Always Be Recruiting: 3 Startup Recruitment Problems and Solutions

One of the first challenges founders face after they raise funding is growing their teams. Easier said than done — the wrong startup recruitment approach can set your company up for failure.

“Recruiting isn’t about filing seats. By the time most founders think about recruiting – approximately 3-6 months after funding and not being able to hire anyone – it’s too late,” writes Hong Quan, recruiter at Quantum Startups. “You need to create a solid recruiting process that reflects your unique personality and company culture, and one that’s scalable and repeatable.”

In this guest post for TechCrunch, Quan offers suggestions for how founders should think of recruiting at various stages of their company’s development — choose your co-founder wisely, hire your friends, then create the recruiting machine and feed the beast (personally, not via HR), identifies three common recruiting problems — hiring too slow. too fast, or just plain poorly — and provides three solutions to keep founders on track. Because recruiting should primarily be the founder’s job, Quan argues. “People join your startup because of you, not because of salary, funding, equity or perks.”