Creating a Hiring Strategy
Why should someone work at your company? Every company answers this question differently. Here are some valid strategies for hiring:
- We’ll pay the median rate in your area, but we’re investing heavily in making this the place for you to do your best work: the best work culture (early days New Relic).
- We’re working in a compelling technical area, which attracts a lot of talented people, so you can work with a great team and solve interesting problems. Plus we’re making a great people-focused work environment (Gremlin during my tenure there, also early days New Relic).
- We’re making Disneyland for engineers, with lots of perks, and top pay, in a university-like environment (early Google strategy).
- We’ll pay really well for you to work your ass off, and in return, you get a chance to work at a scale you won’t otherwise (Amazon today).
- We won’t pay you the most, but you’ll get to spend time each week working on open source software (a local software consultancy my friend ran for a while).
In practice, when you haven’t done the work to articulate why someone should work there, your hiring strategy looks like this: