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Whether you're a technical or non-technical founder you will need to recruit technical talent to help you scale your startup. In this talk, I'll cover strategies for how to attract and close top technical candidates for an early stage startup.
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Technical RecruitingPoornima VijayashankerEIR @ 500 StartupsApril 24, 2014
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• Right time to recruit
• Sourcing candidates
• Interview process
• Crafting an offer
• Closing candidates
Agenda
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Recruiting is a sales process.
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What do the BEST sales people do?
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Don’t sell!
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They get you to buy!
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Brand building.
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Story of Starbucks.
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Right time.
Supplemental Reading: How to Keep Your Startup Engineer Sane10
Pre-sourcing. Sourcing. Interviewing. Closing.
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Pre-sourcing. Sourcing. Interviewing. Closing.
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Communicate criteria.
Supplemental Reading: Recruiting for a Startup? First Figure Out Who & What You Want., How to Keep Your Startup Engineer Sane, Technical Recruiters Get a Bad Rap
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Specify position
Culture, Skills, Experience Level
Identify ideal candidate
Who matches & does NOT match?
Communicate criteria
To everyone: employees & entire network.
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Pre-sourcing. Sourcing. Interviewing. Closing.
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Don’t hire a recruiter at this stage.
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Get out more!
hackathons
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Git online!
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Validate candidate.
Assess their needs, skills, experience & interest.
Pitch the company.
Vision, why candidate is a fit & story that meets their needs.
Explain process.
Employees, recruiters & referrals.
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Pre-sourcing. Sourcing. Interviewing. Closing.
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Explain to candidate the interview process.
Steps of the process.
Who they will meet.
When to expect an answer.
Interview the candidate.
Divvy up areas & reviewquestions.
Every interview MUST tell vision.
What it’s like to work there.
Evaluate the candidate.
No communication during interview.
Have criteria set & measure every candidate the same.
Feedback system.
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Make them solve REAL problems.
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Phone screen first.
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3 Keys to an Interview
• Make the candidate comfortable
• Background interests
• Have them teach you something
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Early Stage Employee DNA
• Adaptability
• Productivity
• Quality
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Evaluation Criteria
• Process
• Estimating complexity
• Testing
• Refactoring
• Acknowledging their limits!
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Before you talk numbers...
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Sell your vision.Sell freedom.Sell working for YOU!
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Crafting an offer.
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Offer
• Role
• Numbers
• Leave room for negotiation
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How to definitely get rejected!
• Low ball offer.
• Aggressive offer deadlines.
• Not address needs.
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REJECTED.
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Why?
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Q&A
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Appendix
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MotivationWhy do you want to work at a startup?Why do you want to work at this startup?What do you need from me to be productive?How do you keep up with tech trends?
Technology AcumenWhat technologies are you familiar with i.e. can you actually write code in?Can you handle full stack development (front to back end)?Do you do TDD/BDD?What are the gaps in your skill set or knowledge? Are you willing to help recruit people who can compliment you?How would you scale a system from 1-10, 10-10k, 10k-1M users, and do so with in a fixed budget?Are you familiar with: security, monitoring, backup stores, deployment, scaling, performance tuning?
ProcessHow do you interact with product managers and designers?How would you implement an agile development team?How do you evaluate a build vs. buy situation?How do you ensure code quality?What is your process for handling technical debt?
Mini ProjectCome up with a small project that you think will take them either a couple days to 1 week to implement. Can be as simple as integrate signups with email marketing provider. Grade on attention to detail (quality), how accurately they implemented what you wanted (capable of building & shipping), and turnaround time (speed).
Sample interview questions.
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Resources
BooksBasic Black by Cathie BlackGood Boss, Bad Boss by Robert SuttonRework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier HanssonSecrets of Rockstart Programmers by Ed BurnsSmart & Gets Things Done by Joel SpolskyThe Leadership Pipeline by Charan, Drotter, NoelThe One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard
Blog Postshttp://femgineer.com/2011/12/blurred-vision-is-better-than-blindness/
http://femgineer.com/2010/05/startup-engineer-which-number-is-right-for-you/
http://femgineer.com/2012/10/optimizing-outsourcing/
http://femgineer.com/2012/10/where-to-find-femgineers/
PodcastsHire & Retain Talent - Barry Deutsch & Brad Remillard
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InfrastructureApplication Hosting
Website HostingCode RepositoryBackups, Security
Product Features
DeploymentTesting
Continuous IntegrationRelease Cycles
App Store
Maintenance Technical Debt
Org EfficiencyEmail Server
Email Marketing Social Media
Data & Analytics
Engineering Department
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Roles
Front End Interactions: JavaScript, HTML/CSS
Back End Algorithms, Features, Scaling
Architect Understands entire system.
DBA or DevOps Data Storage, security, scaling
Growth Hacker Get me more users!
Language Specific Rails Developer
Mobile Developer iOS or Android Developer
CTO/VP of Eng Manager
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