Finding corporate talent for your tech startup
The current pandemic and financial crisis will create a new pool of available and skilled corporate talent. But, how do you find the right corporate talent for your tech startup and can it sometimes be a hiring tactic that goes wrong? We explore how you can ensure both parties can benefit.
Not every really skilled available person is the right person
We wrote in our recent job-seekers article on leaving corporate life to work for a startup that some job-seekers will be tempted by a startup career, due to the necessity of just needing a short-term job / or a role to tide them over until the financial crisis has been and gone.
Unless you only want someone on a short-term basis (more on that in a bit), this type of candidate whilst perhaps really good in the short-term is not going to give you the long term commitment that your business perhaps needs. You’ll also find that lots of over qualified job-seekers will apply for lower-level roles and again, although in the short term this might seem like a good thing, in the long term they are unlikely to stay focused or committed to that permanent role.
Establish what you need
Having a wide pool of talent available when hiring hardly seems like a disaster, but you can often make the mistake of hiring the person or people with the best CVs and with the overqualified experience, and not hiring the candidates you really need to take your business forward. So before you pick from that pool of corporate talent - work out what it actually is that you need. Identify the job duties that you need doing, the ideal characteristics of the person, and the type of hands-on experience they will need to have. Finally, work out how your recruitment process is going to test for these attributes and requirements.
On the tools and off the tools
Lets drill into a little detail here. On the tools is actually doing the job itself. For example, in a content marketing-focused role, it could involve writing content, loading tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer, tracking the performance, understanding the analytics - doing the ‘on the tools’ work. ‘Off the tools’ is managing a team of people who do the ‘on the tools’ work. AKA delegation.
So, when establishing what you need currently for your business right now, determine what on the tools experience you will need the candidate to have to do that job 100%. If you are hiring for a C-level exec and the role they will have will be mainly ‘off the tools’, then happy days.
However, if the role is primarily ‘on the tools’ then make sure to recruit and hire someone that matches those skills and experiences - corporate background or otherwise!
Setting expectations
When growing and even scaling a tech startup, it is most likely that your employees, even the senior-level ones, will need to be pretty hands on. In many cases, corporate talent in their previous roles may not have actually had to undertake the duties that you now really need them to do.
Now in the ‘recruited role’, some may be surprised - even shocked, that you’re asking them to do certain things, that in a corporate role they’d expect to have extra budget to pay agencies to do, or be below them and their pay grade so to speak.
Coming from a higher level hierarchy from within a corporate, asking someone senior to do lower level job duties may well have been seen as rather insulting. But the startup world is different. If you don’t set out these expectations clearly before the person starts in the role, don’t be surprised if this doesn’t cause stress and conflict after the person starts.
So, to make sure that you are fair to them and vice-versa, clearly highlight in the job description the duties and on the tools experience that your ideal candidate would have. These are your expectations for the role and the expectations that you recruit from.
Quantify
When interviewing for a role, use competency-based interview questions to get to the nitty-gritty of what experience your shortlisted candidates must have. How did they undertake those duties previously, where did they undertake responsibilities and what were the results from using those skills?
Also, look for secondary evidence! Check out their LinkedIn profile and CV. Does it show any evidence of past on the tools experience and does it back up what they say at the interview?
Thirdly, how about creating a scenario-based exercise that the interviewees have to take part in during the interview? Of course with most interviews taking place remotely at the moment, you may need to be slightly creative on the format, but the principle remains the same. A good interviewee might be able to talk-the-talk, but can they walk-the-walk?
For example, create a hypothetical company growth situation and ask the potential ‘Marketing and Strategy manager’ to map out on a blank piece of paper, their company strategy for the next 12 months. Twenty minutes later, ask them to present their ideas back. Have they been able to demonstrate via that blank page that they are able to lead and show direction without the 5 or 6 team members that usually offer advice and guidance behind them in their previous/current corporate role?
Startup naive?
Whilst prospective corporate talent might not have any experience of working in the startup sector, they may be able to demonstrate a good understanding and even a passion for wanting a career in a startup.
Have they done any contracts, or part-time/ support work with an early-stage company? Do they know the key VCs, leading startups in your sector? Are they aware of any of the key differences between startups and corporates? Can they clearly articulate why they want to work in a startup? Do they understand the blood, sweat and tears that is often required from everyone in the team? If they can show you that they have at least done their homework, then this can be a good sign that they are really interested in working for you and your team.
Hiring short-term
The potential flip of the above and not perhaps for a specific role.
Whilst the pool of available corporate talent is wide, you may think it a great time to hire some short-term knowledge and experience to add a short-term boost to your growing tech startup. If you found a corporate candidate with a wealth of experience agreeing contracts with top FTSE companies, and this is your ideal client base, well you’d be foolish not to consider how you can make this a win-win for both parties.
Perhaps, in this case, a short term 3-6 month contract might benefit both parties, whilst not committing both the startup and the corporate star to a long-term and perhaps less fruitful arrangement.
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Who we are
Offering personalised, consultative service, at TableCrowd Talent we’re a specialist recruitment agency with our finger on the pulse of the startup and scaleup scene. We are committed to matching graduates, professionals and C-level executives to exciting startup and scaleup jobs across London, the UK and Europe.