When it comes to growing a successful consultancy business, recruitment is one of the most important steps. And this is exactly our case at TalentBee.
And at the same time, we want to take some risks but keep the business growth profitable, managed and sustainable.
As a consultancy, our business is all about serving our customers well – while the product we sell is the expertise of our team. This means, that when we get a new customer, there needs to be an expert available on our team to work with them.
Balancing between closing sales and hiring new talent is a challenge for anyone – especially in this weird market situation that the SaaS business where we operate, is facing at the moment. It is fairly difficult to predict.
For that cause, we have created a few guidelines about how we make decisions to hire new employees at TalentBee a.k.a. NewBees to Our Hive in the year 2023.
#1 Enough money in the bank
First and foremost, we need to have enough money on our bank account, predicted cash flows coming in, and runway.
This ensures, of course, that our current team members will be paid correctly and on time, while also allowing us to continue investing in the business growth. Additionally, we also need an extra 5K € for equipment costs associated with the new hire joining us.
With us, you can choose your preferred working tools, and at the moment each of us have chosen Apple MacBook and an iPhone + headphones etc.
#2 MRR & customer collaborations to work on
We need to have at least one ongoing (MRR) customer closed before we can start recruiting more Beez. Having MRR customers not only helps us financially but also gives the candidate a better idea and excitement about what kind of customers they would be working with – already beforehand.
#3 Baseline for invoicing
We need to have an invoicing baseline in place. This means that each talent acquisition strategist needs to bring in around 20K € / per month and each EB strategist needs to bring in the minimum of 10K € / per month.
Of course this might change over time as we grow and learn more about our business but those are the numbers that we currently aim for. The expectation is that soon within the first year you will reach the minimum monthly billing.
#4 Capacity for onboarding
When a new colleague joins us, it always requires capacity from our current team for onboarding, supporting and coaching the new team member. If the person joining is more senior, it's of course easier for the rest of the team, and the new colleague will also be profitable for our business sooner.
We are planning to also hire for more junior roles later on, when our business is a bit more stable and there are more onboarded medior – senior people to coach you properly.
In the startup business, estimating recruitment plans is hard, but hopefully this opened up our thinking a bit! If you want to know more about our situation and hiring estimates at the exact moment, feel free to reach out to me and ask! :)