Ask HN: How do you hire top talent in 2019?

If I can go to FB/Goog and pull down ~350k+ a year, why should I come work for you? You need to have a really good answer or something that is differentiating/compelling enough.

Either that or you'll have to be comfortable settling for lower quality talent and the associated consequences - it becomes a strategy question at that point.

https://freemanagermentors.com

With that being said, let me take a crack at it here!

My number one response for hiring top talent is always tapping internal referrals. Asking your current employees for the name of the best person they've ever worked. Repeat that process for every new hire you make (with proper consideration for non-solicits).

My second thought, not knowing anything about you or your company, would be to spend less time thinking about whether or not you can attract/hire top talent, and focus more on finding high-growth talent and strong internal coaches. Exceptional talent (true top 5%'ers), in my experience, are more likely to land somewhere by referral or are poached, rather than just "out on the market". "Strong" talent, which I would define as high performers, can be built internally, so long as you put in the right infrastructure to help them succeed.

That means you need to focus on finding managers that know how to create opportunities for their people, and leads who know how to coach technical skills in day to day work. Don't confuse these skills with your "top individual contributor" on staff. Someone who is a great coder, excellent customer rep, or your top salesperson, does not immediately make them a good mentor (think technical lead) or manager (project management skills, cross-functional skills, energizing personality, etc.). So, as you begin to search your organization for these people, make sure to not confuse highly skilled individuals with great leaders.

Once you have this type of infrastructure in place, your hiring process can re-orient towards a wider pool of candidates that aren't necessarily pre-made A+ stars, but rather someone with a C or B level talent, with high-growth potential. Your hiring process should reflect this. Things you begin to look for are:

1. Individuals who grew rapidly inside of a company (often rapid title growth), but are leaving due to compensation issues, the company going under, displeasure with the business, etc. The risk with these types of individuals is often that they can have a mercenary mentality, so look to see if you can either screen that out or if you can coach that out of them after they are hired. 2. Individuals who seem to have worn a "bunch of hats" across a couple of jobs, and maybe haven't had time to build depth. Sometimes breadth of experience can be misinterpreted as a lack of skill set, but really just means that they bounced between responsibilities because they are a rapid learner. The risk with these types of individuals is that they constantly are switching roles because they're consistently low performers in that work,

My third and final suggestion would be to find a recruiting firm that you feel like delivers you high-quality talent and work with that firm to continue to hone the types of individuals they send your way. It can be exceptionally expensive, but great firms can make a world of difference. I can't give you a specific recommendation, as it seems each city has a "best in class" for different roles and functions, so you may need to ask your local network who they use. Remember to provide feedback to the recruiters so that they understand why you pass on candidate A, or why candidate B ended up being a great hire. They'll use that information to look for higher-quality matches in the future.

1) If you want elite engineers either offer them elite compensation and/or elite working conditions (remote, flexibility on workload, many weeks of vacation, time shifting, etc.).

2) If you want elite engineers make sure they know your job offer is elite by publishing specific compensation ranges, working conditions, and other information that makes your job offer elite. Abstract promises like "competitive compensation" or "above market pay" are standard marketing copy, not a differentiator.

This goes for other concerns such as dev culture just as well, but lack of compensation and work hours information is the worst. It's like trying to sell a house while withholding both price and location upfront.

Now, what that means in academia is pretty straightforward since academia is one big scoreboard.

However, what that means at work, I’ve no idea...

During the early days of my previous company (which currently has a ~30 person engineering team), the founding team scoured our networks, reached out to people personally, and did everything we could to share the inspiration we felt about the company. That plus fair compensation, allowed us to bring on some awesome people.

The good news is elite talent tends to know other elite talent, and if they love the company, they become natural evangelists. A generous referral bonus also helps, however means nothing if your people don't already love your company. The end result is this attracts more talent!

Occasionally we'd supplement this with recruiters, but our network was 5x more efficient, and wayyyy less expensive even with referral bonuses we paid to employees.

I'm in the process of starting my next company, and while I'm not hiring engineers for another 6+ months, I'm meeting with everyone in my network and anyone they recommend to let them know about the company. People are already excited, and it's also just plain fun to meet smart people and catch up with friends. From there, I keep people in the loop and also try to support them in their endeavours. This leads to a lot of 'serendipity', where your company is top of mind for people as they plan their next move, which hopefully aligns with when you're hiring.

Now compare that to a random job post or inmail message on LinkedIn.

Agreed with others that network can be pretty key. Even for acquaintances I've recruited to my current company (3 so far), our company was not in their radar but they were immediately willing to try it out since I gave them my recommendation (and all of us remain here)

1. Be a top company - either have a big name people want to work for, or a (provably) talented team that do notable work. Everyone bullshits their way around this, but most devs sniff that out pretty quickly.

2. Pay more than others.

It's really as simple as that. When my ex-employers were well-known to people in our circles, we had a much-larger pick of the litter, and when we messaged other solid developers about the role, they were interested in interviewing. When we were either a smaller company or not notable, if we needed someone that could hit the ground running or take a commanding role, we paid above market rates instead of paying out of our ass for recruiters or long-term job ads. Two jobs ago, my employer "negotiated" a 10% rate with a local recruiter based on first-year salary, and were shocked when the person we hired was shit. They put the same job ad out again, with that rate on top of the salary, and ended up hiring a really good dev.

#2 worked the best for me in the past, and it shouldn't be a shock, but getting this to work came with its own challenges:

* Getting an employer to pay more than what is absolutely necessary. We all want the best dev team, but we don't all need the best team. Furthermore, most people don't care about the long-term issues an inexperienced/bad hire can make. They'd rather take the risk and play the hiring lottery than pay a bit extra.

* Having faith in your team to pick the best candidates. This is really hard, and everyone has an opinion, even twenty-something graduates who have never hired a person in their life, let alone a developer.

* Accepting that the people that have attended the interview aren't good enough. Most of the time, in my experience, people have been hired because they need a warm body in the chair, and they've had no other bites.

Start with this (serious) question: If I'm an Elite Engineer -- WHY would I WANT to come work for you?

The Elites aren't checking job boards or Linkedin.

However, you'll often find them at meet-ups, conferences, or occasionally lurking here on HN. ;)

How elite are you talking? Is it a case where you're doing <X> and you want to hire (this one guy at Facebook who invented X)? Or just "really good devs"? This makes a difference. For key people targeted poaching may work (it will cost you more than normal hiring of 1 person, but probably not even 3x more, and if it's a truly key position you may need the one expert on the subject). If it's a more general position, but you just want someone smart enough, you can try asking your top 30% or so employees to ask all their friends if they're looking, or if the 3 or so people they or those friends would judge to be their best ex-coworkers are looking. You need a referral from someone who's worked with the person at some point, to ascertain their work (not social) performance, but it doesn't need to be a 1st degree referral, because your employees' immediate network, regardless if they're a fit for you, are probably pretty smart.

If location is an issue (you're not in a metropolis and your location is not known for tech) contact the local university's career services department.

Hiring is like sales. You need to do marketing and build good funnel (the end being the application process) to filter the candidates you want to. You will make mistakes, of course, track it and use it to improve your funnel. There are no shortcuts.

1. What does the company do? Is it interesting and cool?

2. Who are the people? Will I enjoy working for/with them?

3. Location: I want good climate and smart/rich people living there.

4. Vacation: 4 weeks minimum.

5. Salary: if the above is all 'yes', then I could accept as low as $150k in bay area. If there's one 'no', it's better be at least $200k. If more than one 'no', I'm unlikely to be interested, regardless of the pay.

EDIT: since you got some attention here on HN, why don't you post a link to the job description?

* Facebook (creepy) * Amazon (stress/politics) * Palantir (government contracts) * major banks (bailouts) * Uber (executive bad behavior)

If this is your situation, you need to embrace who you are. Some people hate you... great! Hopefully some people LOVE you as well. Even if you don't have a well-known name, you still have an opportunity to build your brand and explain the "why".

If you are truly interested in top talent, meeting the comp bar is necessary but not sufficient. Give people a reason to join you, and a reason to spread your name through their network.

What do they really want?

How can your organization goals intersect with their personal goals?