Hiring Lessons Learned So Far

95% of my time right now is spent on searching for my CTO. Learning as I go, but here’s my takeaways from tech hiring so far:

• JobNob – $25 to setup a table at one of their job mixers. Pretty much useless for tech hires. Perhaps worthwhile for softer skills. JobBoard is free, but worthless for tech hires. Most of the people of value from here ended in my “Programmer” bucket rather than “CTO” bucket, so may prove useful going forward. Timing also may be better closer to graduation (lots of students looking for internships)
• CraigsList – $75 for job post. High volume of applicants, virtually all without any sort of targeting or cover letter (or knowledge of company). Good to drive volume, and I’d probably repeat. I found higher value prospects with a CTO post than a VP of Engineering post, and think the salary comments attracts mostly 40-50 y/o engineers.
• Startuply – free, but limited value so far. Maybe good for programmers. No focus in applicants or knowledge of company. Student heavy
• StartupHire – $10. This is a little better since they screen for funded startups.
• Facebook – I screened for specific schools and jobs. I’ve only paid $0.54 so far, so no complaints. Their CPC method makes this actually pretty appealing if you can find a post that will attract the right sort of attention
• GSB Mailing list – got some good referrals from this, and the reference helps add some credibility
• LinkedIn – hands on the best means I’ve used so far. Time intensive to search, and I usually request an in person meeting when I get put in contact. Takes using your personal network, so need to prioritize who you choose, and need to follow-up on all leads. Almost all intros resulted in at least a 30 minute discussion, and most of those resulted in a few introductions. Good way to build network anyway. I found it useful to choose companies and positions I wanted (eg: YouTube, Software Engineer) and then check for 2nd degree connections to solicit intros. If this doesn’t work, try doing the same search, but adding Stanford in their education. You can get their email address from the Alumni Database, and that usually leads to a high response rate (ie. I saw your profile in the Alumni Database, subject line: Stanford ’09)
• MIT / Berkley/ CMU / CalTech Mailing list – no leads that I know of from going this route, but probably still worth the time.
• BASES / CS Job Board – no leads so far, but still worth the effort.
• HeadHunters: Joanna Samuels (Jolt) – used to dealing with larger startups (> 5ee). Very friendly, helpful, kicked one reference my way. Could pay per resume ($75) but might be too small to get worthwhile candidates this way. Definitely worthwhile to connect with and keep in mind for later down the road. Sangeeta Narayan – contacted her through LinkedIn. She’s earlier and less established, and willing to negotiate to get some business. Could be worthwhile, but too late in process to consider her at this point
• Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter status updates: absolutely and utterly worthless