How a Startup without a HR Person Recruited Four Members in Four Months
This article explains how Touch To Go and GBHR developed attractive job descriptions, sent compelling scout emails, and conducted effective interviews.
Written by the Universe editorial team
TOUCH TO GO (TTG) is the sole Japanese startup operating “unmanned convenience stores” based on its proprietary automated payment system. TTG was trying to recruit new members for a year or so in response to the company’s business growth. However, despite their efforts, they were struggling due to a lack of dedicated HR staff.
To help TTG, GBHR, a subsidiary of Global Brain (GB) providing recruitment support, started to tackle the issue together and succeeded in recruiting four members in four months. The rate of job offers accepted was at around 70%, which is relatively high for a startup.
We sat down with Toshiya Namikawa, Executive Vice President of TTG, Yuya Namiki and Issei Kokubu of GBHR to talk about their efforts. (Questions in bold letters were asked by the Universe editing team).
Just Looking for “Talented People” Is Not Enough
How was the situation before working with GBHR?
Namikawa: I was the only person working on mid-career hiring as we did not have a dedicated HR person. For a year, I was sending scout emails and checking the candidates’ résumés using a scouting service, but it did not work out so well. When I felt like giving up, GBHR helped me.
We interviewed each department by ourselves to understand what kind of members they were looking for. But other than that, GBHR supported me in almost every aspect.
For example, GBHR drafted job descriptions and examined areas of improvement in scout emails. We also searched candidates together looking at the computer screen, and they even advised me how to follow up candidates to keep them motivated along the way. It is no exaggeration to say that they helped me as if they were TTG’s recruitment team members.
**I suppose job descriptions are at the core of recruitment activities. How did you prepare them? **
Namikawa: Since we were looking for sales representatives, we first asked internal sales members and managers about the position, age range, and required skills.
However, like any startup, they are always looking for someone who is capable of everything [laughs]. We asked the sales members to narrow down the requirements to those that are absolutely indispensable and separate them from “nice-to-have” skills.
As our product has both SaaS and hardware aspects, we decided to mainly search for people with experience in selling products at manufacturers or systems at system integrators. From there, we discussed with GBHR and worked out more detailed job descriptions.
Namiki: In the recruitment market, it is relatively easy to find talented sales representatives. However, if you are looking for someone who will actually join the company, you need to understand what kind of career the person wants to pursue and what kind of sales skills the person wants to develop, and check whether they match the company.
Some sales positions in the system integration industry have a high-touch sales model to sell their own products, while others mainly do partner sales. Some sales representatives want to specialize in selling their own products, while others want to be flexible and sell various products. Each system integration sales representative has different perspectives on their jobs, so we defined the sales position more precisely when developing the job description.
It is crucial that both the skills and values of the candidates fit the company, isn’t it?
Namiki: Definitely. It is also important to fully understand the job duties of the open position. As you know, it is almost impossible for HR to understand the situations of all departments. TTG shared with us its sales activities very much in detail, including service system configuration and proposal sheets used by sales representatives.
Kokubu: The more you understand the job duties in detail, the more you become aware of the position’s attractiveness. Understanding TTG’s sales approach and the candidates’ experience that would match the position enables us to introduce more candidates to TTG. It was very helpful that TTG shared various information with us, because this allowed us to better understand the job duties and take swift action.
Namikawa: You need to start with your business issues and break them down to identify which team needs what kind of talent with what capabilities. This requires you to understand the company pretty well. As requirements change depending on the business situation even in the same company, an executive management member who can obtain in-depth and broad information about the company should be involved in recruitment.
How to Find the Company’s Unique Attractiveness
After fixing the job descriptions, how did you appeal to potential candidates in scout emails, etc.?
Namikawa: I highlighted qualitative attractiveness that can only be found in TTG sales activities. **Particularly, the large number of stakeholders we interact with in sales and its impact. **
Our sales staff also has a role as project manager who builds actual stores. Also, customers vary from executive management to manager classes so we highlighted the advantage of being able to make a broad impact. Many of the sales representatives are concerned about the type of customers and industry they will be dealing with. To respond to that, we told them that they would be able to cover various types of customers and industries.
Kokubu: We started to receive more replies to the revised scout emails compared to past emails with only company and product attractiveness.
Employees may find it hard to realize the uniqueness of their duties. Is there anything HR can do to find out such attractiveness?
Namiki: I guess it is to interview many candidates and ask them about what kind of career they want to pursue and what challenges they face in their work.
In my previous job as an agent, I interviewed many candidates. Also, Kokubu-san was an executive recruiter focusing on startups. So we know well about each company’s sales organization structure, what kind of professional outlook the employees have, when they start thinking about changing careers , and what kind of work styles they find attractive. This may be what made it possible for us to support TTG in identifying its attractiveness.
Namikawa: I did not have HR experience and had been working on recruitment alone, so I had no idea of the characteristics of scouting media and how to communicate with agents. They gave me work tips and helped me understand many other things.
Kokubu: We now support 30 to 40 startups and receive various information every day. We shared with TTG beneficial information we gained, including the tendency of scouting media and successful cases for engineer recruitment.
Asking about Interviewees’ Lives
Why do you think TTG’s job acceptance rate is so high?
Namikawa: In my opinion, one reason is because I discuss with the candidates directly in casual interviews and first round interviews as a management member. What do you think?
Namiki: That is a major point.
Namikawa: For any position, it’s me who conducts casual interviews and first round interviews. I explain the company in detail for about 30 to 40 minutes, which I think somewhat solves the candidates’ questions on the company.
Then, I take another hour or so for a Q & A. I think the more time you take, the more motivated they are to join the company.
Tell us about your efforts to enhance the way of communicating with candidates to raise their motivation to work at TTG.
Namikawa: While I say almost the same thing to all the candidates, I change the way of communicating with them depending on their personality, humanity, and the position.
Namiki: When I ask Namikawa-san about the interviews afterwards, he always has information on the candidates’ skills, detailed personality, and their lives. It is vital to get to know the person in interviews. This will allow you to give an offer after considering what kind of career this person can build at the company. This might be why we have a high acceptance rate.
Namikawa: I tend to focus on the candidates’ humanity during interviews. Skills can catch up later, but personality is hard to change. If there is a gap, that’s not good for both of us.
Additionally, I have occasions to talk with those who cannot decide which career to focus on in casual interviews. Some have told me that they appreciated my career coaching [laughs].
Kokubu: Namikawa-san deeply examines the candidates, which is similar to career interviews conducted by recruitment agents. This process makes it possible for him to recruit talent with high acceptance rate and low mismatch.
PDCA cycle matters the most
TTG has taken various effective measures. What do you think is the most important point for successful recruitment activities?
Namikawa: It would be to keep following the PDCA cycle. The more you work on recruitment, the more you get results. Flexibility is also required in recruitment activities, as the business is very dynamic. It is essential to keep considering and reviewing the measures every month. As a specific PDCA measure, we conduct an A/B testing to see which version of application guidelines results in more applications.
Namiki: We agree the PDCA cycle is important. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, so you have to keep on making efforts.
Namikawa: Another important thing is not to have GBHR do everything for you when you work with them.
It is different from outsourcing, and we worked together on TTG’s issues including having discussions on job descriptions. GBHR’s stance to act as a member of the TTG recruitment staff resulted in successfully turning the PDCA cycle and conducting various measures.
Namiki: We were able to closely cooperate with TTG as they shared quite a lot of information with us. TTG has successfully harnessed our support to establish an effective recruitment structure.
Namikawa: I am really thankful for your support. A new HR member recently joined me, so I hope we can further enhance our activities.
Our value is “compensation as good as large corporations and job discretion of a startup.” As the company was originally founded as a joint venture with JR East Start UP, it is the best environment for those who want to work in a relatively secure environment while taking on a big challenge. We will continue and enhance our recruitment efforts so that we can find such wonderful candidates.