Hire Slow? Not Anymore.

I’ve been doing a lot of recruiting for my team this year. One key lesson learned is that in this competitive market, you have to move fast. In the past, I would be cautious when making a hire. I wanted to get it right so I would usually do extensive interviewing, have the candidate come in and meet the entire team, check references and more.

But, recently I’ve noticed my process was causing me to lose out on some good candidates. I’d be ready to move forward with an offer, only to find that the candidate just accepted a job at another company. This has happened to me several times in the past year.

Atlanta is a very hot market right and it seems like every company out there is hiring so it’s becoming harder to find top talent. Great candidates will not be on the market for very long.

I got tired of being "left at the altar", so I adjusted my strategy and increased the pace of the recruiting process. If I like a candidate who is actively talking to other companies, I’ll quickly move forward with an offer. Even do a verbal offer on the spot after the interview.

I found out that one recent candidate was about to go on an interview with the CMO of another company. So, I moved fast to get an offer in front of her before that interview. She ended up cancelling that interview with the other CMO and accepted the job.

Another strategy is to find the talent before they are actually “on the market”. Recently, I was in the audience at the TechStars event and they played a video about the team that works at the organization. They featured a woman with the title of “Content and Brand Strategy”. At the time, I was actively searching for someone with that kind of skillset. So, I looked her up on LinkedIn and sent her a message asking if she would be interested in learning about ParkMobile. A few days later we met for lunch and we quickly made her an offer. She starts next week.

The lesson is that in this competitive job market you have to move fast. Good candidates won’t be out there long. Even better, find those candidates before they hit the market looking for a job.