Building a solid team is absolutely one of the top variables that successful entrepreneurs would look into at the start of their business. The entire growth trajectory of a business begins with onboarding the right people. A new startup, especially in its early days, has an unknown Employer Brand and has to go through the phases of uncertainty and risk. As per a Glassdoor study, 76% of hiring managers agree that attracting quality candidates was their very first challenge.
Essentially, finding self-driven individuals whose motivation aligns with your business and who can reinforce their appreciation for your vision and mission are good to go. Undoubtedly, your first team is largely going to define your organizational culture and build the next stages of your business. The search for a suitable team starts by testing your potential candidates with the right knowledge, skill, expertise, and attitude towards work. However, these are not sufficient as you will have to reiterate your ideas and try different approaches to win the chances of having an ‘ideal’ team.
Here are some of the tips and tools to streamline volume hiring for startups.
1. Easy Out the Application Process
With more hands with mobiles, a desktop-enabled job search is sought relatively lesser. Increased penetration of smart cell phones all over the world has made them a primary search device. Now the applicants might like to see your job application while commuting, scrolling through social media, or even at their leisurely tea time. Of course, they would be looking for a quick and straightforward application process instead of a long and tidy one. It is always better for hiring managers to streamline the application process to make it more adaptive and user-friendly in a high recruiting scenario, to get more applications in the inbox.
2. Embrace Disruptive Digital Tools
Tech-driven solutions empowered by AI, automation, and cloud computing will enable you to speed up your screening process. By establishing personalized communication, enabling instant feedback, and making intelligence-driven decisions. New tech tools are supporting HR decisions in building a skilled, diverse, and robust team, such as: Honeit Interview Software, Talkpush Conversational CRM, Arya AI Talent Acquisition, Eightfold Talent Intelligence.
3. Estimate Your Standard Hiring Time
Recruiters understand how valuable HR forecasting is for hiring the right people at the right time. Time-to-hire metrics can help measure the time taken between sourcing to onboarding a candidate for a quick and easy win. Such mechanisms can let them identify any flaw in the process (if any) and how far their recruitment team will go to minimize the time taken and cost involved in hiring.
Companies can also compare their standard recruitment time with the global average time (26 days) or with other similar companies for upgrading/modifying their hiring process accordingly. Especially in volume hiring for startups, they will end up winding things faster.
4. Go for Process Up-Gradation and Revision
When you are eyeing to take more people on board at the same time, sit with your HR manager to discuss some of the questions.
- How much shall be the standard time and procedure to fill one position?
- Is it possible to fill all the openings with a steady pace and process?
- Can we replace any recruitment stage with a technology-driven round?
- Can virtual hiring be an alternative to physical hiring?
- Do we need to revise our hiring strategy based on current times?
Such exercise can enable you ‘not to lose’ any quality candidate because your process is cumbersome and takes too much of their present job time.
5. Clout Your Network for Faster Decision Making
You must look back at your co-workers, people whom you know personally or who were referred by your friends, peers, or associates. Doing so adds an extra vetting layer to your talent sourcing process. Also, as candidates trust each other from the start, you will save the ‘get to know each other’ time. When the team members are already well-versed, it could quickly be a get-go time to jump on some complex projects without delay.
6. Remember, Great Talent Can Be Found Anywhere
Referrals are essential to fasten the process and win the trust early. However, observing this as a thumb rule kills the spirit of diversity too. Companies have discovered that best people don’t come merely through referrals but can be discovered on job portals, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networking sites. Meanwhile, studies show that the latter outperforms the referrals by 58%.
7. Let It Be a Diverse Team with Diverse Ideas
No startup can afford less innovative and short-sighted mindsets who are laser-focused on ‘inbox thinking’ and have generated ‘trained incapacity’ among them. Highly inclusive organizations are likely to generate revenue 1.4 times and 120% more capable of meeting financial goals. Indeed, companies need to build a team with varied compositions for diversity to intrude and ideas to incubate.
What’s more, you can go for a screening test, background verification, and reference checks, etc. Interestingly, a few other recent studies indicate trends in volume hiring for startups:
- Startups with people below 25 years of age perform nearly 30% or above average.
- Companies with their co-founders from top schools are performing 220% better than others.
- Company alma maters did impact for chances to succeed enlarge by 50% than others.
While these tips won’t dictate how you choose to choose your team, a promising startup team is a prerequisite for its success. Every business is different, and so is its hiring process. However, as a thumb rule, when it occurs to thinking about investing your funds in hiring a team, you must think about how those funds will help your idea move forward.
Your team is your investment, and indifferently, it is going to pay you returns too. Avoid investing in the wrong team to avoid negative consequences. There can be many areas where a startup can think of reducing the cost. With hiring, it goes the other way round. Make sure that your startup ecosystem is filled with a vibrant, inclusive, and self-propelling team.

Minakshi Sehrawat is a content writer that specializes in the HR industry. For the past 12+ years, she has worked with companies, social organizations, and newspapers offering writing services and solutions. Her strength is writing long-form content about HR, recruitment, management practices, technology, communities, and events.
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