Hiring challenges keep startup CXOs awake at night

Startups are striving to build a strong and long pipeline to arrest persisting challenges in the talent market. (Illustration by Suneesh Kalarickal)

Layoffs and an acute funding crunch may be making all the headlines, but the era of job hopping isn’t quite over yet in startups that continue to struggle to find talented employees.

Most startups say the candidates they interview tend to have more than one offer in hand. This is especially true of niche startups in Information Technology (IT), consulting and gaming.

At the same time, management teams have the task of their enhancing the skills of their existing workforce.

“With a hiring freeze and job crunch in the market, there is a likelihood of laid-off employees from Big Tech turning towards startups,” said Anup Menon, Vice President of of IT Staffing at CIEL HR, a recruitment agency.

To effectively stabilise the talent market within startups, he said it was crucial to prioritise employees' job security concerns and making judicious hiring decisions based on the appropriate role requirements instead of focusing on managing optics.

Offer letter vs. offer letter

One key problem Codleo Consulting’s HR staff has faced when it comes to talent acquisition is that the ideal applicants have numerous offers, and 90 percent of the prospects don’t want to join work on or before the specified start date.

“The game of my offer letter versus your offer letters is a major sore point for the HR department,” said Shalini Sharma, Assistant Vice President of HR.

For instance, five candidates for different positions were made an offer to join the firm in November 2022, but only one joined and the others rejected the offer at the last minute.

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Proptech firms Homesfy.in and Mymagnet.io are facing the challenge of retaining top-performing talent in a competitive job market.

According to HR Vice President Neha Mishra, retaining skilled high-performers can be difficult because external opportunities may entice them. This is more prevalent in the below mid-level segment.

Relevant skills

Finding the right talent for specific job roles is a big problem. In the recent past, cybersecurity startup SafeHouse Tech faced trouble finding suitable candidates who possessed the technical expertise required to fill the jobs it had on offer.

The company had been on the lookout for individuals skilled enough to fill roles as a Full Stack developer and a Data Analytics executive, but just couldn’t he right fit.

“Even though these are one of the most sought-after professions, we were unable to identify a candidate with the appropriate competencies suited to our culture and skill requirements,” said Ruchir Shukla, Managing Director of India at SafeHouse Tech.

3D and Extended Reality (XR) tech startup Metadome.ai needs to fill roles quickly to keep up with rapid demand in their businesses. Finding the right talent takes time and effort, and the firm may not have the resources to devote to a lengthy hiring process.

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“This gets compounded since we also have to adhere to our unique job requirements. For example, a tech startup like Metadome.ai would need software engineers fully updated with the latest technology skills and is a great culture fit and it gets difficult to map talent aligned with our expectations,” said Kanav Singla, founder and CEO of Metadome.ai.

Approaching the challenge

Startups are striving to build a strong and long pipeline to arrest persisting challenges in the talent market. Codleo Consulting now gives an offer letter only after meeting each candidate in person and after a few days of joining.

“Only a congratulatory job offer is shared over email without the remuneration details with each selected candidate. Our target was to cross 100 employees by 31st March 2023 and we have achieved this milestone before the deadline using this approach,” said Codleo Consulting’s Sharma, adding that the job offer rejection rate has dropped by almost 50 percent in the last three months.

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At SafeHouse Tech, ‘Quiet Hiring’ has proved to be a successful approach, benefiting both the organisation and its employees. The firm is offering to upskill its current employees and encourage them to take on new roles within the company.

“We have been following this approach for about a year now and have observed positive outcomes, including improved employee satisfaction and a more skilled workforce,” Shukla said.

Metadome.ai is focusing on building a strong brand and offering a better pay mix to the candidates – a fair composition of fixed and variable pay, bonus and stock.