Recruiting talent for Startups

Startups can be broadly classified into
-Stealth, Early stage
-Later stage
-Growth Stage

Irrespective of how a start up is classified the recruiting strategy for startups needs to be different from established companies. Here are five things you need to keep in mind when recruiting for a startup.

5-Management involvement
Make sure the entire management team at the startup is signed up and ready to accommodate a prospective applicant on to their calendar to up sell the career opportunity.Obviously the assumption is that the applicant is highly qualified. I am not suggesting that the entire CXO team be available, but depending on the type, level of talent you are recruiting you may want to involve the CTO for tech positions, CFO for Finance positions, CSO/EVP of Sales for Sales positions etc. It's also not a bad idea to get on the CEO's calendar just in case to seal the deal with Superstars.

4-Client references
After the "dot bubble" burst the stigma around working for startups has remained. Many folks even to this day feel less secure about working for start up's than working for bigger size firms. The best way to overcome this hurdle is to prepare and document references and testimonials from the start up's clients. If the start up's client base includes big time Fortune 500 companies or even relatively well established companies that would help in calming some of the jitters of prospective employees and can be used as an effective tool for recruiting.

3-Facts vs. Fiction
During the dot boom days employers and employees couldn't separate fact from Fiction. I Guess we were all guilty to some extent or the other. However in the current market environment it pays to paint the right picture and image. Talk about the companies profitability if it exists, or how effectively they are managing the "burn", growth prospects, size of the market place, biggest competitors in their industry segment, recent customer wins, sales pipeline and projections etc. I guess it helps to be as candid as possible.

2-Peer level involvement
Have every employee in the organization reach out to their network of contacts and spread the word through their peers and in turn through their contacts (Social networking) that their company is hiring. The best way to recruit talent is to use the startups current employees as spokes persons. A happy and passionate employee can sell an opportunity very effectively with a lot of credibility. Encourage the Management to Empower their employees in every which way they can and have them campaign for the company/position in addition to you. Remember your job is to fill the position and you should be creative in using every mechanism available for spreading the word-of-mouth.

1-Attitude-Never say Never
As a dedicated search professional your primary goal is to recruit against all odds. You wouldn't have gotten the search if the position was easy to fill in the first place. Hence keep a positive mind-set to recruit those "purple squirrels" where ever they are.

Consultative Recruiting

The amount of sophistication needed to recruit Human capital talent is increasing multi-fold. The days of "paper pushing" to maximize recruiters odds of placement are long gone. Today's recruiters are required to wear consultative hats during the requirements gathering phase to effectively find the desired talent.
Some of the ways of accomplishing these traits are:
-Embark on a fact finding mission (insist on a one-on-one with each hiring manager you would be recruiting for)
-Thoroughly understanding the position you are recruiting for (be sure you do not leave any stone unturned. Remember you would be judged by the quality of candidates you produce. You cannot recruit effectively if you are not too sure of the position you are recruiting for)
-Slicing and dicing various attributes required to hire a successful applicant
-Separating the Must have skills (MHS) and the Nice to have skills (NHS)
-Understanding the Must have skills (MHS) or Tangibles (years of experience required, degrees, leadership abilities, tool set experience/years of experience with each tool set,certifications, full life cycle app dev experience, architecture, design skills)
-Understanding the Nice to have skills (NHS)(Dig deep to identify what the hiring manager's perception of nice to have skill sets are)
-Understanding Intangible traits (culture of the organization(formal vs informal), measurement of success (how does the hiring manager perceive success), job stability (is the hiring manager willing to talk to applicants who are job hoppers and give them the benefit of doubt if the applicant has desired skill sets)
-Finally wear your consultant hat to set the expectations of the hiring managers (talent availability vs quality of talent in the market place, current market salary ranges for types of candidates desired, geographical pool of available talent, realistic time frame to source, screen and recruit desired talent)

Referrals

Professional recruiters understand the power of referrals and the benefits of using referrals to complete search assignments. However there is a myth in the recruiting industry that you can source a candidate out of the blue, and if he or she is not interested in the role you are trying to fill they will gladly offer you their professional peers names/e-mails to solicit. This cannot be more farther from the truth. Referrals can be effectively generated after building a relationship with a candidate and gaining their trust.

I am sure a lot of you can relate to the fact that when you first started in the business most of your placements came from cold calling, database mining, head hunting, sourcing etc. If you think about the percentage of referrals that actually turned into placements the first year the number would be fairly insignificant. As you progress in your recruiting career your network of contacts keeps building (assuming you are a proactive recruiter), and your ability to source the network for referrals increases significantly (assuming you are keeping in touch with your network).

So what are some of the things you do to keep your referral base alive:

• Ping your placements periodically (via phone, mail, newsletter, etc) and let them know what kind of searches you are working on.
• Let them know and assure them they can count on you in terms of any needs they may have
• Offer to counsel their friends, peers (ex co-workers) in resume revamping, job search, salary negotiations etc if they are looking for a new job/assignment.
• Introduce them to professional "networking" events in town
• Be honest. You may not have all the jobs in the world to fill, but most certainly may know of companies that are hiring in your area. After all if you dont you are in the wrong business.
• Try and learn more about the areas (functional and technical) your candidates are working in. This way when you come across white papers, industry forums, press briefings within your candidates area of interst you can passs them along. This is a great way of staying in touch with your candidates and letting them know you are thinking of them.
• Meet your candidates (placements) and applicants (future placements) every quarter.
• Donot make the classic mistake of not staying in touch with an applicant you couldn't place. Rember if the applicant was genuine and had good skill sets they would have found a job.

Recruiters quandary

In my eight years of recruiting this has never happened to me. I guess you learn some thing every day. I sourced an applicant and was excited by the applicant's profile/bio. As I started chatting with the applicant and investigating further I was getting more and more excited about the applicant's expertise and how close a match the applicant's skill set is to the position I have been retained to fill. I started to realize this was sounding too good to be true. Anyways I wasn't ready to give up on a applicant who was such a close match and continued my discussion. I finally asked the applicant about transitioning from the current role etc and boom!. The applicant hit me with a "I have been fired from my current role for an unintentional policy violation". I said what?. Please come again, and then he gave me the entire scoop.

How do you think I reacted to this appplicant?. What would you have done if you were in my situation?.

RECRUITER

R-RESOURCEFUL
E-ENERGETIC
C-CHARISMATIC
R-REALISTIC
U-UBIQUITOUS
I-INQUISITIVE
T-TACTFUL
E-EAGER
R-RIGHTEOUS

Successful Searches

Over the years I have completed numerous searches. Some of them strategic in nature and others were more tactical. What I have learnt is that to complete a successful search a lot of factors come in to play and unless each of them falls into place a placement doesn't occur. Here is a quick run down of various factors for a successful placement.

• High quality sourcing and research
• Effective screening
• Robust candidate pipeline
• Pipeline consisting of both active and passive job seeekers
• Ability and expertise to generate Referrals
• Effective usage of social networks
• Thorough understanding of position recruiting for
• Candidate rapport
• Client rapport
• Consultative mind set

PS: I am sure there a lot more factors my recruiting brethern can think of. If you do please respond.

Webcruiting

I am currently researching creative sourcing strategies for Human Capital Acquisition. After having spent the last eight plus years in recruiting I have come to a conclusion that there needs to be a "holistic approach" to recruiting talent. This "holistic approach" would entail using various sources available in recruiting (ATS, jobboards, referrals, web sourcing, social networks) and effectively merging these sources under a single schema to build a applicant pipeline. The pipeline of talent would have sources of talent both active and passive in the mix thus allowing for an optimum recruiting ground.