Tank Stream Labs CEO Bradley Delamare says there’s one question he gets asked by startups inhabiting his co-working space more than any other.
For the early-stage companies that Delamare works with, recruitment and HR issues are among the most common, and sometimes the most difficult for tech founders to navigate.
“One of the matters I get approached with a lot of the time is recruitment,” Delamare tells StartupSmart.
“One of the biggest problems is that the founders are usually tech people that don’t have the skillset in recruiting and this is a new area for them.
“They’ve had no guidance or experience in the past and it’s very difficult for them to fully understand how to do it. It’s a skills gap.”
To plug this gap, Tank Stream Labs has partnered with IT recruitment firm Talent to provide its startups with free recruitment and HR advice, along with discounted rates.
“There’s definitely a gap in what we do where we can bring value to our members and the community,” he says.
“What we do is help our members on their growth journey, and we do whatever we can to take them to the next level.
“We want to bring as much value as we can to our community and this is another way of doing that.”
The partnership marks the first deployment from the $1 million Talent First Fund, which will be used to assist the startup sector with discounted, deferred recruitment and HR advisory services.
Delamare says talent recruitment is an area startups commonly struggle to compete with the corporates in.
“The cost of recruitment can be absolutely huge for startups, especially when you see the rates being charged by some recruiters in this space,” he says.
“For startups it’s hard to compete with big corporates that have the big pockets. Now they can afford to recruit the top talent.”
As part of the deal, a Talent recruitment and HR advisor will be permanently setting up shop in the Tank Stream Labs co-working space to assist founders with everything from CV screening and job descriptions to staff retention advice.
For Talent founder Richard Earl, it’s all about building connections with young startups and solving a big problem for them.
“A major and often overlooking challenge for startups in Australia is a lack of skilled staff to drive the development and deployment of disruptive new technologies,” Earl says.
“Attracting, and retaining, the right people is incredibly challenging for startups. A unique blend of compensation structure, staff incentives and workplace culture is required and Talent is proud to be providing this advice free of charge to some of Australia’s best and brightest.”
With better advice and mentoring, startups will soon be able to recruit just as well as a big corporate player, Delamare says.
“There’s a growing trend in the market at the moment where a lot of people want to work for a startup rather than a corporate because of the agility and how they’re disrupting the market,” he says.
Denham Sadler is a former editor of StartupSmart. He was previously a journalist at the publication and has worked as a freelancer for the Guardian, the Saturday Paper and the ABC. In his spare time he likes puns and jaffles.
