Evolving Recruitment Strategies - A study on recruitment best practices in high growth technology companies

Abstract: Recruitment and revenue growth are strongly correlated in Swedish high-growth tech start-ups but these companies face a continuous challenge of finding and recruiting talent in sufficient quality and numbers. The thesis answers the question on how such companies manage to recruit the employees they need. Since few studies have been performed on these companies' recruitment strategies, the thesis builds on theory as well as on a qualitative and explorative analysis of 11 Swedish tech companies. The thesis proposes a model of nine best practices which applies across recently created start-ups as well as larger start-ups. Best practices include hiring a person in charge of recruitment as soon as the company starts to grow, keeping job descriptions broad, minimising the use of external recruitment agencies and establishing internal search teams instead. Successful Swedish tech start-ups innovate not only in technology and marketing but also in recruitment strategies, which should serve as an inspiration for other start-ups.