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A Systematic Strategy for Sourcing Startup Talent

Companies with the best record and most success at hiring top people don’t sit around and wait for those people to show up. They go out and grab them by the throats. OK, it’s fair to say that grabbing someone by the throat and dragging them to your office for a job isn’t going to work, but sourcing talent is extremely important.

Sourcing talent means actively recruiting. It means going out there, finding prospects, reeling them in, and getting them on board. Sure you can wait around for the top candidates to find your crappy job descriptions on crappy job boards and somehow be miraculously incentivized at that very moment to eagerly apply … but that’s like sitting around in a ghost town watching tumbleweeds roll by. Yawn…

And FAIL.

Without great people a startup cannot succeed.

Startups generally do a very bad job of sourcing talent. There are two simple (but inexcusable) reasons:

  • They don’t know how
  • They’re too busy

Those are both poor excuses, but I hear them quite regularly. The worst is, “I don’t have time to spend on recruiting, but I need people!” I’d argue that startup CEOs need to spend anywhere from 25-35% of their time recruiting (if not more!) It depends on the stage of the startup, but even as it scales and additional people get more actively involved in the process, startup CEOs and founders can’t delegate the responsibility. It might make sense to bring in a recruiting firm, but the ultimate responsibility and investment of time and energy must be made by the startup CEO and founders.

So how should a startup source talent?

Here’s how I’d go about it:

Build a Target Company List

  1. Make a list of competitors. This probably already exists, which is great. If not, put a list together. Make it broad. Things you need to know per competitor include: size (# of employees), location (relative to yours), how well it’s doing (track stock prices for publicly traded companies, or record anecdotal evidence), who you know there.
  2. Make a list of similar, local startups. Using the same criteria as above, make a list of similar startups in your area. “Local” might mean just within your city, but you could increase the geographic range as well. “Similar” means startups working with the same technologies, in the same area/space/industry, or those that have many of the same types of roles.
  3. Make a list of bigger, similar, local companies. See #2 above, but instead of the companies being startups, make a list of all the bigger companies that have similarities of interest.

In rank order from most valuable to least valuable, you now have a pool of potential companies to poach from. That’s right, you’re about to go out and steal people from other companies! But think of yourself like Robin Hood, robbing others for the greater good! At least your greater good…

Leverage Friends

  1. Assign someone to manage the lists. This could be a great job for an intern, or someone else within the organization. Tracking companies isn’t the key component of this process, it’s just for laying the groundwork. If there’s no one you can delegate this to, then you have to do it yourself. The lists need to be constantly updated and refreshed.
  2. Leverage friends outside the target companies. With a target list of companies, you need to find friends that don’t work at those companies that can provide you with intel and introductions. You’re now starting to build a list of potential prospects.
  3. Leverage friends inside the companies. Go right to the source. Find people you know within the target companies and see what you can find out. You’re looking for intel and introductions. Friends within the target list of companies may have loyalties to their existing employers, and that’s fine, you can respect that. But remember: You’re not doing anything wrong. Poaching talent is the name of the game.

One of the best questions you can ask friends is, “Anyone entrepreneurial there?” You’re looking for people that might have an entrepreneurial spark; the types of people that won’t ignore startup jobs, but may actually jump at the opportunity. Your friends can at least tell you if there’s ever been any watercooler or after-hours chatter about startups and entrepreneurship amongst the people they recommend.

Create a Target List of Prospects

  1. Do your own research. Don’t rely exclusively on friends; do your own homework. LinkedIn is a great resource for this. It’s becoming easier and easier to find people, how they’re tied to specific companies, similar people to the people you’ve found, etc. Use Google too. And Twitter. Facebook has some interesting data as well.
  2. Create a list of prospects. First off, it’s important to think of these people as prospects. Just like you would selling your wares to someone. That means it’s most likely going to take a few “pings” before the prospect is receptive, and you have to make sure the value proposition to the prospect is clear. Sell benefits, not features. In the case of recruitment that means you have to sell the benefits of the job, not the job requirements.

    Next, you need to decide what information about someone you want to collect. Name, email address, phone number — that’s fairly obvious. Social network participation could be worthwhile (so you can follow prospects on Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Their resume may be online, or at least they have a LinkedIn profile. Save that URL. I also like to take note of their career path and how long they’ve stayed at various jobs, especially the last one. Startup people tend to hop around, so after 2-3 years they may be getting antsy. That’s potentially the perfect time to pitch someone on switching.

    The health of their current company is also a potential indicator that a prospect might be ready to jump ship. There are lots of ways to track that information.

  3. Rank the prospects. Using the criteria above (and maybe some of your own), you want to rank the prospects. This doesn’t have to be a superbly scientific exercise, but it’s going to be helpful from a time management perspective for yourself (and your existing employees.)

Work the List

  1. Follow the prospects. Follow your prospects on Twitter, Facebook, etc. If they have blogs, add them to your RSS Reader. You want to get a feel for people over time, which will impact how you rank them.
  2. Deploy your staff. You shouldn’t be the only one sourcing for your startup. Get others involved as well. They can follow some of the key prospects, especially if it’s in a shared domain space. Get your system administrator to follow and track the system administrator prospects.
  3. Find multiple routes to the prospects. One introduction might be all it takes, especially if it’s a very strong one. But if you can only get a light introduction, look for other ways to connect. In some cases you can do this through social networking alone – a prospect might reciprocate a Twitter follow action, for example. But you also want to look for more people and stronger connections through your social graph. Who do you know that the prospect knows? What are the relationships? How can they be strengthened and leveraged?

Go for the Sale

  1. Make your intentions clear. You can’t wait forever or be sneaky with a prospect about the recruitment process. Make it clear, pretty quickly, that you’re interested in speaking to a prospect about a job opportunity. You’re not offering a job at this stage; just trying to get to know the person better. You may have broader intentions too: Interested in sharing startup war stories, building your network, talking “shop”, etc. And those are great reasons for constantly building and nurturing your network. But I wouldn’t hide the fact that you’ve got job positions you’re looking to fill.
  2. Get them hooked. As you build relationships with prospects you do want to move them into the recruitment funnel as quickly as possible. Sure, dating is fun, but you need to get married. Remember: Sell the benefits. By this point in time you should know what makes a prospect tick and you can tailor your pitch appropriately.

This is neither a quick or easy process — nor should it be. Plus it’s ongoing and essentially never stops. Recruiting great people is very hard. Doing it on a consistent basis is almost impossible. It takes more work than most people realize, and definitely more work than most people are willing to put in. But if you’re running a startup and not actively tapped into the talent market you’re going to lose out on the best people. Someone else is putting in more work, being smarter and more aggressive about recruiting people, and that leaves you in a dangerous spot. Without great people a startup can’t win.

For more information, check out these posts:

8 Things to Look for When Hiring Startup Talent

Once you have an aggressive system in place for building a recruiting magnet and sourcing talent you need to have a clear sense of what to look for in each potential candidate.

When initially sourcing, you don’t need to spend a ton of time reviewing people’s profiles, analyzing resumes, etc. You just find interesting people and connect.

But as you dig deeper, or when someone applies and you want to evaluate that application, you do need to key in on a few things. Many of these points are skewed towards hiring developers, but they can certainly be broadened to other roles.

  1. Previous Startup Experience. This is pretty obvious, but generally you want to stay away from people who have worked exclusively (or almost exclusively) at large corporations. They’re just not likely to have the right mindset or interest in working at a startup.
  2. Previous Small Business Experience. A lot of startup recruits come out of small businesses. A small business is different than a startup, but if someone’s worked at a small business it’s a fairly good indicator that they’re interested in working in small teams and having more responsibility. Not always, but it’s a good sign. Even so, they might not have the stomach for working at a real startup, so be careful not to confuse, “I like working at a small company” with “I want to work at a startup”. But occasionally (and I think more often than you’d realize) you can find people languishing in small businesses without any real sense of how to get out.
  3. Personal Projects. Side projects are a good thing. Look for things like open source work, or personal projects of relevance to your company and/or industry. If someone has a ton of personal projects that never went anywhere that’s a red flag, because they may have difficulty focusing and finishing things. But you’re not really focused on judging the success of those projects (although if there’s been big success that’s an interesting point of discussion). What you’re looking for is people who are dedicated to trying new things, learning, getting out of their comfort zone and working hard.
  4. Foreign Experience. People’s experience in foreign countries and different cultures is always interesting. It adds a different dimension to people’s worldview that can be very valuable for a startup. Startups that focus their market too narrowly will get themselves into trouble very quickly. And startups that focus too much on the echo chamber can also get caught unaware. Broader, international experience is an interesting, potentially valuable component to a startup hire.
  5. Social Media Presence. If you’re hiring people for a Web startup then it makes sense to bring people in that understand the Web, regardless of the role you’re recruiting for. Developers and programmers should have a social media presence. Hopefully they’re blogging because that’s a great source of information. You can also learn a lot about someone from Twitter. You might have to read their last 100 tweets, but it’s worth the effort. LinkedIn is a good source of intelligence on people, although it works less well for programmers (because they don’t use it as actively.) Still, you can often find links to people’s projects, blogs, etc. on LinkedIn. And if they’re using the apps available there, even better, because you’ll learn more about them. A complete lack of a social media presence or a completely inactive one is a red flag.
  6. 2-Years Experience. It’s not uncommon to find great people who jump from job to job. There are lots of reasons for this. If someone has jumped too often it’s a red flag. But what you’re really looking for are people who have been with their current employer for 2-3 years. It’s around that timeframe when a lot of people start looking elsewhere, or at least are ready to be approached. If they’ve only been with a company for a few months it might be too early. If they’ve been with a company (especially a startup) for too long (5+ years or so) it might be too late, and they may no longer be interested in taking on a new challenge. So you’re looking for that sweet spot where people are most receptive to change.
  7. Founder Aspirations. It might be difficult to discern this from someone’s online profile or a resume, but I’ve always found that the best startup employees are those that want to take your job. Maybe not your specific job, but ultimately they want to be Founders themselves. They just might not be ready yet. Of course, as an employer losing kick ass employees to their own new startups is a huge drag, but it’s the reality of being in the startup world. You want people with lofty ambitions that genuinely want to run their own startups; they’re going to appreciate the experience of working at one a lot more.
  8. Creativity in Applications. Nothing says “hire me!” like a boring 2-page resume. Yawn. Creativity is a huge asset in all employees, including developers. You should ask people to demonstrate their creativity when they apply. It’s a great filtering tool. If you ask people to do something out of the ordinary and creative with their job application and they don’t, you can scrap them immediately. And if you don’t ask them and they do something interesting and creative, even better!

There’s no magic bullet for startup recruiting. You’re most likely going to make quite a few mistakes. But those first few employees are so critical you owe it to yourself to recruit the absolute best you can find, take your time (even though it might be killing you), and have a rigorous process in place for sourcing, attracting, recruiting and hiring.

10 Steps to Successfully Sourcing and Recruiting Startup Talent

Hiring people remains one of the biggest challenges and mysteries for startups. Since most CEOs and founders aren’t trained recruiters, they generally have very little idea about how to recruit properly. And because they’re so busy running their startups, they rarely invest enough time in the recruiting process.

Hiring at startups is extremely difficult

Even for startups that have tons of attention it’s hard. You absolutely need attention and buzz in order to hire. That’s why I advocate that startups turn themselves into recruiting magnets. I also believe that recruiting will evolve into something similar to inbound marketing. But sometimes you can’t build a magnet big enough and you have to go on the offensive.

Sourcing is an art and science unto itself. It’s a tricky, roll-up-the-sleeves and dive in kind of business. And unfortunately, too few startup CEOs and founders do it. But honestly, there’s no choice. If you’re running a startup and you’re not actively hunting for the best talent, you’re screwed.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Get a decent contact management system. Try something like Network Hippo or Gist. Or, stick with Excel. You could even build your own little database to handle the specifics of what you need.
  2. Use every service possible to find people. Start with the obvious ones: LinkedIn, Google and Twitter. Facebook might work too, although it’s a bit more closed. WeFollow and Twellow can come in handy too. Search for relevant keywords. Use Thesaurus.com if you need to find appropriate synonyms (although you should already know these.)
  3. View every profile and make snap decisions. Scan every result very quickly and make a snap judgment call as to whether you want to pursue a relationship or not. Remember: You might find someone that’s not a perfect fit to recruit but that’s likely going to know other interesting people. You’re not just looking for hires, you’re looking for connectors too. On LinkedIn, if you’re only 2-steps away from the person then ask the mutual friend to introduce you. (Quick tip: People occasionally put their email addresses in their LinkedIn profiles. If they do, send them an email.) From LinkedIn you’ll often find a blog, company site or Twitter account. Check those out too.

    You’re making snap decisions because you don’t want to invest a ton of time analyzing each person’s profile and information. Use your best judgment and move on. Even if you reach out in some way and things don’t work out, that’s OK. What’s important is that you try.

  4. Follow people on Twitter. This is the lightest touchpoint you can create. I don’t think there’s any problem with being fairly liberal with who you follow. Check to see if they follow you back. Use a service like MutualTweeps.com to see who you know in common.
  5. Keep track of everything. This is absolutely essential to running a successful and ongoing recruiting process. Track things such as: where you found the person, what other profile information you gathered, did you follow them on Twitter, who you know in common, etc. All of those details are relevant, because ultimately over time you want to be ranking people by appropriate criteria for your startup and the positions you have available (now and in the future.)
  6. Follow up religiously. If you get a nibble from contacting someone, make sure you follow up instantly. Otherwise it’s just plain rude, and you can very easily damage your reputation. Remember: If you can’t hire the people you need there’s a very good chance you’ll fail.
  7. Keep connecting even if you’re not hiring them. I’m a big fan of building a network — not when you absolutely needed it yesterday — but for the future. So as you’re going through this exercise, reach out to people via DMs, messages, email, etc. and drive them to your Career page. But if it’s not immediately the right fit, feel free to connect with your growing network openly and regularly. Find out more about them. Get the information you need to help rank them internally, so you can assess whether or not they’re worth pursuing in the future.
  8. Find the leaders. Every community has leaders. So if you’re looking for Javascript developers, figure out the most well-known ones in your city (or area). Take them out for lunch. You’re not even (necessarily!) recruiting at this point (although you’re always recruiting and everything you do is a reflection on you and your company’s brand). You’re schmoozing and learning about the community. Who drives it. Where are the events. How you can participate. Etc.
  9. Ask for referrals. You can’t be shy when recruiting. Ask for referrals. Friends. Friends of friends. Ex-co workers. Ultimately you’re building your database. Without it you can’t source effectively.
  10. Rinse and repeat. You should be doing this every single day that you’re actively recruiting. And it should become a regular routine even when you’re not actively recruiting. I absolutely believe in the mantra, Always be recruiting. If you’re not, you’re going to lose out on people when you need them most.

I realize this might sound a bit cold and mechanical, but it doesn’t have to be. You’re trying to actively extend your network and make new friends, contacts, build relationships and ultimately (hopefully!) hire kick ass people. Who doesn’t want that? Some of the process might be a bit unfriendly sounding but without a good system in the background tracking everything for you it’s very difficult to stay on top of things. Imagine doing sales without a CRM tool. You might be able to pull it off at the very beginning but once you’ve got 1,000 customers and 50 new ones per day …

Recruiting at startups is about putting yourself in a position to attract the best. That starts by building the foundation, the magnet you need to attract and excite people about your company and job opportunities. But once that’s done if you sit back and wait you’re dead. So you have to source talent, source the best people, dig deep and look everywhere. The more aggressive you are at sourcing the better chance you’ll find the diamond in the rough, the person that’s sitting in a dead-end job but isn’t quite sure what to do. You’re the one that’s going to find that person, connect with them and pull them out of there.

image provided by shutterstock

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About Ben Yoskovitz
I recently joined GoInstant as VP Product. GoInstant changes how we use the web, making it shareable like never before.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). I'm a hands-on startup guy, helping companies grow successfully from the idea forward. You can reach me at byosko at gmail dot com.

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