The new normal presented by the pandemic of Covid-19 has led business across industries to adjust their approach to success and startup is no exception. The shift in business strategy undeniably has something to do with the organizational game plan. Among all organization aspects, hiring plan is one that the impact implies not only to the business, but also the job market in a greater scope. With the talent surplus caused by the disturbance of Covid-19, many talents have asked on what is the job opportunity today.
Understanding the impact of Covid-19 on startups business
Prior to the global pandemic, startups, in general, are known as an audacious spender. It is a typical startup game whereby the business is required to spend in order to gain. Three largest investment a startup could have made was for product development, customer acquisition, and hiring talents. This approach prevailed when there was an underlying projection that the investment will be paid off once the scalable product-market fit is discovered.
With the covid-19 in place, the very first question a startup need to answer is whether their product offering is still relevant to the development of customer demand, preferences, and purchase power. This one question that will lead to the rest of the alteration that a startup has to deal with all the way from product revamp to a potential business pivot. Here is where the hiring plan will come following the change in business strategy.
Understanding how organization demand for talent is evolving
In a glimpse, a hiring plan is talking about the functions that an organization needs to fulfil to achieve its business goal. Those functions are later translated into competence that they are looking in a talent. This explains why a change in business strategy is strongly connected to a change in hiring objectives and hiring decision-making. In the case of Covid-19 here are some of the scenarios.
Online-driven growth
The ongoing social distancing has changed the way of social interaction and daily lives activities among consumers. For a business to consumer (B2C) startups, establishing an online presence is becoming more critical than ever. With the surging time of social media and online platform consumption, driving consistent communication via the online channel is believed as key for a startup to stay engaged with their user and target market. Hence, having this urgency for driving online-driven growth as the trigger for hiring, leads to the demand for talents with specialization in the digital channel. Talents with skills in areas of digital marketing, growth, and product marketing are valuable for the business capability to drive the consumer journey via online channel.
Product revamp and pivot
Startups founders and talents are known as a lifetime learner. They believe in product iteration as a way to offer the best solution for customers pain points. With the hit of covid-19, product iteration is inevitable. Many startups have to reassess if the unique value proposition of their products still addresses user problems. This process of redefining user problems to some extent could lead startups to come up with new product offerings, either by developing a new feature or even revamping entire product version.
Here is where and why product managers are still in a very favourable demand across startups sectors. Especially the more experienced ones which are expected to be able to contribute immediately within this little to no luxury of time at startup environment. As collaborative functions, the demand in the product management team is commonly followed by the demand for software engineers in a higher quantity.
Overall, the global pandemic of covid-19 is no longer hindering startups from hiring. It is true that the pandemic was a big surprise for a lot of startups for a while. But as soon as startups find a way to adapt, many of them are back on the game now in higher confidence. With the new product roadmap and new business strategy, all lead to the good news of job opportunities for talents who are readily joining the game.
