Recruiting for Your Corporation? Don’t Shy Away From Those In The Startup State Of Mind
When you look at the world through the eyes of a 7-year old, it brings you a different kind of clarity – one born of plain curiosity. Let us therefore look at the world of corporate recruiting out of pure curiosity and understand how startup experience is perceived by outside recruiting agencies, corporate recruiters and hiring managers.
First, let’s look at the popular perception of a startup entrepreneur as glorified in startup folklore through stories of Steve Jobs personally reading out the ad copy, “Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo...”
This commercial made for crucial and timely story-telling for Apple. However, the powerful story-telling technique seems to have gotten stuck as a stigma in the minds of corporate recruiters who identify themselves with large powerful corporations. There’s nothing wrong with that self-image, but the stigma (or aura, depending on who looks at it) attached to those startup entrepreneurial qualities could use some cleaning up.
Now, let us revisit each of the characteristics of a startup entrepreneur that has been glorified in the ad and try to cast it in a different light to help the corporate recruiter understand it better.
The crazy ones: One concern I have heard from hiring managers is that startup entrepreneurs are uncontrollable. The only crazy thing about startups and entrepreneurial types is that they can’t stop obsessing over unsolved problems. It is a secret that only some corporations have figured out how to exploit. Bringing in someone with legacy startup experience into a large corporation, I would imagine, improves the efficiency of everyone around them, even if by just a notch.
The misfits: The biggest misconception of a hiring manager is the cultural demands would reject the startup gal or guy. Startups have no common culture. It varies depending on geographical location, the demographics of the team, age and ethnicity, understanding of pop culture, their alma mater, and their country or the city they hail from. The reality is that startup employees are extremely flexible, they adapt to any culture, and come in with very high emotional intelligence. There will be certainly a short learning curve, but it is the same if you bring someone fresh out of college. An employee with startup experience is more easily retrofitted into a corporate machinery. Remember, they have survived on ramen noodles. Throw them anywhere in your organizational waters and they will not just survive, but will swim ashore with a smile, having caught some fish along the way.
The rebels. The trouble-makers: Let’s face it. There is a rebel lurking in each one of us. It manifests when we speed up a notch to make it past the yellow light going to work. It manifests when we stand up for that elderly person who is being mistreated by an unpleasant salesperson. It even manifests when a fitness fanatic decides to gobble a piece of holiday-themed chocolate at the gym and waits to turn the corner before meeting the personal trainer. The mark of a successful manager is to use a combination of diplomacy and humor to channel that rebellious energy by giving that employee more authority and more responsibility. Treat them like a rebellious teenager, and watch them transform into dynamic leaders within the corporate framework.
The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently: This characteristic should no longer be a concern. Cognitive diversity and inclusion are being formalized in some of the most successful large organizations.
They’re not fond of rules: I have personally heard startup entrepreneurs proclaim that they love to break all rules. I think that is posturing. Entrepreneurs are the ones who measure risk meticulously and avoid doing anything short-sighted that could result in losses for their venture. There is an interesting article on an entrepreneur’s perceived disregard for risks, captioned ‘The Sure Thing’ by Malcolm Gladwell. Then again, I have seen founders who are completely clueless about how communication is conducted in a corporate setting. Some are clueless about various departments that need to get involved in a meeting – is it the HR, the legal, the marketing person, the head of inclusion, and the warehouse manager? How different is that from hiring an MBA whose only experience is as Vice President of Communications at their school’s MBA Student Association, a highly diluted simulation of an organizational structure.
And they have no respect for the status quo: We know what happened to Nokia’s respect for the status quo. This is the same as dealing with hiring a recent college graduate, except one with a Navy Seal’s grit and focus.
Let’s face it. If corporate CEOs and boards can choose to buy out an entire startup just to bring its team members on-board, a hiring manager or a recruiter need not be paranoid about trying to hire their next great team-mate from a startup and being saddled with a Taz.
A life-long student of life in business, the author Ramesh Sambasivan, is also the principal at SiliconGlades, a design and innovation firm that helps enterprises (B2B and B2C), non-profit organizations and government agencies achieve desired outcomes through innovative marketing programs permeating the organization down to its individual processes, with an eye on social impact.
