Firstly, we know it’s super exciting to be working on a climate change solution with your climate-tech start-up. Whilst it’s amazing that you’re building your climate-tech company, we’re sure that your workload is overflowing, and you have an endless to-do list and not enough time!
In this blog, we’ll discuss why it’s challenging hiring as a start-up but we’ll also share solutions that work and have worked for other early-stage climate founders, so you’ll be more prepared when scaling your start-up and you’ll have a smoother interview and onboarding process for your new joiners.
First, we will go over the challenges you may face as a climate tech founder or climate-tech start-up.
1. No one is dedicated to Hiring at your Climate-Tech Start-Up, You Don't Have A Climate-Tech Recruiter
You’ll likely have a fairly small organisation and you don’t have one specific individual, like a Head of People or Head of Talent that is responsible for all people related matters, meaning recruiting, onboarding, employee engagement, people operations or training and development. Hiring takes a large amount of time that it’s probably being handled by everybody, but there is no one person responsible. Larger companies have entire teams or a dedicated person responsible for hiring. However as a climate founder you have to find those extra hours to dedicate to recruiting activities.
2. You Likely have Limited Capital to Spend
Although you have some investment, whether it’s seed or Series A or B, you likely have limited capital to spend on recruiting systems, hiring an entire talent acquisition team for your climate-tech start up or payment a monthly fee to an RPO. (recruitment process outsource provider)
Of course you want to hire the top 1% talent to help with your climate mission. However, the salary expectations of such people are often higher than what you can afford.
Your recruiting budget is probably very limited, you don’t have extra funds to spend on applicant tracking software, scheduling software, recruitment marketing or a detailed careers site with all the bells and whistles, and you’re working of simple spreadsheets, notion or documents to keep track of your candidates, you have to make it work with your limited resources.
Although you have some investment, whether it’s seed or Series A or B, you likely have limited capital to spend on recruiting systems, hiring an entire talent acquisition team for your climate-tech start up or payment a monthly fee to an RPO. (recruitment process outsource provider)
Of course you want to hire the top 1% talent to help with your climate mission. However, the salary expectations of such people are often higher than what you can afford.
Your recruiting budget is probably very limited, you don’t have extra funds to spend on applicant tracking software, scheduling software, recruitment marketing or a detailed careers site with all the bells and whistles, and you’re working of simple spreadsheets, notion or documents to keep track of your candidates, you have to make it work with your limited resources.
3. You Have Limited Hiring Experience
You may have hired people in the past, but it may not have been your main focus of your day job as a Climate-Tech Founder.
You need to understand what you look for, how to read through resumes and how to look for an ideal candidate, and what questions to ask. You may also be hiring for functions outside of your expertise, for example you might be a technical climate-tech founder and now you need to hire an excellent sales person, so it may not come naturally to be able to assess their sales ability.
If you’re like most start-up founders, you have limited experience here, and you can’t afford to make a hiring mistake, especially when it comes to the negative impact of a hiring the wrong person for your start-up.
4. You Haven’t Had to Scale Your Climate-Tech Company Until Now
Perhaps you have a few founding members in your climate-tech start-up. And those founding members you met at a previous organisation, a climate-tech accelerator or at university. You haven’t had to run an official recruitment process until now and maybe you’ve hired people based on your knowledge of their work, their values and their reputation and many coffees.
But when it comes to bringing new people in your start-up, you haven’t run a more formal recruitment process. Making decisions on hiring becomes more complex if you haven’t done much hiring in the past.
Now that we’ve discussed the struggles you may have when hiring, here are some best practices to help you hire faster and better.
1. Be Scrappy
You don’t need to choose the most expensive CRM with lots of features, especially at this stage. No need for fancy capabilities and features. You can use a free CRM or even create your own using a Notion template.
Create a structured but flexible process. A well-defined and efficient hiring process showcases how your climate-tech company operates. If you have a process that makes sense you’ll leave a good impression on the talent you’re speaking with. Conversely, if you take many weeks to interview candidates, it will make your candidates wonder if you take a very long time to make decisions internally. Every candidate interaction with your climate-tech start-up should provide value to both parties; on the one hand explaining how you operate and your company’s climate mission but also testing the candidate’s suitability for your start-up.
2. Be Realistic About Whom You are Hiring, When
Be realistic about what your hiring needs are and think carefully about what you need rather than what you want. Don’t hire someone in the wrong stage of your climate-tech company’s growth. For example, if you’re looking to expand your sales department you may not need to immediately hire a Chief Revenue Officer, as executive-level positions are difficult to fill and the salary expectations of such people are high. It might be a better idea to hire a mid-level sales manager who can do both the strategic sales forecasting but would also be willing to do lead generation, prospecting and closing deals; someone who is adaptable and resourceful. Then, after careful consideration and looking for your sales performance, you can consider hiring a Chief Revenue Officer.
3. Use Data and Intentionality to Make Decisions
Always understand what you are asking candidates and why. What is the reason you are asking certain questions, or what is the reason you’re asking John from accounting to interview the candidate?
The interview process should enable you to both assess the candidate’s skills and fit with your company as well as sell the opportunity to them.
Don’t focus on simply vetting the candidate for their suitability.
Understand what data you want to obtain from each stage of the process, and ideally have a weighting/scoring system. This way, at the end of the recruitment process, you are highly confident about your hiring decision.
Be intentional about the various recruitment steps, especially at the end. Once you’ve identified your top candidate, move quickly to make them an offer and sell them on your company, especially if you’re unable to offer a large amount of cash due to the limited funding you have.
4. Use your Network to Hire!
Asking people for referrals is a great way to build a pipeline for candidates. Know other climate-tech founders? Ask them for advice or help on how they scaled their start-up. Is there someone from your university that you could bring in your start-up? Don’t look at your current network and look at wider networks around you.
Join communities related to climate-tech and network with people. In addition to your day-job as a Climate-tech founder, make sure you spend time networking with others on a regular basis.
Do you have any climate-tech recruiters you’re connected with on LinkedIn or via other channels? Ask them for guidance and tips. Not sure where to find them? Look for recruiters who are specialised in your niche and have the industry knowledge and expertise and network in your area. It’s always better to hire a specialised, smaller boutique climate-tech staffing firm that can deliver results quickly and work closely with you rather than instructing a large, generalist recruiting agency.
Follow the tips we’ve outlined and you’ll be able to not make mistakes when hiring for your climate-tech start-up. If you don’t have the time to build everything out, network non-step, vet talent and do hours of screening and vetting, leave it with us. If you’d rather focus your time on your day to day job and leave the hiring to experts, reach out to us for a strategy call.
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