How Tech Startups Can Snap Up Talent During Massive Layoffs in 2022

It’s impossible to avoid conversation of 2022 massive layoffs in the startup space. Shopify, Coinbase, Netflix, Peleton, and dozens of other companies have been letting go of “non-essential” staff, cutting up to 30% of their workforces, in some cases. In May of this year, YC founders advised founders to “plan for the worst,” assume they wouldn’t be able to grow near as quickly - if at all - in the recent economic climate. Amazon layoffs, as well as major hiring cuts or freezes at Google and Twitter, have dominated the media landscape. In all, it sounds pretty scary, right?

While “big tech” is ruthlessly trimming 1000s from payroll, this isn’t reflected in quite the same way across the industry. In fact, economists still say we’re in a hot labor market. For growth-stage startups, the current climate actually presents an opportunity to find highly skilled, top-tier talent for open positions. 

In fact, our experience speaks to this: Our two biggest clients haven't slowed down hiring. Instead, they've continued toward their head count goals for 2022. 

If you’re ready to move quickly, you can use this opportunity to hire great talent from major tech companies. Remember that a lot of this great talent still has a lot of opportunities - so make sure to be thoughtful about this process.

Of course, standing out from other startups (and FAANG) all starts with a good job posting - so make sure you have one that stands out. 

Have a clear idea of the positions you’re hiring 

While it can be exciting (and also a bit stressful) to try to snap up talent fast, it doesn’t pay to rush this part of the process. While it might be appealing to try to hire for every department and post a bunch of generic job postings, this approach can actually hurt your efforts. Excluding the technical stack, including too many “nice to have’s,” or failing to be detailed in what the candidates day-to-day would look can deter candidates, or force you to sift through dozens of candidates that aren’t the right fit. 

Instead, have a meeting with the leadership members of each department. Have them prepare an overview of the gaps they’re experiencing - yes, the gaps, not the roles - and have them prioritize them each in order of importance. Ideally, they should also add some rationale: why is this role so important, right now? Remember, that this isn’t just an opportunity to hire for the sake of it - you want to streamline your search and save your operating budget for the key hires that are really going to move the needle. 

From there, you can identify what the roles should look like. Based on the gaps proposed, team leaders can outline what skillset would be required to fill gap areas. And using the prioritization provided by each team lead, you can more easily decide what roles to prioritize hiring for. 

Write a job description that attracts the right candidates

We’ve already discussed the important of avoiding generic job descriptions; but it’s equally important to use the right language to appeal to candidates. Typically, it’s a good idea to have the hiring manager from each department draft the posting first. That ensures they use the right vocabulary, which technical talent can be quite conscious of, as well as the requirements for the role: technical stack, years of experience, and project management methodologies can all help. These items make the job posting more skimmable, and make sure the candidates you want don’t write it off just because it’s missing important details.

On the culture side, make sure to keep the job posting authentic. Avoid stiff language and boilerplates whenever you can. At the end of the day, you’re hiring a human, and your job posting and careers page is the first way they get a sense of what your company is like on the inside. For more tips on demonstrating your company culture and values, check out our piece on how to stand out against tech giants.

Leverage company layoff aggregators

OK, so you’ve finished writing your job postings. Now how do you find the talent?

While inbound might work, if you’re a small company or lack a robust digital presence, it’s unlikely the talent you want will find you. It also leaves you less control over who actually applies to your role. 

Instead, you can do direct reachouts in a couple of ways. Aggregators like Layoffs.fyi and Parachute aggregate companies that have undergone recent layoffs. You can filter by location, date, and stage, depending on what your needs are. 

Some of the companies also include a full list of employees that were part of the layoffs, though that’s only for around 20% of the list.

Reaching out to candidates and tracking progress

Once you’ve identified the companies you want to target, you can turn to LinkedIn to send direct messages to potential candidates. If this part of the process scares you, though, you’re not alone. Sending a DM to someone might be your only opportunity to connect with a talented candidate that you want to join your team. Having the right message to attract potential recruits is key. 

At this stage, it can help to work with a seasoned technical recruiter. The right agency or recruiter has a lot of relevant experience identifying and connecting with candidates, and can ensure you make the right first impression. They can even help you earlier up: if you’re not sure how to identify the right folks, recruiters can help here, too. 

Have the relevant hiring manager send candidate messages

If you’re planning to send the reachouts yourself, they should be sent by the hiring manager. It feels more authentic and builds a better rapport than someone from an unrelated department, or a generic message that feels like it’s been blasted to dozens of candidates. 

You can also send out more than one message, and sometimes this is a good idea. LinkedIn messages, if left unread, can quickly disappear and become forgotten. Sending a quick, but personalized, ping can help you reconnect. 

Track reachout progress and replies using a spreadsheet or tracking system

You’ll also want an applicant tracking system, or at least a structured Google sheet, to help you manage the outbounds you’re making. Their name, LinkedIn profile URL, position, department, and when you reached out are all important to include. You can also include a column to track their “status” as you move through the process. 

If this all sounds like a lot of work, it is - but it pays to track this as you go. Sending multiple messages to the same candidates, or forgetting to get in touch, can come across as disorganized and hurt your efforts. Of course, this process is difficult for hiring managers, especially when they’re strapped for time (which, let’s face it, as a growth-stage startup, you absolutely are). 

If you’re a scaling startup and would like some help with your recruiting process, we’d love to connect to learn how Plus10 can help you. Schedule your free call with a technical recruiter now.

Streamline your interview process 

While it may seem counterintuitive, take a hard look at your interview process. Today, interviews are longer than ever, sometimes dragging out weeks or even months. Screening interviews, culture fit, technical tests, personality tests, and more can become part of an interview process. 

Too long of an interview process can cause you to lose out on talent. Make sure your entire leadership team agrees that hiring is a key priority, and that getting back to candidates quickly and refining the interview process is required. 

How long is too long? A survey showed that 39% of workers said an interview process lasting longer than 7-14 days was too long. So, find a way to keep things tight during this process. Ask yourself what is really necessary and what can be trimmed. 

Streamlining this process also includes minimizing handoffs and people involved. It can be confusing and overwhelming for a candidate to meet with so many people from your company, then having to do that with other companies they may be interviewing for. In the end, this just makes the process exhausting and, quite honestly, a blur. 

Be strategic and well rounded with who you decide to include in the interview process for each role. If you’re a very small company and this just isn’t possible, take care to make sure your interview process remains tight. Or, you can engage the help of a technical recruiter to stay on top of this and provide a continual line of communication. 

Summary

The big tech layoffs can present a good opportunity for scaling and growth-stage startups that are prepared. By being thoughtful about the roles you need to fill, prioritizing the hiring process at the leadership level, and implementing a strategic reachout process, you have a unique opportunity to snap up top-tier talent from FAANG and the like.