Every time I talk to entrepreneur that’s just raised their first institutional round, the topic of finding great people always comes up. Of course, great people are always in high demand, so it’s never an easy process. With that said, here are six ideas we use to find great people:
- Startup Specific Job Boards – At the Atlanta Tech Village, we have a healthy job board that attracts people that are interested in startups generally, which creates a nice pipeline for everyone on the board.
- Local College Alumni Career Fairs – Schools like Georgia Tech have separate career fairs for students and alumni, making it easy to target different types of positions.
- Internal Referral Bonuses – Referrals from existing employees are always the best, and it’s effective to add an incentive like a $2,000 bonus for referring a new hire that stays six months (make it a $10,000 bonus for hard-to-find positions like software engineer).
- LinkedIn Targeted Emails – Use LinkedIn to find people that are currently employed and email them directly from the hiring manager (not a from a recruiter) explaining why it’s a great company and that their resume looks like a perfect fit. Also, ask if they know anyone that might be a good fit.
- Local Meet Ups – Spend time at the local meet ups for sales, marketing, product management, and engineering (specifically for the role needed e.g. iOS, Node.js, Ruby, Python, etc.) to find people that are actively working to improve their craft, and ask them directly for referrals.
- Twitter Mentions – Find people on Twitter that are potential candidates and mention them (or DM them if they’re a follower) saying that a new positioned opened up and if they know anyone that might be a good fit.
Assume 10 – 25% of your time as a leader in a fast-growing company should be spent on recruiting great people. Finding great people isn’t a one-time event, rather it’s a process that needs an on-going commitment.
What else? What are some more ideas for finding great people?
David Cummings on Startups 
Since in this scenario, the entrepreneur has raised an institutional round, don’t discount asking your investors to help. Often, they have extensive networks of professional sales, ops, finance types, and even developers, that can be leveraged.
Another thing … once you get “buzz” going (and raising capital tends to do that), a lot of folks are going to come your way. 95+% of these people are not going to be worth your time (for one reason or another). You need to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were.
Cheers.
Scott