While the Great Resignation was spurred on by the pandemic, the real reason employees are leaving jobs has little to do with COVID-19. For employers that are now backfilling empty roles, that’s an important distinction to make — because it means an entirely different approach to recruiting is needed.

The war for talent has never felt fiercer. If you’re a startup in the tech space, that battle can feel especially rough — after all, you’re facing up against titans like Google, Meta, and Apple when it comes to attracting potential employees. If you’re using traditional hiring methods, it can feel like your cold emails are going unread and your job postings unnoticed.

One of the most frequent questions first-time founders ask as they start to grow their business is: “How many…?” How many employees should you hire before your Series A? How many engineers are generally hired in the seed stage? How many people should you be hiring per quarter?

If you’re a Google, Meta, or Apple, you can generally attract top candidates based solely on your reputation. However, if you’re an early-stage startup — one that may not even have an established product yet — you don’t have that same luxury. Fortunately, people have been using storytelling to create meaning and inspire others for years. Knowing how to sell your startup’s story effectively can help rally people around your mission and vision long before you have a product, capital, or product-market fit.

Bringing the right people on board is one of the most crucial parts of building any successful business, and few people understand that better than Monarch Money Founder Ozzie Osman.

Matt Maasdam, Ex Navy SEALs Instructor and Co-Founder at PECOS Outdoor, didn’t take the most traditional path to entrepreneurship. In fact, his career journey matches few others. Maasdam started his career with the Navy SEALs, where he spent 20 years working in candidate selection and training. He later carried the nuclear codes for President Obama during his two years as the White House’s Military Aide. Since then, Maasdam has run strategy programs at Under Armour and worked as the COO of startup Revtown. Today, he’s the co-founder of PECOS Outdoors, an e-commerce company that produces outdoor gear.

At this stage, most leaders know that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) plays an important role in their company’s success. Companies that are more diverse and inclusive are 35% more likely to outperform their competitors and 70% more likely to capture new markets. They also have a much easier time sourcing candidates, with two out of three candidates saying they actively seek out companies that have diverse workforces. Hear from experts on how to best infuse DEI into your recruitment strategy and hiring process.

With the recent economic downturn, many startups have slowed — if not altogether frozen — their hiring plans. And understandably so: as funding rounds stretch longer and inflation impacts people’s spending, leaders are keeping a more watchful eye on budgets. However, even if your hiring has slowed, your recruiting function should never stop.

If you’re a first-time founder, the thought of hiring your first 10 employees can seem daunting. Compared to an established company, you don’t have brand recognition, endless budgets, or teams of recruiters available to help. It might, in fact, be just you at this stage.

More than ever, founders need to do more with less, and they need their growth engines to be as efficient as possible. We’re excited to introduce new ways your company network can be activated to accelerate recruiting and sales, and for investors to build their own networks.

When we talk about uniting the individual networks of your team, investors, and advisors into a single combined network on The Swarm, what exactly does that mean? We’re glad you asked. Your Network Graph is where the magic happens.

We're thrilled to announce that The Swarm has received an investment from 500 Global, a venture capital fund with $2.7B assets under management and 49 unicorns spread across more than 20 countries. This funding will help us scale our capabilities and build the future of network recruiting and propel our vision for Network Relationship Management (NRM).

The way we build and structure businesses has changed radically over the past few decades. The rise of the startup has created a whole new model for business, challenging the traditional, siloed corporate structures that have been around for a century or more. However, while businesses have changed, the way we recruit has remained the same in many ways. Network recruiting is here to change that.