The phrase in the title is not original, I admit. (The original discussion is about the future of internet marketing and advertising, see here)
Hiring great people and building great teams is not trivial. However, there is one very simple rule I follow about hiring  great talents: good people like to work with good people!
Also, talented people are looking for specific jobs, It is not just about the benefits, and in many cases it’s not about the benefits at all (although, I think that there should be an upside for all the hard work being put). People are looking for challenges they would like to tackle, either or both product challenges or technical challenges. Many people I like working with are passionate about what they do and consider themselves fortunate to have the opportunity to professionally do what they love, make meaning and grow personally.
Good people don’t look for jobs on a ‘first come first served basis’, they know what they would like to do next and identify a good opportunity when they see it. Usually they put their eyes on specific companies/roles/challenges they’d like to do.
The best sources for great talent are people you’ve worked with before and know already what they are capable of, the second best source for good candidates comes from references by friends and business colleagues. The worst (and most expensive!) source for recruitment is resumes from recruitment agencies (paid resumes). Very similar to web leads and traffic sources – organic is best, paid is worst.
There isn’t a single activity you do to build a pipeline of excellent candidate who will want to work for you. You should continuously spend your energy in helping the people you’d like to work with find you. This includes social networking online and offline. In addition, you should create value by blogging, sharing presentations, organizing working groups, etc. These all help other learn about what you do and how.
When analyzing our team at SaaSPulse (soon to be rebranded), I find:
- 30% – Had prior working history with
- 40% – Referred by our friends
- 30% – Through social activity
Together with Ori Lahav, founder and CTO of Outbrain we came up with term ‘Inbound Recruiting’. It simply works and helps you build great team.
And of course, If you find this the right point in your life to look for new challenges, I’ll be happy to talk!