An organization is made and grown by its people. For any organization, A core team is a central and critical part. For organizations working in science and engineering, there is a higher ask as there are regular technical and non-technical challenges that can demand specific skill sets, out-of-the-box thinking, or persistent efforts to mitigate problems.
Organizations having their own research and development (R&D), face further challenges as it is important you have the right talent who can execute and deliver on time as well keep consistency in projects for a long time till the research reaches commercialization. A gap in critical resource availability can push the milestones and delivery cycles, by a couple of months or even years.
When it comes to building a team for a start-up, it’s hard to follow the textbook rules which generally work. Since every early-stage start-up might have a different scenario in which it has its inception. Some companies might have a strong technical team in the beginning, but the runway might be small, which can eventually bring a strain on retaining the resources. On the contrary, there could be organizations with decent runway but might struggle to put a strong team together. Further, having a defined scope of product development or a strong vision might be additional challenges a company faces. Startups need people who are ready to work with multiple hats/responsibilities. Not everyone thrives in an environment where there is ambiguity or where the expectation is to fill in any gaps they see, be it their competency or another's.
Despite all the challenges, it is mandatory a heavy focus is brought on hiring the resource at the right time and building a strong team. For technical organizations, often it is necessary to onboard resources that have niche talents or are well-versed with certain upcoming technologies. This makes the recruitment process more complicated as these resources are hard to find or might be a huge strain on the funds in hand. Most companies fail in their early year due to poor management of cash flow and capital, not because they weren’t good enough to make their product/idea.
The Post COVID-era has opened a lot of options to find resources with niche talents who are available to work remotely as a consultant, part-time, or provide project development as a service. Despite these developments, an early-stage organization or start-up needs constant resources at its disposal that can cater to the different requirements. Startups are not always the most efficient, working in the same place at the same time can save hours if not days for certain tasks.
An age-old and effective method of getting good talents is to have a healthy internship program. For starters, an internship allows either a graduating or a fresh graduate to work with your organization and have a hands experience with the team.
In early and smaller organizations, funds in hands are always in the periphery view of the executor. Onboarding full-time resources often makes it a longer financial commitment. On the contrary, internships can be offered for shortened and defined duration, which provides a good platform for the candidates to showcase their skills and at the same time, gives a decent duration for the employer to evaluate their skills.
Given internships are meant for shorter duration and mostly chalked out during Summer or Spring break, candidates get a fixed duration to work full-time on these projects and deliver to the fullest. As the duration is initially set for a smaller interval, it is convenient for the organization to set fixed outcomes and expectations from the individual. At the same time, interns can also have a fixed learning agenda. This creates a win-win opportunity for all the stakeholders.
If the candidates are still in school/college, then they have access to a much wider resource pool that can connect the organization to the relevant skill set. If a good relationship is developed with the placement committee, it could be a repetitive and ongoing process where we keep getting quality resources from the same institute.
Also, as the organization is still in the early stage, interns get to have direct conversations with the leaders in the organization and can develop ethos at an early stage. There are exemplary illustrations of how individuals have joined a team at an early stage and become core members as the team grows. This not only makes the day-to-day operations smooth but at the same time but allows a strong channel for growing and expanding the team.
At Lifebound Technologies, for the last 2-years, we have been running a strong internship program and have been onboarding interns on a regular basis. We have worked with a leading design school and are now expanding to other streams as well as we create new projects.
Beyond scouting on different career portals and internship platforms, we believe the best method is to interact with the students directly and discuss the opportunity with them. It was only last week when our Founder Karan Mehta had a healthy interaction with the students on VJTI, Mumbai for onboarding students from Computer Science and IT.
We have multiple positions available at our organization in different technical verticals. If you have the zeal to learn leading technical skills and have hands-on-technical work during your academic break or post your academic year, reach out to us at info@lifeboundtech.com to learn more about the opportunities in hand.
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