Building a successful marketing team for a startup can be a challenge.

You want the best talent to shout about your startup.

And sometimes (most of the time) you’re limited on budget as well as actually find the time to interview candidates.

So we thought we’d chat with Richard, Head of Talent, & Lucy, Founder, here at The Scale Up Collective, & share some of his golden nuggets on startup recruitment to make it a little easier.

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🔍 What should you be looking for?

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For the startup & scale up world, there are many traits you should consider. But Lucy & Rich say the top 4 are:

• Agility
• Energy
• Empathy
• Curiosity

Having an agile & curious personality & seeing that they’ll consistently challenge themselves on the latest trends is so important. When we spoke to Caroline Whaley, she also agreed that curiosity is a key trait to look out for. More from Caroline on team building here.

To make a difference & challenge the status quo, they need to be energetic. No brand scaled because they just did what was expected. It takes energy to push the boundaries & keep experimenting to find the right path.

Empathy is key in understanding the audience's point of view & why what they care about matters.

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💭 An outdated approach to recruitment

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Rich says, “A tradition in all businesses is hiring for “culture fit”. And this needs to change.

Making decisions on whether you could go to the pub with a candidate is most definitely a thing of the past.

It’s now all about hiring with a “culture add” mindset.”

“Something else that’s outdated in recruitment is university degrees”, says Lucy.

“You don't need to go to university to be a good marketer. Life experience is so much more important.”

You want to find someone who’s going to add something to the team, someone who’s going to challenge your thoughts & someone who’s going to go the extra mile. Rather than someone who’s a good laugh & can work their way through a to-do list.

This is the way forward to building the best team for your business & delivering the best work for your customers.

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💡 How to judge if you’ve got the right team?

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Sometimes the team’s not quite right. And that’s ok. But how can you judge when this point is?

Rich says, “It’s important to make sure your team is bringing diversity of thought to the table in order to do your audience & customers justice.

This goes on to become a key barometer in judging whether you have the “right” team in place for growth.”

And Lucy judges the effectiveness of her team by “the quality of their output”.

She also looks out for the “happiness of the team as well as the clients & partners the team is working with”.

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🤔 When should you promote or rethink?

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When the time comes to promote, Lucy says “I look for the proof they can succeed at the next level.

This could be that they’re meeting their objectives, they’re enthusiastic & they demonstrate they can act at the next level by taking action to find & do the necessary training.”

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Key takeaways

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👉 Look for the curious applicants. And the ones who are ready for the challenge ahead.

👉 Ignore university degrees & the ability to have a laugh with them.

👉 Keep an eye on the happiness of your team, your clients & your partners.

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