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.

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

I’m currently in the middle of reading Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Combined with reading Inbound Marketing I can’t help but think more about how inbound marketing and trust are related to recruiting.

The reality is that the future of recruiting is trust agents.

Trust agents are experts at relationship building, personal branding, networking, giving (before getting), and creating social capital for themselves. They’re changing how businesses market, sell and provide customer service. And in all three disciplines – marketing, sales and customer service – trust agents can (and will) dominate.

As organizations re-think how they market, sell and service customers, they should be thinking about recruiting existing trust agents. There aren’t many out there so competition for them is fierce. But luckily, more are on the way.

In an ideal situation, the people in charge of marketing, sales and customer service would already be trust agents. That would make the transition from an old way of doing things to a new way that much easier. But if they’re not interested, capable, or in a position to be trust agents they damn well better hire them and provide those people with the necessary freedom and power to do their jobs. That means giving marketers, salespeople and customer service representatives the ability to blog, engage on social networks, respond transparently and devote a portion of their working day to personal branding, reputation building and networking. The time these people invest “in themselves” is going to pay huge dividends for their employers — and companies need to not only understand that, but foster it.

And what does this mean for new recruits, fresh out of college or early in their careers?

Simple: Become Trust Agents.

That’s not going to be easy, and you have to realize that being a trust agent is a lifelong endeavor. You don’t have to be Chris Brogan, Dharmesh Shah, Mitch Joel, Scott Monty, Kelly Groehler, etc. Actually, you can’t be. Because you’re you. The point is that you don’t need to be at the top of your game, serving as a leader in your space, with 20,000 Twitter followers and an ultra-active blog. But you do need to start. Right now. This very instant.

Demonstrate your interest in growing as, and becoming a trust agent. Demonstrate your understanding of new technologies and how they can be leveraged to meet business goals. Demonstrate your fighting spirit and willingness to get engaged with the world in a dynamic, honest way. Become a Trust Agent-in-Training. For the visionary employers and leaders in marketing, sales and customer service (along with a host of other company departments / functions) that’s going to be a tell-tale sign that they need to hire you as soon as possible. And then they need to foster, nurture and train the trust agent in you.

In the next 10-20 years many more trust agents will move from being mid-level employees to upper management, C-level executive roles and running their own companies. That’s when we’ll see a true transformation in how business is done. But now is precisely the time for people entering the workforce or early in their careers to commit to becoming trust agents and finding opportunities suited to their needs. And it’s precisely the time for employers to start shifting their mindsets on how and who they recruit.