A friend of mine once said, “Job seekers are attracted to Jobs like challengers are attracted to challenges”. Now that’s a point to think. What kind of message we send out decides what kind of personalities we attract!
Who are our target talents?
NOT somebody who has set his/her mind to join Ericsson/Volvo/ Electrolux.
If you’re a startup, you CANNOT beat the offer of a corporate and the best part is, you don’t have to.
Our target talents are people who are looking for something different than those normal jobs; somebody, who wants to try something different. With that said, STOP imitating a corporate recruitment ad because that’s not gonna work. That’s not your strong side.
As a startup, what are you selling in your job ad?
1. Potential to Grow
One of the amazing perks for a person to choose a startup is its ability to grow — not just any ordinary growth but an accelerated hyper-exponential growth. But how can you express this in your job ad?
Talk about the size of the market you’re trying to capitalize.
Last month I was working with my friends at Bioservo Technologies and they have developed some amazing robotic gloves for people with weakened grip problems (people who have weakness to grip/grab objects) and all we had to say in our social media post headlines was this,
“5% of the global population between 16 to 84 suffers from a weakened hand grip! Bioservo Tech is expanding!”
One striking line, that shows the potential to scale and grow.
Don’t throw phrases like “you have potential to grow” in your job ad just for word-sake — MEAN IT and back it with statistics and numbers on your target market.
2. Team Competence
How competent is your team to capitalize the above-mentioned market potential and grow?
Now some startups prefer to state the experience and brand of their team members and thereby prove the competence of their team. For example: Our team is comprised of PHDs or we have a stanfordian in our team. And that’s not a bad idea. But my personal favorite is the following strategy.
Following are the stuffs we have accomplished in the past 100 days. We are starting our next 100 days now. Are you game?
Position your company as a super-team who delivers and have fun while doing it.
3. Validations
Throwing some further validations on the trustability of your startup is always good. Are you part of any reputed incubator/ accelerator, closed any investments, signed any clients, won any awards, etc, etc.
That’s it! Just remember NOT to sell your product/service but the amazing team that is developing it who is looking for their next teammate.
