition led to him being promoted twice in under two years first to Product Lead and second to his current position. We strictly follow and reward performance which not only benefits the employees but the company as well.

One of our key values, #bedirect, reflects our culture that every employee can bring any idea to any lead or board-member. In addition, we have a very direct feedback culture: Everyone has a one-on-one talk with his team lead once per month and a detailed feedback round per quarter where you get to define your goals, talk about what worked out well or where you have to improve.

Joining a startup will result in a broader variety of tasks and responsibilities. We as a start-up Talent Acquisition team are in the comfortable position to outline the path to defining a specific position and its role in the company to candidates. That doesn’t only mean you get less repetitive tasks but every day a new challenge which also leads to a faster learning curve.

Cohesion and Work-Life-Balance

Smaller teams automatically result in a much faster and stronger team building. Having a lower age profile throughout the whole company resulting in similar interests and a higher likeability of colleagues. A vast variety of benefits and joint activities like a board game night, regular team events, company lunch, watching important soccer games via projector or just a walk with the company’s dogs helps to secure not only a healthy work-life-balance but also strengthen the bond between all colleagues, regardless of their initial team.

Within our events, it is very likely that you might find the CTO arguing with a team lead, two juniors and an intern whether Astra or Ratsherrn is the better Pilsner from Hamburg. Having two young, extremely motivated and team-oriented Co-Founders who still meet every applicant in person before deciding if it’s a fit to the existing team helps a lot in maintaining a healthy atmosphere.