You’re an early-stage B2B SaaS company, and you’ve either raised a seed or Series A round or you’re experiencing strong growth, so what are your hiring options?

In this article, we’re going to explore all the options, giving you the pros and cons of each one.

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Hiring options for early-stage B2B SaaS companies 

At a high level, there are six options for you to take to help your business hire the right talent.

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• RaaS: Recruitment-as-a-Service
• Embedded recruitment
• In-house recruitment team
• Recruitment agency
• Run it internally through your existing team

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Let’s explore these options in more detail.

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RaaS: Recruitment-as-a-Service 

Full disclosure: this is what we offer here at Onattract. 

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But we want to try and give a balanced view, because we’re not for everyone. In fact, when we speak to some companies, we end up recommending another option to them.

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What is Recruitment-as-a-Service?

RaaS, or recruitment-as-service, is an on-demand hiring subscription service that enables companies to receive the recruitment power of having their own talent acquisition function or person without the cost of hiring one. 

It can also be used to compliment an existing team or person, whether they be in human resources, talent acquisition, or in a head of people role.

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Advantages

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• Speed: our solution can be up and running in hours, and you’ll start to see qualified and screened candidates within 48-72 hours. 
• Flexibility: there are no long-term commitments, so you can flex the service as your hiring needs change. 
• Ownership: you’ll own the candidate pools we build for you so you can reach out to them if other roles are suitable.
• Cost: costs are fixed, so no nasty surprises on your P&L.
• Headhunting: we’ll map your market and anonymously headhunt from your competitors, saving you from the ‘why are you always trying to steal our employee’ conversations. 
• Candidate experience: in today’s hiring market, giving candidates a great experience is a real differentiator, and we have the bandwidth to be able to do that.
• Systems and processes: we can set up systems (ATS, careers page) and processes that you’ll own whether you continue to use us or not. 
• Tools: we have all the tools to help you recruit, including branded LinkedIn advertising, so you won’t need to buy them. 
• Bandwidth: you’ll have a team working on your hiring, which will outperform what a sole recruiter, HR person, or line manager can deliver. 

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Disadvantages

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• Scale: we work with early-stage companies, so if you’re looking to hire more than 20 people at one time, then we’d recommend embedded recruitment options. We can help you hire up to 10 roles at any time.
• Face-time: we’re more than happy to meet you and spend time in your offices to understand your business in culture, but we’re not an embedded model where we sit in your office full-time. 

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Embedded Recruitment

Companies like Talentful, Elements, and Scede offer embedded recruitment, a model in which they connect and embed recruiters and talent acquisition specialists with their clients' internal talent teams.

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Advantages

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• Scale: effective for companies scaling post Series B.
• Ownership: you’ll own all candidates, and their team can train you on things like interviewing, ATS use, employer branding, etc.
• Cost: costs are fixed from the outset.
• Experience: you’ll work with experienced talent acquisition professionals who typically have a track record working in companies of your size.
• Tools: their teams will already be equipped with talent acquisition tools, so you won’t need to buy them. 

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Disadvantages

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• Contracts: long contracts aren’t always suitable or cost-effective for early-stage companies.
• Price: having experienced recruiters embedded in your team can be expensive. 

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In-house Recruitment Team

Building an internal recruitment function is a tried and trusted way to hire talent and something you’ll see in the majority of large B2B tech companies. 

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Advantages

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• Control: you have ultimate control over how to do things.
• Volume: if you build the right team, your team will be able to handle a high volume of hires.
• Cost: provided you have the hiring volume to justify the cost of hiring an internal recruitment team, then over the medium to long term it’s a cost effective solution. 
• Brand: you can choose to dedicate more time to employer branding, helping you attract talent to your business. 

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Disadvantages

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• Bandwidth: a single recruiter only has so much bandwidth. When you factor in onboarding, ramp time, and holidays, then this option is only viable if hiring volumes are low. 
• Cost: a single talent acquisition specialist in London will cost £58,000 without considering a LinkedIn Recruiter license (£5,000), jobs ads, an ATS, etc. Total cost will be over £100,000 for limited bandwidth. 
• Flexibility: what if your hiring plans change? This is the least flexible option. 

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Recruitment Agency

The recruitment sector was worth £42.9 billion in 2021, which goes to show how many companies turn to recruitment agencies to help them hire talent. 

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Advantages

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• Speed: good recruitment agencies will work fast and deliver candidates to you within 7 days of your briefing them on the role.
• Experience: we always recommend using specialist recruiters over generalists because they deeply understand the domain you’re looking to hire into. Plus, they are always building a candidate base.
• Flexibility: there’s no commitment to working with a recruitment agency, so if you change your mind or if plans change, you can stop working with them with no penalty.

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Disadvantages

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• Cost: most agencies charge 20%, so you’ll be paying in excess of £10,000 for most roles.
• Ownership: agencies will work with a variety of clients and will send the same candidate to you and many other employers. 
• Work: some agencies are taught to focus on the roles that are easier to fill, which may make it harder for you to fill more specific roles through them. 
• Brand: you have less control over how your brand is communicated to candidates and the experience they receive. 

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Run Recruitment Yourself

For some companies, they choose to run recruitment through their line managers, not using recruitment agencies or an internal recruiter.

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Advantages

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• Cost: you’re not paying agency fees or for third parties to help you, although there is an operational cost to consider. 
• Brand: the person working for the company would be regarded as a more trusted source to describe what it’s like to work there.
• Knowledge: doing the job means they’re going to be able to assess the technical skills needed.
• Speed: you can start recruiting quickly, as you don’t need to onboard or brief anyone.

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Disadvantages:

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• Operational cost: having your line manager screen and interview candidates is an operational cost, let alone the time it takes them away from their day job.
• Bandwidth: most line managers are busy without adding in recruitment, so will they have the time to do recruitment properly?
• Time: viewing CVs, screening, interviewing, organising, headhunting - all these activities take a lot of time.
• Hiring expertise: some line managers haven’t been trained on how to structure and execute interview processes that are fair and effective at assessing candidates. 
• Employer brand: hiring like this is often sporadic, so there’s limited time spent creating an employer value proposition and building your employer brand. And doing this can improve your quality of hire and decrease your cost per hire. 

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Final thoughts

Companies aren’t short of options when it comes to hiring; however, it’s crucial you choose the right option for you based on your stage of growth, otherwise it can become an expensive exercise that doesn’t work. Recruitment on the face of it can often seem quite simple, but there’s a lot more to it than most people realise. And if there’s one area to invest in today, it has to be in hiring talent. 

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