Recruiting without a strong budget

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am currently a project manager in a tech start up and I do not have the budget to recruit new resources. Company is growing, we are starting to work with respectable brand names, but my budget for recruitment is limited to hiring expenses only interns (if lucky).

So far my recruiting experience has become frustrating:

• Many prospective candidates do not want to work unpaid/expenses only.
• the ones who are initially are ok with this idea, end up flaking upon receiving the job offer for a paid internship.

I have suggested that we use freelancers for the time being, boss agreed - but even then he does not want to hire anybody for above 9 dollars an hour limiting my options further. We are currently doing a lot of marketing and sales, so even though the number of clients has increased we are selling our product cheaply increasing the price of the product gradually.

I am under pressure to recruit new resources, any ideas on a workaround for this situation?

manpreet 2 years ago

If your boss will not give you the budget to hire the quality of people you want, you have three simple options:

• hire cheaper people, and accept the associated risks and cost that will bring
• hire fewer at the grade you want, and accept that projects will take longer, and there is a higher risk of burning them out
• get more budget

It really is that simple. You can talk all you want about how to word stock options, or the value proposition, but that's what it comes down to.

If you are under pressure to recruit, the budget holder and you need to work through the pros and cons for each of those options and decide.