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Startup advice: cold recruiting

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Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#71

Post by lzecon »

Jemaclus wrote: post #67
eshvk wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Ha. I've had recruiters try to set me up with companies that I've already interviewed with, and once I had a recruiter try and set me up with a company I'd already received an offer from (but declined for various reasons). It's not really their fault, though. They can't know the details of my personal network and history. Still, it makes for funny stories...

It's totally company's fault in that case, although not the recruiter's. If you get contacted by a company who previously gave you an offer, that means the company isn't investing their recruiting function by taking the simple step of buying a decent applicant tracking system. There's poor communication between the executives and the people they hire or contract, and they have zero HR.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#74

Post by jonny_eh »

danielweber wrote: post #31
patio11 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can circle this, star it, and shout it from the rooftops: if you meet someone at a meetup/conference/random coffeehouse or you Internet-meet them in HN comments or a blog discussion or whatever follow that up with an email . Even if you don't have anything to ask for, just say "Hey, it was great to meet you. We should keep in touch." Then actually keep in touch . Then, the next time you do need something, it isn…

You make it sound easy. It probably is easy. But it still seems hard.

It's hard in the same way asking a girl on a date is hard.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#76

Post by temp_fbacc »

[deleted] wrote: post #75

[deleted]

Hello -

Some feedback from someone in the market you're targeting - if I were to receive an email from you, the first thing I'd do is hit up the website - which is default bootstrap linking to a poorly edited PDF. I'd dismiss it based on that straight away based on your description here of being "launched".

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#77

Post by rogerbinns »

lumens wrote: post #43

"Always have the ping come from a non-recruiter," is a great point, and key to pushing your response rates over the top. Before starting https://www.mightyspring.com , which reduces the need for this tactical dance all together, I was a full-time technical recruiter. Often I found that if it was especially important to get ahold of a particular person, I could increase my chances by removing my email signature (which…

> ... but only opportunities that match their specific, mostly unspoken, criteria. As someone on the sending side of a cold email, you're generally not privy to this criteria

You are thinking about the above average recruiters. My resume and linkedin have a clear "note to recruiters" at the top where I try to articulate the criteria and explain why. For example I say small companies/startups. Yet 95% of the recruiter emails I get show they haven't looked at the note at all. Fortunately having such a note makes it easy for me determine if the recruiter has done any work.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#78

Post by [deleted] »

temp_fbacc wrote: post #76
[deleted] wrote: post #75

[deleted]

Hello - Some feedback from someone in the market you're targeting - if I were to receive an email from you, the first thing I'd do is hit up the website - which is default bootstrap linking to a poorly edited PDF. I'd dismiss it based on that straight away based on your description here of being "launched".

[deleted]

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#79

Post by [deleted] »

temp_fbacc wrote: post #76
[deleted] wrote: post #75

[deleted]

Hello - Some feedback from someone in the market you're targeting - if I were to receive an email from you, the first thing I'd do is hit up the website - which is default bootstrap linking to a poorly edited PDF. I'd dismiss it based on that straight away based on your description here of being "launched".

[deleted]

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#80

Post by jt2190 »

x0x0 wrote: post #62
Ologn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> YOU contacted me, not the other way around. You have the burden of proof of attracting me to your company. You should be the one jumping through hoops, not me. Yes. I get contacted by a headhunter that says they know of a company looking for engineers. I go on an interview and someone at the company asks me very officiously, "Why do you want to work for this company?" I respond, "I don't know that I do want to work…

That's happened to me too. My response is "I don't" and then I shut up. To overgeneralize, though not by much, SF startups suck ass at recruiting; the standard assumption is the whole world is chomping at the bit to work there, and it's a privilege to do so. (Though I do wonder how they get that worldview to comport with endless bitching about the lack of engineers.) And you hit the nail on the head with the lack of…

So you invested hundreds of dollars and they invested hundreds of dollars (in the form of their employee time) trying to determine if you'd be a person they could give $n0,000 cash annually in exchange for $y0,000 of your services. From a sales perspective a deal of this size seems worth spending hundreds of dollars on. Is there a reason it was too much money to spend in this instance?
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