The not so magical part of scaling

While I was making this new, meme-y profile picture, I thought by myself: "Why not write an article about how working for a scale-up can feel sometimes."

Who's not familiar with this meme, let me Memeducate you swiftly about this comic.

This comic originally comes from K.C. Green's Gunshow comic #648, actually titled "The Pills Are Working" or "On Fire", originally posted January 9th, 2013. Green's drawings have been the basis of several other memes including Staredad, Dickbutt (can I say that on LinkedIn?????♀?), Mother of God and I'm Okay With This. The comic, depicts a dog in a room that is burning to the ground. The dog reacts calmly, even as he slowly melts from the heat. - Little bit morbid right?

Well, sometimes when working in a scale up, in my case Sendcloud, it can feel like you're in an 'on fire' HOT situation (Yes, this is a reference to the House of Talent) and you still need to keep your cool because we got a lot of sh@# to do!

To paint a picture for you, here's how we scaled this year from a Talent perspective.

• We started january 2020 with 270 people. Today, 6 months we have onboard 105 Starplayers at Sendcloud.. and counting!
• Over 2000+ candidates, 78% of the pie of rejected candidates in the past half year. They reason of rejection is due to a lack of skills or qualifications. (SaaS experience in combination with good vibes and an independent mindset, we're picky on this)
• 7% (180 people) of that same 'rejection pie', rejected us as an employer. Majority had another offer already pending. This nr. shows that we are in a competitive sector.
• 38 people also offboard the Sendcloud rocketship in 6 months.

We already needed to catch up in recruitment but also in HR to put the right people in place in our own team to keep up. I am more than happy and confident with my team that we have built up so far and proud of what we have accomplished. However, due to these backfill numbers, workload, competitive landscape, understaffing in our team and the insane growth in the organisation that we need to catch up with, it can feel like everything is on fire sometimes.

Talent Magicians working around the clock to make sure that all inbound is checked up on, planned, but also on the side still sourcing for those hard to find colleagues, doing stakeholder management and keep re-adjusting the planning: because we need to grow FASTER. On the other side the Talent Success team redesigning the complete onboarding experience so our newbies feel welcomed, making sure salaries are being reviewed and are competitive enough, making sure managers know what to do when someone is underperforming, giving workshops around feedback so we can live our best values everyday. Dear reader of this article: It's crazy busy and yes: we are on fire.

Maybe, I didn't realise this when I named this House of Talent, HOT, that it also would have to do with actual Celsius degrees or Fahrenheit when things get too hot too handle. When is that moment when you can not handle the pressure anymore or when you start melting like the poor doggo in the cartoon? Am I stretching the team too much? Am I putting too many things on fire? Am I making too many mistakes? Do they still take me seriously as their leader? Do they have enough time to catch up? Probably, if you would ask them this right now the answer would be: No.

But maybe, we are HOT because we are made for these type of challenges. We are used to handling crazy deadlines, spontaneous head level hires. We like it HOT and we can handle the heat, we don't need to get out of the kitchen for it. We know what's up and what we're cooking at Sendcloud. At least, that's the vibe that I am preaching with, and what I want the team to believe in. Can you imagine dear reader: We are already doing so much insane, fast and impressive things right now while we are understaffed. Can you imagine if we had our own team 100% complete? No. Let's make it 150% complete, so if someone leaves or goes on Holiday we still don't need to stress too much.

I think with the department that we are building, we are going to be great, no AWESOME.

I want the world to know that Talent Success & Talent Magic are a double, no TRIPLE better of a thing than your 'regular' recruitment or HR department. We're not traditional: we are unconventional, that's what I love about us. This is also why I love Sendcloud so much because it allows us to be this way and experiment with this. We still need to improve and learn a lot. Make mistakes, have stress and have discussions. However, on the other side: great opportunities, a lot of Talent Magic and awesome growth awaits all of us. I don't know where I really wanted to take this article, but I wanted to at least give a BIG shoutout to my team, and share a look in the world of the House of Talent with the rest of LinkedIn. I hope we can be an example some day for other organisations who are in that same hyperscaling, or even in startup phase. Or, even if you're that gigantic corporate that would like to have a different way of working. I hope that they think of how the House of Talent did it years ago at Sendcloud.

Let's do this squad.. Let's make it HOT! ??