Startups are defined by the fact that they are innovative, grow quickly and lead by amazing entrepreneurs with their co-founders. In order to maintain innovation and growth, startups need talent, and not only a lot, but also only top talent.

That's why hiring in startups is always characterized in a similar way: You permanently have a massive number of open positions, with which you search for talent on dozens of platforms and then have to filter out who is best suited from a multitude of applicants.

All this hustle and bustle has to be managed by a recruiter who has more than enough to do in other HR areas anyway.

In between all this, one or two full-time interns still have to be taken care of and other working students want to be onboarded.

You quickly realize that without help you can quickly lose track of everything and start to despair. But with up-to-date software and support from your team members in the interview process and the like, this can also be mastered.

In addition to this high intensity, there are other factors that shape hiring at startups. For example, it is also common in a modern working world that not only full-time jobs are offered, but a good work-life balance is sometimes only possible with part-time or remote jobs.

Therefore, it is more often the task of recruiters to weigh up whether a full-time position can possibly also be filled by two part-time employees and the like.

With many new hires in a short period of time, many workers naturally want to be introduced to their new jobs. In order to accomplish this feat in the most time-efficient yet well-functioning manner, there are various best practices that should be followed.

The first key word is automation. All tasks that are repetitive and basically repeat themselves in a similar way over and over again should not eat up capacity, but should be done automatically as efficiently as possible.

Even in most startup jobs, there are many tasks in onboarding that are basically always the same.

These tasks do not need to be done manually by a hiring manager, but should be set up neatly once and then executed independently by the new hire.

Examples of these tasks include collecting the necessary personal information such as address, contact and bank information, etc., setting up company profiles, introducing themselves to the team, and many more.

All of these tasks can easily be done by the new hire themselves as long as the proper framework is in place. That's why the process is usually set up once in detail at the beginning and then the new employee is guided through large parts of the onboarding process automatically and only has to check off his or her own to-dos.

Another trick for onboarding many new employees in a short time is simply to collect them. For example, fast-growing startups often have one or two days a month when new hires start and their onboarding begins.

This is an efficient way to introduce a lot of people to the company in one sweep. This also allows individual departments to always prepare for those two days and make the entire onboarding process as smooth as possible.

Another advantage with the collected onboarding days is also that the new hires can immediately meet people who are also completely new and may encounter similar problems as themselves.

One last perhaps obvious, yet from essential tip is to distribute the tasks. Of course, it doesn't make sense for one recruiter to take care of the complete onboarding of countless newcomers.

Many parts of the onboarding take place anyway directly best in the department, in which one will be resident later. In this way, one can get to know the particularly relevant colleagues directly and the HR department is directly relieved as well.

Therefore, it is usually the case that there is a shorter general part in which all new employees are welcomed together and get a introduction in the company culture, which HR takes care of. Afterwards, everyone goes to their departments and senior employees take over the actual training and the introduction into the work environment there.

Hiring in startups can quickly become very stressful. Countless jobs are open and that on finally many platforms. How are the too few HR generalists supposed to keep track and not despair? Right, with the right software!

Hiring software makes the working life of every recruiter unimaginably easier.

Clear overviews of all applicants filterable by current status let you know at all times what the current hiring situation is.

Onboarding workflows automate as much as makes sense of the onboarding process and thus not only take the burden off the HR department, but also optimize the hiring experience of the new talent.

Automations help you with follow-ups and other daily to-do's.

Successful startups are usually so successful because they have the best people and know how to use them correctly. But the big question in hiring is: where do you find the best talent?

To get to the right people, you need to have a broad presence. A career site and to post jobs in the newspaper is no longer enough.

The importance of social media platforms, especially LinkedIn, continues to grow. That's why a solid presence on the relevant social media platforms is already essential.

In addition, it is now a matter of course that job advertisements are listed on an internal job page. To ensure that these are also as successful as possible, SEO measures should be taken to ensure a good ranking for important keywords and that talent can no longer get around the company during the job search.

Otherwise, the major job portals such as Stepstone, Glassdoor, Indeed and many others continue to be essential. The listing of job ads on these platforms should now be part of the basis of the Hirings.

In addition to all these general possibilities, there are also solutions that are particularly interesting for startups. For example, there are already very specific startup job exchanges that are limited exactly to such job seekers. Angellist would probably be one of the best known examples.

In addition, niche forums, especially for developer jobs, should never be neglected. These are always a hotspot of the best talent.

Probably the most important thing in comprehensive hiring is to keep track of everything and not forget any potential talent just because there is too much else on your mind.

Therefore, a well-structured reporting in the form of an ATS is certainly an essential feature. With the possibility to see all applicants at a glance and to filter them by criteria such as stage, position, working time model or similar, it helps immensely to keep the overview.

In addition, multiposting saves a lot of time and helps a company to always be present where the right talents are on the way.

It is no longer the case that you place an ad in the newspaper and that is enough. If you want the best talent for your company, you have to be present on various social media platforms and job boards.

With multiposting, you can prepare the job ad once and write down all the necessary details, then publish the ad on as many platforms as you want.

Onboarding workflows are the next biggest help. If one could convince many talents to choose the correct company, they should of course be introduced optimally. As is typical for early-stage startups, this takes place with limited resources.

All the more important that software helps you create the most pleasant experience possible. In this way, the formalities are gradually worked through and the induction phase can begin promptly.

Startups usually need support in all departments. Of course, which roles are in particular demand depends on the individual startup. An e-commerce company is probably looking for competent performance marketing managers, while tech companies or startups in healthcare might focus on talent acquisition in completely different fields.

Nevertheless, there are some jobs that are actually always being looked for. The easiest way to do this is to distinguish between the following categories:

Customer Related

This broad category can include jobs like business development representative, key account manager, acquisition manager, customer experience and customer success manager but also customer support and venture development manager.

Developer

This category again blurs the lines to other categories a bit. Examples include Backend Engineer, Software Engineer, Android Developer, Data Engineer, DevOps Engineer and specifics such as Frontend Developer Typescript.

Marketing

There are a variety of titles, roles and distinction in this category. The most common is Marketing Manager, Online Marketing Manager, Content Marketing Manager, Performance Marketing Manager or even SEO Manager.

Producer Related

The jobs in this category blur heavily with developer roles. One could include Product Designer, Product Manager (PMs), UX Designer, Product Owner, Project Manager, User Experience Researcher, and other senior manager roles in Product Management among the product-related roles.