Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
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Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
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Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#2Here's my perspective.
(I am writing in a snarky way to convey a message)
1. If you're using recruiters, you're already losing. Especially if those are recruiting agencies that "hide" the name of the companies.
The cold emails are just ridiculously hideous.
2. Use as little hyped up words as you possibly can. You might change the world, but everyone else is saying the same thing and people are getting sensitive about it.
3. Impact - Emphasize what is the impact of the role. Why do you need my skills, Not just an engineer skills, why do you need me. If you don't need me I don't care what you need, post on LinkedIn for all I care.
4. The mail needs to come from the CTO with as many details as possible about the company. Not how much money you raised and from which VCs, everybody raised money and everybody as VCs behind them. I could care less. What are the technical challenges, what's the roadmap, what challenges are you facing that you need me to solve and help with.
5. Compensation - "Competitive salary" means nothing. I don't think it's relevant to me at all. You need to be specific about the compensation levels. If you wanna give a range, that's also fine. If your range stops at X and I am making X+50%, I know we are too far apart, we could save each other the trouble.
6. Interview - If the interview requires more than a single day, I don't care. If it requires whiteboard, I don't care, If it requires multiple processes and screens, I don't care.
It's all about managing friction. Just like acquiring a customer on Google or Facebook. If the process has too much friction, I don't want to go through it. I just don't. I'm happy where I am and it's not worth my trouble.
All of these may sound elitist, I get that. I really do. But if you want really senior engineers the targeting is different than people that just finished bootcamp or have 2-3 years of experience.
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#3Here's my perspective. (I am writing in a snarky way to convey a message) 1. If you're using recruiters, you're already losing. Especially if those are recruiting agencies that "hide" the name of the companies. The cold emails are just ridiculously hideous. 2. Use as little hyped up words as you possibly can. You might change the world, but everyone else is saying the same thing and people are getting sensitive about…
I've had conversations with recruiters where I've initially sounded interested, then changed my mind because it just sounds like too much hassle.
They simply can't understand that I would give up when I realised there were three interviews, or that I needed to spend a day doing a test.
Sure if I did well in one interview the other two would likely be fine too, but equally... I could just go to another company that says "OK" after a conversation in a bar and save myself a lot of friction.
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#4Great advice. I was wondering if anyone out there has experience of sourcing technical leads when what's primarily on offer is equity for a founding/lead role at a bootstrapped startup with an early product. Clearly you need to have a compelling vision, show potential and find people in the right frame of mind/stage in their career but I'm wondering if I'm missing any important channels? So far here are a few I've tried and my experience:
* AngelList - seem to mainly attract recent bootcamp grads
* Meetups and Networking Events - seems very inefficient and so far I've come across very few technical folks at these events, at least in digital health
* A lot of personal outreach using LinkedIn/email - probably the most successful so far..
* HN Who's Hiring - surprisingly few leads, but very high quality ones so far.
* Personal network - although similar to the author's I'm relatively new to the Bay Area
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#5Great advice. I was wondering if anyone out there has experience of sourcing technical leads when what's primarily on offer is equity for a founding/lead role at a bootstrapped startup with an early product. Clearly you need to have a compelling vision, show potential and find people in the right frame of mind/stage in their career but I'm wondering if I'm missing any important channels? So far here are a few I've tr…
FWIW, I really liked Angel List for finding smaller companies. I found their listings to be of high quality. Ended up taking a job across the country from Angel List.
On the hiring side, we seem to get inundated by recent grads regardless of where we post. LinkedIn and Indeed seemed like the worst offenders for us in previous gigs.
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#6Some things that are missing and I do want to know: the exact location of the office, pictures inside the office so I can see the chair and desk I'll be using.
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#7Here's my perspective. (I am writing in a snarky way to convey a message) 1. If you're using recruiters, you're already losing. Especially if those are recruiting agencies that "hide" the name of the companies. The cold emails are just ridiculously hideous. 2. Use as little hyped up words as you possibly can. You might change the world, but everyone else is saying the same thing and people are getting sensitive about…
"Competitive salary" means "we pay the same crappy salaries as everybody else". Your salary will increase only if their competition increases salaries and people start to leave (hence "competitive").
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#8Some things that are missing and I do want to know: the exact location of the office, pictures inside the office so I can see the chair and desk I'll be using.
And the other side of the coin. Do you actually require me to be in the office. I only work remote, possibly with a visit or two a month to the office if needed.
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#9Thoughts on the final 'Offer' stage. If it's your startup, be brutally honest with your first hires. Put yourself in their shoes when you make the offer. Explain it like you would explain it to yourself.
- Tell them, unprompted, key difficulties that may lie ahead (in an upbeat manner)
- Sell them on the goal, but don't sell them that they are the right person - that's their choice
- Do not make promises you can't keep. Let me repeat this. Do not make promises you can't keep
The reason for doing the above is a) You will have tough times together - this is your team - you must start well b) If they can't handle these conversations you probably don't want them c) You're human, behave well if you can
Context disclaimer - this is from a London, UK perspective while hiring senior people. YMMV.
Re: Some Thoughts on Hiring at a New Startup
#10Great advice. I was wondering if anyone out there has experience of sourcing technical leads when what's primarily on offer is equity for a founding/lead role at a bootstrapped startup with an early product. Clearly you need to have a compelling vision, show potential and find people in the right frame of mind/stage in their career but I'm wondering if I'm missing any important channels? So far here are a few I've tr…
You're missing probably the biggest one of them all - free postings on indeed. They aren't as visible as the paid ones but the traffic is massive. We got a lot of low quality leads through them, but the pure volume still made it our best recruiting tool by far.
also, Ads on stackoverflow tend to get us high q leads as well