How to Sell your startup to candidates
When you’re recruiting for your startup, you need a well-crafted sales pitch for candidates which everyone in the interview process is aligned with. It’s easy to assume that all the prep and research in advance of the interview has to only be undertaken by the candidates. However, that's not the case. After all, as an interviewer, even if it’s for your first ever hire, you will have to do a sales pitch on both the role and the business, highlighting and enthusing about the exciting opportunity it presents, the company vision as well as the potential for career development.
You are there not only to find the perfect person for the role at hand but also to represent the business, ensuring that potential candidates have a wholly positive experience and leave the interview with both a good impression of the business and a genuine desire to join your team.
Remember too that it’s a pretty tough and competitive market at the moment so good candidates will probably have many other options. If you haven’t done a good enough job of selling both the role and your startup to the candidate, there is always the chance that they may not want to move to the next stage of the recruitment process. Ideally, you should always have the choice on whether or not an interviewee should progress further, rather than being rejected by the candidate at the earliest stage.
If you want great candidates, you’ll have to make sure you give them a great interview too! Here are a few things to consider, to help you do just that:
Why do you need to give a sales pitch?
To put it in simple terms, you'll lose great candidates if you don't! By not having a sales pitch, you’re not only conveying a sense of arrogance but you’re also indicating that you’re a tad nonchalant about the candidate too, that you don’t really care and aren’t at all bothered about having to impress them. The candidate will feel that, recognising that they’re not important to you and most probably will leave the interview with pretty negative thoughts. They’re not going to feel excited about the role, the company, or the founder's vision if you haven't given them anything to be excited about.
Don’t make the mistake of going into the interview and blagging it. You may have lots of other things to be doing, be resentful at how the hiring process is infringing on your busy schedule and just want to cut to the chase and focus on the candidate’s skill set, but that can be a big mistake. It’s clearly evident if you do this and it doesn’t come across at all well to prospective candidates. You’re also likely to omit all sorts of interesting and important points that could really matter to a candidate and help them make a decision about the role. Your startup and what you do could be truly innovative and amazing, however, if it’s explained badly or worse still, not at all, a great candidate is likely to walk away.
Also, you should never assume that a candidate will feel exactly as you do about the business from the off. You’ll need to do your bit to differentiate your startup from all those other companies that they may be considering working for. Remember that there are lots of great companies out there - with great cultures, great leaders and an exciting vision. A well-crafted sales pitch will provide you with the perfect opportunity to get your candidates excited about the role, and the company mission and make them want to be a part of it.
What to include in your sales pitch?
The overall vision/solution
One of the core elements of your sales pitch to candidates will be the conveying of the overall vision, the innovation or the problem you are trying to solve. As part of this, it’s important to clearly tell the story of your startup - from the earliest days and the founder’s vision, developing the prototype or acquiring those first customers through to where you are today. Explain the problem and your solution succinctly. Make it all compelling, interesting and appealing!
The journey so far
The story of what has been built to date may also be a significant selling point to many candidates and could be the deciding factor in whether or not they want to be a part of the next phase of the startup journey.
In terms of that, do share some highlights with the candidate. That could be anything from sharing stats on the impact you’ve made so far, significant achievements such as funding rounds or industry awards through to key clients that you’ve onboarded. Showcasing where you are right now and all that you have achieved so far can be one of the best ways to impress potential candidates.
The next milestones
In terms of what comes next, be clear about what that will look like. Where do you expect the business to be in 3 years or 5 years? Are there any significant plans in place for new products or services or for further expansion? Any milestones that you are likely to reach? Can you quote any figures to candidates, such as potential projected revenue or team growth? Creating an exciting vision that a candidate can be part of achieving can often be a major draw for many candidates when weighing up their career options.
The culture and the opportunities
If you feel that you’ve got a great startup culture, then use the interview as an opportunity to highlight why that is. Give the candidate-specific examples, tell stories and paint a picture of what it’s really like to work there. Your startup’s culture is unique to your business, so make sure that the candidates can understand why that is and genuinely want to be a part of it. And remember too that your culture can be a huge distinguishing factor if a candidate is weighing up a few options so don’t forget to talk about it!
Try and give the candidate a little more insight into day-to-day life in the startup too - outline each of the key functions, the teams and who you look after. And remember to highlight the potential for career progression - what it could look like for them, perhaps share some examples of other team members and how they’ve progressed within the business.
It’s also not enough to simply say that your startup is different from a corporate role or that it’s an exciting and innovative place to work and use generic or cliché-ridden language; you will need to clearly explain why that is the case. What really makes your startup stand out from all the others? What is it about the founder’s vision that sets it apart?
How to get the message across?
When you are prepping your sales pitch for candidates, make sure that it is simple to understand so that all candidates will “get it”. Making it overly complicated will only serve to be off-putting to many candidates. Accessibility is key! Forget the jargon and the in-house lingo and acronyms. Don’t go on too long either - this isn’t the place for a lengthy and dull monologue. Remember, you want the candidate to leave that interview having been wowed by what you’ve got to offer, not deterred or even worse, confused.
And even though you may deliver that sales pitch multiple times over the course of a day, remember that it’s the first time a candidate will have heard it! Be as enthusiastic for the first candidate you meet as the last. Stifle those yawns and make sure you never come across as though you’re bored!
Also, make sure that you’re comfortable in delivering the pitch too. This isn’t the place for reading from a pre-prepared script in a robotic tone or quoting verbatim from your website. Speak in a language that a candidate will understand and make it natural and not forced.
It may also be worthwhile to tailor the pitch depending on the role you are interviewing for. After all, selling your startup to a software engineer may be very different from selling it to a sales manager. Work out what their interests and passions in a role may be and adapt the pitch accordingly.
Aligning your team
It’s also important for all interviewers to be fully aligned in advance on the sales pitch to candidates - signing from the same hymn sheet, as it were. Make sure that you’re all in sync with each other, and that you’re aware of the key selling points for the business. Whether that’s why your product or service is so unique, the journey and successes that you’ve had to date or the company culture or vision and plans for the future.
As interviewers, you should all be comfortable in selling the business and what it offers to potential candidates from a general perspective, however, it may also be a good idea for individual interviewers to cite their personal reasons as to why this particular role or the startup itself ought to interest the candidate. They may refer to their own journey within the business, their career development to date or the excitement of what lies ahead. However, no matter which angle they go from, they should sell with genuine conviction and enthusiasm!
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Offering personalised, consultative service, at TableCrowd Talent we’re a specialist recruitment agency with our finger on the pulse of the startup and scaleup scene. We are committed to matching graduates, professionals and C-level executives to exciting startup and scaleup jobs across London, the UK and Europe.
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