To keep the business development strategy a plus, catch the investment-friendly moment! That axiom comes in handy for those who think of new tasks to the company HR. Other option you might review — outsource specific tasks. Alternatively, you may consider IT staff augmentation services to build an in-house team structure without arranging a list of working conditions by yourself. That idea also works when your in-house HR department doesn’t have the required expertise in hiring tech talent.
Anyway, we will help you determine when to speed up with new hires, and what points to take into account to get the relevant team on the first try.
Who is responsible?
Often, the CTOs are the most suggested persons to determine talent gaps in the team. They see how plans correlate with reality, how the developers’ performance changes. Those managers can early signal that you need to scale the tech team. In case, you are the business owner who handles all the processes, you are the key actor and key factor to initiate the growth chain.
Am I ready to start?
In short, you are ready if you see a market or product consumption increase. Revenue size can freeze (and mostly freezes) if not invested in the team at the right stage of the established business or startup lifecycle. It’s like taking the bus, being 2 steps away from that gorgeous and comfortable Jaguar meant for you. To adopt your chance, keep in mind a cheat sheet below.
Indicators for tech team scaling
- Slower delivery and too many responsibilities
Track your tech team workload. Do they often struggle to keep up with deadlines? Does the backlog keep growing? These are hints, that your current team size is not enough to handle the tasks without losses in productivity and quality of your products or services.
- Poor customer feedback
Notice a growing number of complaints or requests for enhancements? Your existing team might be modified to address all those reviews and support tickets. Prioritizing customer satisfaction is crucial for the long-term success of your startup.
- Increased customer base or user demand
If you ignore this indicator, your company will be involved in the previous story with the feedback. It’s better not to wait for the disappointing rates and start to scale your team proportionally with building your immense clients’ family.
- Financial considerations
Hiring techs requires a significant investment in recruitment, onboarding, and retaining. Access your current budgets and projections to ensure that scaling is financially viable and aligns with your growth plans.
- Competitive landscape and new product or service offerings
Stay informed about industry trends and keep an eye on your competitors. Have they started to expand their tech teams or introduce innovative products or features? In such a case, your startup has some perspectives as well at the moment. React to the market demands to get more competitive advantages.
- Limitations of the existing tech team
Require specialized skills or expertise? It could be more reliable to ask new faces to join your project. As in that case, you may get the better matching role performers and complete the tasks faster.
Before you start, imagine your schedule
Planning of the hiring campaign is a first thing to include into your scaling schedule. During that period, you will move from the “I want to scale team” decision to “we have all the requirements gathered, job descriptions approved and all the stages of job interviews prepared”.
The duration of this stage depends on how clear you imagine the missing functions in your team. You can save your time if you outline all the input data using a structured algorithm, like outstaffing companies usually do at the meetings with their clients.
Then be ready to make some efforts to reach the point where you have candidates waiting for your approval. It means the potential team members have to successfully pass all the hiring stages and confirm their high compatibility with your offer. According to the most optimistic estimates, that time frame, the average time to intro for tech specialists, starts from 8 days.
The total period needed to successfully close all the positions depends on 2 things.
- How many people you are going to engage and what are their roles (typically, searching for the Blockchain developer takes a bit longer than, for example, recruiting a front-end developer or designer).
- How fast the decisions are made (on both sides: employer and candidate).
Activate team scaling mode
You want people who will rock your project, not a chain of changing employees, right? Then, rely on time-tested algorithm of how to scale a team.
- Conduct a job market research to get acquainted with salaries, benefits, tech stacks. Thus, you will be able to come up with the best-matching skill set and compensation for the new position in your team.
- Take care of clear job titles and responsibilities based on the business objectives’ evaluation.
- Select the right candidates for your new roles within your existing team and outside it.
- Must-haves for the technical interview with suggested candidates are thorough examination of tech stack relevant to your project and overall compatibility of the hard skills with your industry.
- We stand for taking background checks not less critically than testing tech expertise. Let your potential team members showcase their soft skills like leadership mindset, smart and friendly communication, ability to control their own life, and see the general picture.
Where to look for support with all those steps?
It’s natural to have a lot of “how-tos” when you are gathering the team for the first time, and for the next times — too. While acting wisely, you will choose the most effective scaling model for your business. If you feel like “I want to get round the common pitfalls”, talk to experts who deal with hiring, onboarding, and retaining tech specialists on the daily basis.
