SOURCING GREAT TALENTS 1... Startups offer job seekers sparse pay, no brand recognition and a greater than 90% chance of failure. It can seem miraculous that any great talent joins them at all, yet good startups are able to consistently beat the odds and recruit world-class people to take them to the next level. How do they do it? As an entrepreneur for the past six years running E la Carte, now a company of more than 60 people, I’ve learned some key ways to increase a startup’s appeal to potential candidates in highly competitive environments like Silicon Valley. There are two challenges to hiring that must be approached separately — sourcing top candidates and closing deals with those who meet the bar. Overcoming these hurdles requires totally different skill sets and infrastructure — and startups need to succeed at both. Being great at one but mediocre at the other will result in second-rate hires and a failed business. Sourcing Great Talent Startups don’t have the brand and ubiquity of big companies such as Google or Facebook, so it’s unlikely great talent will be beating down their doors asking for jobs. Therefore, they must systemically reach out to great talent and persuade those people to interview. To do this consistently well, startups need to build a machine — a mini-organization of people, processes and technology that works together to identify the best prospects. Here are some tips for excelling at sourcing talent: Have a manager internally whose only job is to source. As early as possible, a startup should hire someone who leads all talent-sourcing efforts. This person’s job should be to aggressively source the right recruits for your team and learn about those prospects’ needs. Having someone whose main responsibility is to achieve this goal will greatly increase your startup’s chances of success. Leverage employee networks – the right way. This seems obvious but many startups do not put enough emphasis on this key element of sourcing talent. Employee networks are the single fastest and most effective way to find great talent. To be sure, this method does come with risks. If a recruit recommended by an employee doesn’t work out, the relationship with the referring employee could also turn sour. One way to avoid this is to require your employees to provide a list of strengths and weaknesses about any recruits they recommend. This way they’ll be inclined to consider the possible negative consequences of such folks coming on board. Embrace serendipity. When we had less than 10 employees, I once sourced a brilliant engineer at a university career fair. This may seem mundane, except he wasn’t there to find a job — he was a recruiter representing a big tech company. When he told me where he worked while standing next to me in the employer lunch line, I smiled and said, “Sorry to hear that.” That triggered laughs and a fun conversation where we got to discuss the merits of startups versus big technology companies. I invited him to stop by our booth to check out our demo, and a few weeks later he ended up joining my company. There are lots of great people in the world and startups just never know when and where they’ll find their next top employee. In the same way that serendipity plays a role in meeting lifelong friends or a spouse, random interactions can be a startup’s best friend in finding the best talent. Startups should never turn off their talent radar. At E la Carte, we’ve found exceptional talent on surfing trips, soccer matches and seated next to us on airplanes. While serendipity cannot be predicted, it should be embraced.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 07:55:53 +0000
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