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Startup advice: cold recruiting

stripe.com

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Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#51

Post by blazespin »

Jemaclus wrote: post #28

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in this email, including trying to get face-to-face chat by offering to get coffee. I'm not really looking for a job but I am open to new opportunities, so I replied and agreed to get coffee. The response comes from a recruiter. What? The CEO sends me an email and…

You should call the CEO directly and ask him when he'd like to meet for the coffee he wanted to have. CEO's can be interesting to talk with, they have unique and fascinating perspectives.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#52

Post by baddox »

itafroma wrote: post #45
baddox wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why do you tend to reply to recruiting emails when they demonstrate some knowledge of who you are? Although most recruiters don't do that, it's still fairly well-known (at least around here) that recruiters should do that at the bare minimum. So it seems to me that a mention of some fact about my life or work just means their recruiting team is more well-managed or -staffed. Maybe they tell their re…

oddevan and amirmc both point out parts of why I'd afford a reply, but it's also a signal to me that the person is at least asserting they believe something about the opportunity, having researched me ahead of time, is worth my time, even if I don't immediately see it from the initial email. It also helps me to form a what will hopefully be a useful reply, having at least partially understood where they're coming fro…

> it's also a signal to me that the person is at least asserting they believe something about the opportunity, having researched me ahead of time, is worth my time, even if I don't immediately see it from the initial email.

But if they are under instructions to do so, then it's not a reliable signal of anything except that they are following instructions and those instructions are slightly more modern than. But now that I'm thinking about it more, I suppose that is a reasonable positive signal, simply because that means their recruiters must be spending a lot more time (maybe 5 minutes vs. 1 minute) per candidate. At the bare minimum, that tells you that they were willing and able to dedicate more resources to finding candidates.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#53

Post by beat »

blazespin wrote: post #51
Jemaclus wrote: post #28

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in this email, including trying to get face-to-face chat by offering to get coffee. I'm not really looking for a job but I am open to new opportunities, so I replied and agreed to get coffee. The response comes from a recruiter. What? The CEO sends me an email and…

You should call the CEO directly and ask him when he'd like to meet for the coffee he wanted to have. CEO's can be interesting to talk with, they have unique and fascinating perspectives.

Yeah, this. If I were to do a dumb dick move like this, I'd much rather have the candidate call me out on it than blow me off. I'd be really excited to meet a candidate whose first real interaction with me is to tell me I'm being an asshole and be right about it.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#54

Post by jusben1369 »

Jemaclus wrote: post #28

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in this email, including trying to get face-to-face chat by offering to get coffee. I'm not really looking for a job but I am open to new opportunities, so I replied and agreed to get coffee. The response comes from a recruiter. What? The CEO sends me an email and…

I suspect that they're using the CEO to get your attention. I'd be very surprised if the original email came from him. As can be seen here it's kind of nuts to do all this work only to pass off ot someone else when there is a bite.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#55

Post by beat »

gdb wrote: post #3
lgmspb wrote: post #2

Thanks for the post, really usefull. But what is the general response rate to this kind of emails, does anyone has any stats?

I've gotten about a 80-90% response rate to the template I show in the post. With a more naive template, it was often more like 10-20%.

Thanks, gdb. I'm totally gonna plagiarize you when I need to send cold emails. :)

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#56

Post by chris_vannoy »

Better yet, don't send cold recruiting email. Know who you're recruiting and build a relationship so they know who you are.

It's a corollary to what patio11 said elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7917255), but more than that, if you build a relationship ahead of time, all of the sudden you don't have to do all the bullshit interview stuff that comes later.

You already know what the candidate's like. You already know their technical skill level.

Then it just becomes about fit.

No whiteboards, no brain teasers, no bullshit.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#57

Post by eshvk »

Jemaclus wrote: post #28

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in this email, including trying to get face-to-face chat by offering to get coffee. I'm not really looking for a job but I am open to new opportunities, so I replied and agreed to get coffee. The response comes from a recruiter. What? The CEO sends me an email and…

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter.

I had the complete opposite thing happen. There is a dude I went to school with, I know him personally. We are connections on linkedin. He started a company a few years back. I get an email from a recruiter telling me the founders at Company X (his company) felt that I would be a good fit for their team. I am convinced that she just searched for some skill sets and made this form letter up just to make it sound fancy.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#58

Post by mathattack »

eshvk wrote: post #57
Jemaclus wrote: post #28

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I got an email a few days ago from the CEO of a startup in SF. In the email, he followed all of the rules in this email, including trying to get face-to-face chat by offering to get coffee. I'm not really looking for a job but I am open to new opportunities, so I replied and agreed to get coffee. The response comes from a recruiter. What? The CEO sends me an email and…

> Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter. I had the complete opposite thing happen. There is a dude I went to school with, I know him personally. We are connections on linkedin. He started a company a few years back. I get an email from a recruiter telling me the founders at Company X (his company) felt that I would be a good fit for their team. I am convinced that she just searched for some skill sets and ma…

I've frequently had headhunters try to introduce me to people that I already know. It goes with the territory - at least it tells me they're on the right track. :-)

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#60

Post by silverbax88 »

I love Stripe. Huge fan.

But if I get an email from someone, anyone, at a company who wants to 'grab lunch' and talk about me working for company XYZ, I'll pass.

I mean, he says this is what has been the most effective for them, so I can't argue that point.

But the reality is I personally wouldn't ever take anyone up on this.

Actually, now that I think about it, I would probably only respond if it was an email actually from the dev manager or exec who wanted to talk to me about working on his team.

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