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Startup advice: cold recruiting

stripe.com

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Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#81

Post by lzecon »

Peroni wrote: post #21

Whilst entirely agree with Gregg's approach, I wouldn't use his response rates as a metric to measure your own response rates. Cold approaches like this tend to have significantly higher response rates when you are a company like Stripe. I would expect that most of the people they are approaching have heard of Stripe and are familiar with their high calibre team. If the same people are approached by a company/startup…

Totally agree. Reputation is the most important factor in response rates. Not to say this isn't a good approach to cold emails, but expecting anyone but the CEO of Stripe to get a 90% response rate using this template is kidding themselves. It's frustrating for recruiters because this is obviously something they have little control over, but pretty much the most important factor in their job success.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#82

Post by incision »

I'm inclined to be extremely mistrustful of messages like this.

As best I can tell, the majority of contacts I've had along this pattern came from someone's clever 'growth hacker'. It makes sense, a more typical message is going straight to the trash while a feigned recruitment has a decent chance of getting me to visit your website.

Though, I think my typical work makes me a big target for this - social proof is paramount in the public sector and listing a marquee agency as a customer is a key to the city.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#83

Post by ryguytilidie »

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…

Recruiter here. Sending emails as the CEO is standard practice at a ton of companies. That being said, where I work, we do not do this because, if you think about it logically, the only reason to do these reachouts is if the CEO actually wants to/has the time to speak with the person. If they do, they can send these emails. But to send them as the CEO and then magically turn into a recruiter when I get a response is super sketchy and weird so I don't do it.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#84

Post by temp_nf »

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".

@temp_fbacc - Thanks for the feedback, I am not the best at creating PDF! I do point them to our main website, which I think is bit more informative and a better layout. if you could register so I can grab your email and get some more feedback, that would be appreciated. I would be happy to give you access so you can see what I have developed.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#85

Post by AndrewKemendo »

I feel like this post is generally on track, but it still falls into the same problem that come with all questions about recruiting: People trying to hire quality people quickly/easily.

Arguably, hiring is the most important thing that you can do, with firing being a close runner up. This should be the thing that the CEO is most engaged with, especially if the CEO is doing his job as "culture minister." Now this doesn't mean that a CEO is the only person who talks to a new hire, but it does mean that the CEO should be the lead face that interacts with the possible hire from first contact.

This also doesn't mean that the CEO is only doing recruiting. Ideally the recruiting team would offer to the CEO a top ten list of candidates for a position and then the CEO makes the decision to contact and woo the possible hire until he/she is confident that this person is a good fit and has the skills necessary.

Nothing is more important than the people in your company, so treat them that way and you don't have to fuck around with A/B testing emails.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#86

Post by jacalata »

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...

Not the OP, but I got contacted on LinkedIn by a recruiter who appeared to completely miss my LinkedIn connection to the CEO of the company he was recruiting me for. That seemed like completely his fault.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#87

Post by nbarry »

> Don't explain what your company does. ... Google would never send someone an email saying "I work at Google, a search company in Mountain View which is organizing the world's information".

The Google comparison is a poor one, since Google is extraordinarily well known, and most start-ups aren't. And even they do describe the team each position is on, at least on its job postings.

If I were getting enough cold emails that I wanted to filter some of them out, I'd be likely to avoid emails that made me do work to research what a company does. A brief sentence about what they do, and why the recruiter/CEO/etc. thinks I'm a good match, would go a long way toward getting that coffee date.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#88

Post by gk1 »

silverbax88 wrote: post #60

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 actual…

Can you explain why?

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#89

Post by thinkerer »

I dont know. I personally felt it was better to at least give the person an idea of my background and what I am up to.

It solves the issue of finding someone whos vision is aligned to yours.

A random note for coffee doesnt work that well for me tbh.

Re: Startup advice: cold recruiting

#90

Post by gedrap »

Jemaclus wrote: post #66
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…

Agreed. I got an offer from a YC company about a year ago. The offer was lower than I currently make by a large margin. I tried to negotiate, and the CEO came back in a huff and basically said I was an idiot for turning down the job, and why do I even bother with startups in the first place if I want so much money? Well, that's the thing, dude. I don't need your job. You need me . You got the whole thing backwards. A…

But they were offering you to change the world dude! Like social and big data and cloud!

This issue was discussed quite a lot on HN over past couple of years. Not sure what those so called CEOs are thinking but it's their lose.

There must be some significant personal benefit for me, above money, that I would consider an offer like that. Influential position in a startup working in an area which I find exciting and proof that founders know what they are doing? Yeah something like that.

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