My experience in hiring for Start up

Some context - Now that we have seen and did some homework a little bit for a little more than over 6 months, spoken to bunch of people and feel we can expand a little on our terms and conditions. So we are looking at hiring folks now ! Folks who are like us, a little like mindedness and good aptitude skill mostly !

Where are we right now - So once we decided we have to hire, I am looking into recruitment and have filtered lots of resume ! Honestly I haven't gone through these many resumes in my career when working for someone! It's little overwhelming !  So we narrowed down to some resumes and then the next job is talking to these folks.

What do you talk about -  So what do you talk to people about? Since no one knows us, it takes a little long to explain ourselves, to explain who we are, why we are doing it, and then we come down to what position it is about. So this is mostly your make or break time ! And after having made at least 50 calls, with the pause in the candidate's statement I can tell you when it is a yes or no !
Anyways so this is mostly you talk about and the job description of course ! Some people are intuitive enough and do ask who your client is, how many clients you have. Plus you talk about what start up can provide in terms of learning and totally different experience.

People love brands - Yeah that's right !  Good news is, Bangalore is finally getting some attention from VC's across the world ! So that's a good news, bad news is everyone reads companies are getting funded and then there is emergence of new pay masters ! Earlier there were only few product based companies which would pay a heck lot of money, but now there is a huge list !
Well that's what is the scene now ! People want to settle in top paying companies which has a bigger brand name, perhaps a bigger office ! They are spoiled by choice and the desire to get fatter salary than an experience!
Even if you try matching the salary and perks, it doesn't matter some look for "stability". And also who doesn't want to make hay while the Sun shines ! So may be they are right !

Let me put down some of my observations with respect to recruitment:

  • When the economy is strong hiring is a tough process ! There is so much of demand that the decisive power shifts from employer to candidates ! 
  • Recruitment is still age old ! In my 9 plus years of IT career, the process of recruitment hasn't changed ! Filter resume, do a telephonic, schedule office interview, go through package negotiation, finally offer them and wait for them to join ! I am sure we need some smart ways to hire ! 
  • It's easy to hire for a Product start up than a Services based start up! When we talk about start up almost 90% of blogs, articles, rules, gyan all talk about product start up ! None talks about Services start up ! Also the recent craze of funding and acquisition news of the companies in product space gives it the cool factor and make it easy to sell such a dream to candidates!
I will keep re-visiting this post :) as it would be an on going learning !


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