aiFind
Recruiting: Challenges and solutions

Recruiting: Challenges and solutions

Henriette from Start To Finish on challenges and solutions in the modern recruiting age.

The world of work is changing. Recruiting also needs to be rethought. It feels like the recruiting industry is getting old, even the reputation of recruiters fluctuates a lot between CV pushers and real consultants. There are most likely reasons for that. Today we talk to Henriette from Start to Finish. Start to Finish is breaking new ground. They’re doing things differently. A completely remote agency… Let’s talk a little bit about the challenges in recruiting, how Start to Finish deals with them and what else is helpful if you want to build a business in this field. But first. Who are you and what do you do?

Hi, I’m Henriette and I’ve been working as a Recruiter and Social Media Manager at Start To Finish since the beginning of 2022. Pretty unusual combination, I know ;) But it has the advantage that I get a lot of insights into both areas. Half of my day is spent talking to cool start-up founders from the e-commerce, tech and Amazon FBA sectors and finding the right A-players for their companies, and the other part of my day is spent producing videos and posts for our company, designing our start-up job newsletter, regularly helping out in our recruiting academy for start-ups and coaching our team on LinkedIn personal branding so that candidates and founders become aware of us.

What do you think is the biggest challenge in recruiting?

The biggest challenge in recruiting is the human aspect. That means that just about anything can happen. We do active sourcing and therefore only see people on their LinkedIn profiles first and don’t know what makes them tick. Even after the first interview, you can’t assess people 100% correctly. So a person that looked quite unremarkable on their profile to the point where you were not even sure if they fit, ends up being the perfect match. Unfortunately, the opposite can happen too where you had a great candidate in the interview, they also expressed great interest, but you never hear anything back from this person again.

How does Start to Finish solve this problem?

Eliminating the human aspect doesn’t work in recruiting, of course. But we do two important things that make it easier for us to successfully place candidates.

First, we pay attention to really good copywriting, which makes us stand out from 99% of the other InMails in candidates’ inboxes, and candidates really want the job from the start and know that we think differently.

Secondly, we try to communicate as much as possible with all sides and are quick to respond. One of our first questions in interviews is always where the candidates themselves want to go and what their new job should involve. In addition, we regularly ask how candidates feel about the process and where they stand at the moment. Many candidates are out as soon as the process is over 4 weeks long, so we ensure that we talk to them quickly so that further interviews in the start-ups take place swiftly. If we can’t guarantee that once, we bet everything on communication so we don’t lose the candidates.

You are still a start-up. What do you think is particularly difficult for new company ventures in recruiting?

Trust is certainly particularly difficult. Many people now know that agencies often look for new employees for companies, but many candidates are still skeptical at first as to whether they can trust the recruiter who is contacting them. For this reason, in the long term it is well worth investing in your own employer brand and also in the personal brand of the recruiter.

Is there also something that particularly helps when you want to establish / launch something in recruiting?

There actually is something that helps and will always help in all other businesses, and that is bringing in the right experts. Many believe that it makes sense to hire “cheap” employees like working students or interns at the beginning, but most startups need real A-players first, who really drive the company forward from day 1 and who already bring a lot of expertise in a certain field.

Awesome, thank you very much for the exciting insights! And to all readers: If you are also a start-up or are about to start a start-up, then make sure you take these points with you and contact Henriette or Start To Finish directly if you need any support.