Bamboo Crowd’s Post

Tech Leaders, ask these 3 questions before making your next hire ⤵️ (If you want to save some $$!) 1️⃣ Which immediate problems would I assign to this new hire? 2️⃣ Which long-term projects would I assign to this new hire? 3️⃣ What's stopping my existing team from filling these gaps? 💡If you can identify immediate problems but no long-term projects, consider hiring a contractor. 💡If your existing team lack the right skills to fill the gaps, hire a Developer with a specific skillet and find a niche-specific Recruiter to speed up hiring. 💡If your existing team lacks the bandwidth for new projects, check that there's not a bigger issue (e.g. poor prioritization) to resolve before increasing headcount. Hiring is expensive, time-consuming, and should only be done when absolutely necessary. We've seen enough layoffs thanks to companies hiring for the sake of hiring... By asking yourself these questions, you'll avoid making unnecessary hires or will make hiring faster, cheaper, and more efficient because you'll know EXACTLY what you're looking for. #Startups #Hiring #Founders #Developers

How I hire top talent at Bamboo Crowd: (I just snatched Nate, a top performer in recruiting) Many companies think they need to: - Conduct lengthy interview processes case studies - Tell candidates they'll be part of a 'family' - Lure candidates in with sign-up bonuses How I actually hire top talent: - Scout talent in relevant networks (w. proven results) - Get help from expert recruiters - Sell our company culture (warm, inclusive) Give talent room to grow (and earn accordingly!) Yesterday, Nate had his first day at Bamboo Crowd. He's joining after 4 years at RocSearch to work in our startup and new venture team. Nate is an expert at building engineering, product, and gtm teams and is here to drive impact for our health-tech and wellness clients. I absolutely love getting talent like this onboard! In the last 6 years, Bamboo Crowds has already helped build world-class teams for companies like: → Oscar health → Calibrate health → Summit health → Salvo health And now, with Nate onboard, we've expanded our team to support many more innovators in the space. If you’re a health tech, biotech, or wellness startup looking to hire please get in touch with Nathan Schoen. Watch this space - a lot more to come! P.S. Should the violet cup be my new trademark?

HOT TAKE: Making a mediocre hire is WORSE than making a really bad hire. So, you've just hired someone. They're not terrible, but they're not great either. Sounds okay, right? Wrong. Here’s why: 1/  The illusion of competence: Mediocre hires are good at disguise. They seem capable and make it hard to pinpoint where they fall short. 2/ The slow realization: It takes time to see that they're not the right fit. Unlike a bad hire, where the decision to let go is clear and relatively quick, with a mediocre hire, you're in for a long, slow burn. 3/  The painful progress: Every step forward feels like a Herculean effort. You're making progress, sure, but at what cost? 4/ The lingering doubt: They're not bad enough to fire on the spot, but deep down, you know they're not adding the value you need. You're caught in a cycle of hope and disappointment, trying to coach them to be better. And I personally think you JUST CAN’T afford to be in this position at a fast-paced startup. In that environment, this isn't just an inconvenience – it's a critical error. This is exactly why I'm super picky about who I bring onto my team at SpotDraft. I'm all for taking our time to find someone awesome, rather than rushing and ending up with someone who's just meh.

I relate to this and have happened to me, but I want to note that I don't think it's related to mediocre people, but people that have different skills for different positions. Put people in the wrong position and you will made them mediocre. Speaking about developers for example, I have seen great engineers struggle in fast paced environments where delivers a quick MVP is key. Other people bright at deliver something that work quick (for a client with a hard due date) but have a bad time trying to do complex projects that take months and need interaction with several teams. Even, sometimes, you need people to do boring repetitive tasks as well! It's important to define beforehand what positions do you want to cover, what are you building and how, and, then, find the correct people, with the correct hard and soft skills, for the position.

"Is this a full-time hire?” As a startup, new hires come with a salary commitment, equity, and benefits. Every hire has a meaningful impact on your runway. Yet, few founders and hiring managers look for options besides full-time hiring.   You may want to consider fractional hires. Here is why.   1. Talent is often *more* qualified and specialized. You can hire a more senior person at a fraction of the cost of a less experienced full-time hire. 2. You can get more specific on background and relevant experience without spending 6 months to find them 3. Try before you buy. You can work with many candidates until you find the right one without the high risk of layoffs. Founders, remember this: fractional means more expertise and less risk.   The best of all worlds for teams that need to stay lean. #fractionalhiring #marketing

A trend that's becoming an issue I'm seeing across early & growth stage startups... Needing to hire niche folks but relying too heavily on inbound applications. I understand, better than anyone, there is an abundance of people actively on the market. Many of which are top professionals. However, that does't automatically mean that the qualified people you need are actively scanning job boards, and if they are, they may not even be seeing your ad. Now more than ever, totally misaligned candidates are inflating applicant counts per open role. That leaves a seemingly endless amount of time to screen through [unqualified] resumes. I'm seeing roles open for months at a time. This is a problem. Because money is either being wasted by keeping ads up for roles that are already filled... Or, there are issues with the approach to finding the right folks. Extended vacancies can mean: more lost potential revenue, additional work is spread across the existing team, loss of growth potential and more. Early & growth stage startup leaders, what's your solution to this?

🚀 Are you a rising startup or a small business searching for tech talent to propel your dreams to new heights? If you find yourself without the resources for an in-house team to vet your potential techy team members, look no further! Our seasoned and dedicated in-house team is ready to take the reins and oversee the entire journey of sourcing, conducting comprehensive interviews, and rigorously verifying top-tier tech talent on your behalf. With us as your strategic recruitment partner, you can focus on what truly matters—driving innovation and steering your business towards success, while we navigate the tech talent landscape to deliver the brightest stars directly to your doorstep. Let's turn your tech aspirations into a reality, together! 🌟💼 #hiring #recruitment #startup #smallbusiness

It's been nice to take on three new searches this week, with a fourth potentially coming very soon 👀 Keep an eye on this space, and follow Kioni Talent for more details on the roles. Working with new clients always requires a bit of fine-tuning, so it's refreshing to receive almost immediate responses to my questions and candidate profiles. Hats off to all the hiring managers, talent partners, and teams who truly live up to their words when they say hiring is their top priority 🚀 #Recruitment #SoftwareEngineering #Startup #Hiring #Technology

During Covid, after 15 years of doing Talent Acquisition for a mix of venture-backed startups and media agencies, my wife Danielle Fried-Dorman went out on her own to found her own recruitment shop, Huntress Talent. This was after several years of grinding to build a portfolio of clients to partner with on nights and weekends after putting our toddler to sleep. To date, her business has grown the old fashioned way: quickly find great candidates be a good partner = grow through client referrals. I’ve never started a company. So it’s been interesting to watch her build this and find her niche. She’s found success in being flexible how she partners with companies: -0-1: The bridge for early stage companies. Acting as the sole recruiter before the company needed to bring on a full-time Talent person. -Fill-in: bridge the gap within recruitment teams; filling the void during Mat/Pat leave, hires for critical roles post-RIFs, etc -Full-stack: not specializing in GTM vs Eng vs G&A. Being a generalist has allowed her to go deep on SRE hiring for a client while seeking out Heads of Marketing for others. 🌱 If you're on the lookout for #recruiting help in any of those areas, shoot me a note :)