A business in the state of hypergrowth is expanding by 40% or more year over year. Not just in customers and revenue, but also in infrastructure, offices, and of course: Staff. Hiring for a business in hypergrowth is a uniquely challenging necessity because you need so many skilled people to grow into a cohesive company rapidly. In fact, you’ll need to build a company culture that includes a dedication to constant high-quality hiring.
If your business is currently in hypergrowth or is accelerating toward a hypergrowth state, you’ll need to prepare a hiring infrastructure that can stand the entire process, from searching for large numbers of qualified candidates to onboarding the finalists fast enough to hire the next batch of new people.
Today, we’re here to talk about some hypergrowth hiring tips you may not have come across before that can transform the efficiency and success of your next wave of new staff members.
1) Hypergrowth Hiring is an Uphill Battle
The first insider hypergrowth tip we can give is that finding candidates is going to be your first big challenge. And not just in perfecting your job ad SEO. Unemployment is at an all-time low. Freelancing and corporate demand for skilled professionals is at an all-time high. The Boomers just retired. This has created a worldwide talent shortage and struggle to hire known as the ‘War for Talent’.
From your perspective, this will mean that there are fewer qualified applicants, particularly at the higher levels of skill and authority where the supply is the smallest. The smartest companies are building hiring strategies based on this as the current hiring climate with no signs of changing. Look at what other companies in your industry are doing to attract the talent you want and consider ways to make your positions, pay, opportunities, or employee experience more tempting. You may also want to consider strategies that incorporate work from freelancers and outsourcing teams which is another place that the talent you need is ‘hiding’.
Fortunately, a company in hypergrowth is also a very appealing opportunity for many occupied professionals who want to be part of a hyper-growing company culture.
2) Hypergrowth Managers Often Dedicate 50% of Their Time to Hiring
Your managers are necessary to keep their teams equipped, coordinated, and on-task. But their time is also vital to the hiring process. Most companies that have been through hyper-growth have found that their managers often spend upwards of 50% of their time on hiring tasks like reviewing resumes, conducting interviews, and holding meetings to narrow down candidates.
If your manager time is being eaten by hiring, don’t panic. This is normal. In fact, you should be scheduling for it and trying to distribute normal managerial work so that managers can mostly act in their roles as ground-level expert hiring managers. Because your business is expanding so rapidly, it’s possible that every manager from the CEO to the night-shift janitor is constantly interviewing, hiring, and onboarding during hyper-growth years.
3) Hypergrowth Employees Can Act as Recruiters
While your manager time is an important hiring resource, your employees can also play a critical role in rapid hypergrowth hiring. Normally, employee hiring recommendations are few and far between, because they usually only recommend people they know well and who work in their industry. But in a hyper-growing company, you can use all the job applicants and referrals you can get. If someone’s cousin is looking for a job, there’s a good chance your quickly growing company has a position that could use their skills.
Employees are an interesting way to get a pipeline into locals looking for jobs right now. They have friends who are tired of their jobs, siblings or cousins who are between jobs, nieces and nephews who are graduating from college soon and need an internship or first job. Linked-In contacts who are currently job searching. As your number of employees grows, so too does their total potential network of new applicants through professional and social contacts.
4) Your Employer Brand Reputation Matters
Today, we look up the reviews for everything from electric kettles to future employers. Job search sites and unique reviewing platforms like GlassDoor come together to make up your brand’s reputation as an employer. When a professional is considering one of your many job availabilities, they will probably look up your company as an employer to find out what it’s like to work for you. And you can bet they’ll make decisions based on the reviews.
Become aware of your employer brand reputation by searching for your own brand as if you were about to get a job. Don’t forget the forums and blog comment sections of popular job-search sites like Monster and Indeed. And your Yelp and Google My Business reputations, for good measure. This is how future employees will decide if you’re a good company to work with.
Whether you have a shining reputation, a sour reputation, or no employer reputation at all, it’s a good idea to start building one. You want interviewed employees to leave smiling. You want interns who finish their terms to recommend you to their friends. And you want them to say nice things online, which is a marketing challenge businesses are still working on.
[Continued in Part 2]
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