Tag Archives: Attract

How Do You Minimize Hiring while Launching a New Market? Five Points

Situation: A company is planning to expand operations into a new geography. The CEO wants to avoid hiring a new sales person out of the main office as they make this move because he wants the expansion to fund itself. How do you minimize hiring while launching a new market?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Start by profiling the ideal customer for the new geography.
    • The definition should include business sector, company size, current capabilities in terms of the service provided by the company, and openness to working with outside service providers.
  • Consider a satellite office or franchise option. The two key employees to staff the office will be an engineer and a principal manager for the office. The principal manager will be the sales person.
  • Target initial clients that meet the profile of the existing business but in the new geography.
  • Use what has been learned over the years in the principal location to build an effective culture in the new location. Select key people for the new location that would fit well into the current location.
  • How can the principal manager network in the new location to attract clients?
    • Clubs
    • Organizations
    • White Papers
    • Advertising and Mass Mailing
    • Author a book or be featured in a chapter of someone else’s book
    • Generate partnerships or affiliations for business development

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How Do You Beef Up Talent to Drive the Company? Three Questions

Situation: There is no secret that hiring is more challenging now than it was two years ago. A CEO is finding it difficult to attract and bring in the right talent to achieve her growth objectives. What are others doing to bring in new talent, especially high performers who will help to bring in new accounts and work with key customers to develop new business. How do you beef up talent to drive the company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What has worked best for others?
    • Hired low and developed home grown talent. This means building the capacity to train new talent to meet the company’s needs.
    • This may not produce entrepreneurs like the company’s founders but can produce solid performers.
    • Some sectors are by nature risk averse. Individuals are not dollar driven as much as by security with an acceptable salary. Good candidates who are hungry for growth are more likely to be found outside of these sectors.
  • How do you hire to match the company’s objective?
    • The objective is rapid growth – the mold of the original founders who were risk-taking entrepreneurs atypical of the sector.
    • Look for candidates who are driven by growth. The right candidate will jump at the opportunity to take a $5M book of business and grow it to $10-15M in 3 years with appropriate corporate support and compensation.
  • What has been tried or investigated in the past?
    • Looked for successful smaller businesses similar to the company as possible acquisitions. The challenge was that the people running these companies liked their independence and didn’t want a boss.
    • Looked at individuals from corporate backgrounds in the same sector. Some worked, some didn’t. Frequently, these people were not entrepreneurs or builders.
    • Talk to private equity companies. Ask who they have bought or sold in this space. Gather names of drop-in CEOs and key staff who turned companies around and did well.

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What Are Best Practices Hiring Out of College? Four Thoughts

Situation: A Silicon Valley company finds it difficult to find good candidates locally, and also to attract qualified distant candidates to the Bay Area. They want to explore hiring talented individuals out of local colleges and developing them within the company. What are best practices hiring right out of college?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Hiring out of college or graduate school is a good way to find long-term hires who can grow into positions. It is less useful if your need is for experienced and tenured individuals who can immediately get up to speed in a position of significant responsibility.
  • As in any hiring situation, you should review your hiring process before you start to hire. Many companies hire locally based on who applies or who’s a friend of a friend, rather than making an effort to recruit the best candidates.
    • What is your infrastructure? Do you have a system for identifying candidates who best fit your culture and needs? Do you have personnel who can mentor a new college hire, or are you willing to devote significant time to this?
    • An alternative is to hire consultants to develop a recruiting process or to mentor the new hire in specific areas of development during their first year or two on the job.
  • One CEO sponsors an annual competition at Santa Clara University for papers in his company’s field. This has won him considerable support at the school, and gives him access to promising students, several of whom he has hired. An advantage of this program is that the company gets to know the individuals and the quality of their work before making a commitment to offer them either an internship or a full-time position.
  • Be cautious using candidate assessment tools with college hires. An individual’s profile may shift significantly once they start working because there is a significant shift in priorities once an individual leaves student life.

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