(Helping with) Hiring troubles…
I’m structuring the job hunt / hiring help I’ve been going about for a while now to make it better, for all of us.
EDIT: Founders, *please* write back to me with your feedback and thoughts on this. abhishek@boldkiln.com
Special thanks to Mohit, Utkarsh, Aditya, Rishabh, Shalabh and others for taking the time to discuss this with me & share their opinion.
I have, over the years, (tried to) helped candidates find jobs, and jobs find candidates.
Strangers, friends, people I know by their twitter handles, clients, startups, corporates, consulting firms, banks, venture capital funds, …. have attempted to help all kinds of combinations of entities to find each other.
I can only hope that some of these connections have borne fruit — and led to some great people joining great teams.
In a discussion on many things under the sun, and hiring challenges for startups, with Arpit, Jithamithra, Ankit, Vishal and others recently (at Chaayos SDA, where else!), the following recommendations emerged.
That I should:
a) structure this a little better
b) feel very okay in charging a fee for the help (if it works out)
c) work on actively finding ex-founders great opportunities
So well, here’s me promising (myself) that I will be doing all of that.
a) structure this a little better
Thought of the following:
- Will share curated jobs in startups + select candidates looking for a job, monthly
- You can ensure you don’t miss on this by subscribing to the Startup Weekly (bit.ly/SubscribeSW)
- The Weekly is a journal of tightly curated articles (and more) that are actionable + insightful and chosen such that they will definitely add value
- If, for whatever reason you find the Weekly very annoying and only want to get the Hiring email — let me know.
Please write to me to:
- To get featured as a candidate
- To have your vacancy / job featured
- To share your suggestions on this process
b) feel very okay in charging a fee for the help (if it works out)
I think a 10% (EDIT: I spoke to several close founder friends, and a few portfolio companies — and what I’ve realised is this is high & thus making it a 4%) of the annual compensation you hire the candidate at, as a fee is fair. This will be payable by the company hiring, to Bold Kiln.
Of course — I will rely significantly on you to raise your hand if you’ve been able to close a hire / get hired, because of the connects I made — and pay up on your own.
EDIT: The idea was and is not to make this a financial transaction, but to incentivise me/us enough to actively do this. For better or worse, it does take time & effort — and I don’t want to stop doing it because it no longer adds value.
c) work on actively finding ex-founders great opportunities
I truly believe that ex-founders make for AWESOME team members in any startup team. They get the struggle, having known it first hand, they’re hustlers, take risks, take ownership and put themselves out there in every way possible. We have an ex-founder in our team ourselves.
I’ve helped (and am right now as well) a few ex-founders help find opportunities to move on to after exiting / shuttering their ventures. I intend very much to continue doing this.
It’s a very rough patch to go through with one’s confidence at possibly the lowest, and emotions running amok — and while I won’t claim to know what it feels like, I have close friends through whom I’ve lived part of it.
I’m here to help. In any and every way. Including finding a superb opportunity for you.
Call me (+91–9769 00 3072) if you’re contemplating moving on from your venture to another opportunity for any reason.
Also, to be very honest, the intent of this post was multifold.
- Putting this out there, builds pressure for me to do this more actively & properly
- I was finding it awkward on how to tell people I’m now going to charge for something I’ve erstwhile been doing pro-bono
- I couldn’t think of a more effective way to tell the world I / we (Bold Kiln | OperatorVC) are doing this.
