Introducing Hays Rise: A fresh recruitment solution for tech start-ups and scale-ups

Overcome the challenge of recruitment as a young business. We designed Hays Rise to meet the specific growth needs of tech start-ups and scale-ups like yours.

Hays Rise: Key Insights

Hays Rise is a new recruitment solution to help start-ups and scale-ups overcome their growth challenges. The unique service hinges on a joined-up approach to filling the skill-gap.

• Tech professionals are in high demand, making recruitment a struggle, especially for young businesses.
• Hays partnered with Empact Ventures to survey leaders in start-up and scale-up tech companies. The results were published in our Tech Start-Up 2020 report
• We identified the need for a disruptive service that was uniquely designed for the needs of start-up and scale-up business.
• Hays Rise was launched in 2020 as a longer-term support offer. It includes an agreed number of hires per year, plus major support with branding, as well as leadership and market insight. 

Hays Rise: Some Background

The world of tech start-ups and scale-ups can be unpredictable at the best of times. Following the pandemic – with looming uncertainty over our economy – the volatility feels greater than ever. Growing a sustainable business from its infancy can seem a daunting project.

Hays Rise can support you. Our latest innovation is designed specifically to help tech start-ups and scale-ups. Hays Rise gives employers access to the most in-demand talent pools and offers skills development to support retention of current employees. All of this is informed by insight-driven content.

Read on to discover more about Hays Rise and how it can help you grow your tech business in confidence.

Fill the start-up skill-gap with an authentic, joined-up service

The talent challenge

Tech professionals are in high demand right across the country. With skills gaps rife, these professionals are hot property. Competition to locate, attract and hire them is fierce. Good software developers, data scientists and cloud engineers are in  a strong position when it comes to seeking new opportunities. They can afford to be picky about which roles they take.

This power dynamic poses an acute challenge for start-ups and scale-ups. You might already have a winning idea, funds in the bank, and an appealing company culture, but with competition at an all-time high, can you be sure to cut through the noise.  and secure the best tech talent? Can you compete with more established organisations to secure the best talent? Worse, if you don’t find the right talent, can you be sure your start-up will grow?

In 2018 we partnered with Empact Ventures, the global super-connectors experts, to launch a series of networking events, bringing together start-ups, scale-ups and larger tech organisations. Together, we also conducted a survey to explore the challenges faced by leaders of start-ups and scale-ups. Our Tech Start-Up 2020 report gives the results, uncovering the common struggles in the sector. Recruitment is a key area of concern, whether it relates to raising a company profile, or attracting and retaining the right employees.

The evolution of Hays Rise

We realised that there is a real need for a tailored service to help start-ups and scale-ups navigate this recruitment challenge.

As the UK’s largest specialist recruiter, we have the scale and the resources to attract top-quality candidates. We also have the regional and local insight to identify niche skill-sets and talent. Combining this national and local reach helps us find and engage more talent at greater speed.

Furthermore, we want to ensure that we can perform as authentic career partners to our candidates. Almost two thirds of tech talent want to work in a start-up or scale-up at some point in their careers. It is vital that we are able to consistently provide these opportunities to professionals.

After establishing the basis of our ambitions, we knew that Hays Rise needed to look and feel different to anything we had done before. We sought to establish a service that was innovative, disruptive and unique to the needs of the start-up and scale-up community. That meant creating a service model to:

1. Support your scaling journey
2. Raise your company profile through our tech and platforms
3. Increase your sales and customer base

The end result

We launched Hays Rise in spring 2020. The service allows us to work with start-up or scale-up clients in earnest,  building a 12-month hiring and employer-brand strategy. With a USP of devoted long-term steering, Hays Rise can help your business find and attract the right people and create an established talent pipeline.

The Hays Rise offer include:

• Permanent recruitment of an agreed number of technology hires per year.
• A dedicated expert recruitment consultant and account management team specific to your required technology talent pools.
• Access to an online skills development training platform with useful training courses, including funding, networking, legal, and sales and marketing.
• Access to our extensive technology talent networks.
• An employer-branded multi-channel campaign, including your own branded recruitment microsite. You can use this to further enhance your employee value proposition (EVP).
• Priority access to our leading market insights and thought leadership content.

As Hays Rise is a subscription service, you can spread the cost over the year. Subscriptions can be tailored, so you’ll only pay for what – and who – your business really needs.

We are extremely proud of Hays Rise, but we think it’s just as important that you read what our customers have to say about the service.

“Innovation! Finally, a commercial model that focuses on lifelong partnerships”

“The Hays brand will help us to build ours and increase our customer base”

“Cost of hire is significantly reduced, with quality guarantees and brilliant value-added, including their training platform”

Hays Rise: the next steps for your start-up

As a start-up, we understand that you are likely to have exhausted your own networks and are now looking for talent beyond that community. Alternatively, if you are at a scale-up stage, you’ll be looking to supercharge your EVP. In both cases Hays Rise can help. 

We’d love to tell you a bit more about what we’ve created, what we’re working on and how we can transform your start-up or scale-up. Feel free to reach out to james.hallahan@hays.com or read more at haysrise.com.