Why Is Hiring For Small Teams Different?

    The success of any company depends on the quality of its products and sales strategy. But is it possible to achieve either of these things without highly skilled and dedicated employees? The answer is obvious — it can’t. Every successful business depends on a competent and passionate workforce. 

     Therefore, if you want to get high revenues, you must hire good employees. This is especially true for small businesses. The smaller the team is, the higher the impact each worker has. Therefore, when one person fails or does a lousy job, the whole company suffers. 

    For the past five years, we at Lemon.io have been building a platform for hiring vetted freelance developers. We’ve only been growing organically, trying to cut the costs, maximize the profits, and expand our team only when those people we couldn’t live without. All this time, we’ve managed to keep the number of employees minimal — just 19 in-house workers.

    If you are not very successful at hiring the best employees for your business, we will try to make your life easier. Here are some tips from us on how to find a perfect match for your team, even if you are at the very beginning of your way.

    How To Hire Effectively?

    Here you are — the new ambitious, creative, and innovative startup. Your team consists of one or two people (probably, you and your friend), and you desperately want to develop, make yourself visible on the market, and, of course, achieve success! But you still need to go through a number of challenges. And the first one is to expand your team.

    Unfortunately, people don’t line up to get a job from you yet. Probably, most of the vacancy applicants have never heard of you. The recruitment procedure of Google or Big Four is not working for you. You cannot promise your future employees big salaries, social benefits, or fancy offices. All you have is passion and the business idea. Luckily, this might be enough for success if you do all the necessary steps for the enlargement of your team at the right time with the right people. 

    Stage 1. Try To Stay A One-Person Show Company

    Before starting hiring new people, try to do all the work on your own. You have to know by heart every undergoing process, button, and mouseclick. Only after weeks or even months of working on your own, you’ll get the idea of how everything works, what is essential, what should be changed or cut down. 

     Most probably, the focus of your attention will be on polishing the business model and creating the marketing and sales strategy, which you cannot delegate to anyone else. However, when you feel that you are not enough to deal with the increasing workflow or you lack of knowledge to do something that has to be done urgently, you have to think about hiring some extra hands. 

    Stage 2. Hiring The First Employees 

    Network To FFind The First Candidates 

    The best place to look for perfect candidates are people from your network: university friends, ex co-workers, friends of your friends, etc. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram are used as platforms to search for first aid help. Some people even use Tinder to find co-workers. But who are we to judge? Also, don’t be afraid to text people who might be helpful to you, no matter how busy or shy you are.

    Roadmap To Find The Perfect Candidates 

    To make the process of searching the candidates easier, we’ve created our roadmap, through which every new member of the team has to pass. 

    1. CV.
    Check if the CV is written in proper format and without grammar mistakes.

    2. Background Check

    Make sure that the candidate has relevant education and experience.

    3. Intro-Call.

    Get the first opinion on the phone.

    4. Reference.

    Call his or her previous employers to get feedback.

    5. Meeting In Person. 

    Set a live interview where you can get to know the person closer.

    6. Paid Test Task.

    We practice the policy of paid test tasks as it increases the motivation to show the best results. Also, if the person would have job offers or tasks from other companies, yours would be in priority as the candidate knows that the work will be evaluated correctly. 

    7. Informal Meetings. 

    The last step is to check how comfortable you would feel with the candidate during the working process. You are hiring not just a robot with sets of skills but a person with their own beliefs and character.

    Stage 3. Onboarding Process 

    Most people need some time to accommodate the new working conditions. And you as a person who is responsible for supporting high performance in employees need to make sure to: 

    • provide him or her with the general information about the company, its goals, and features of work;
    • give a real case as a test assignment;
    • explain and agree clearly on the specificity of the work;
    • tell about the corporate communication methods adopted by your company;
    • buy all the necessary facilities and equipment (a chair, new laptop, subscription to Ahres, SEMrush, Grammarly, etc.).

    What’s next?

    The success of your startup doesn’t depend on the number of people working for you. All that matters is how much contribution every member makes and how much revenue per person the company gets. Therefore, never neglect the importance of making the right choices and keep searching until you find a perfect match. 

    About the Author

    Tania Ilutsa is a content writer at Lemon.io, a marketplace for hiring freelance developers. She loves books, art, and road-trips. She dreams of a conversation with Ernest Hemingway and skydiving in New Zealand.

    Richard is an experienced tech journalist and blogger who is passionate about new and emerging technologies. He provides insightful and engaging content for Connection Cafe and is committed to staying up-to-date on the latest trends and developments.