Archive for January 9th, 2007

Where to Start a Company?

Roman asks Whether he should move to start a company. So where do you start a company? Where the people are, of course.You need enough people who are willing to take a risk on a startup. Roman’s in the Atlanta area–I bet there are plenty of people there. I don’t think he needs to move to Silicon Valley or Boston if he wants just a handful if people to start. But if he needs 200-300 people, it’s possible he might need to move to Silicon Valley, where more people expect to work for a startup.When you’re starting a company, you need enough depth in the candidate base–or a sufficiently attractive startup–to attract candidates. But the startup phase doesn’t last all that long (we hope), and at some point, you need enough candidates to keep the hiring proceeding. You can either be in a location that has a large number of potential candidates or be a sufficiently enticing employer to be able to attract candidates.There is something about the old phrase about real estate: Location, location, location. But any reasonably large city will be attractive enough to potential candidates. It’s the companies who are more than an hour from a large city who have real problems.

Labels: ,

1 comment January 9th, 2007

How Are Your Jobs Organized on Your Company’s Site?

I’m caught up with my project management book, at least until I receive more edits from my editor. So I’m catching up with my blogging.I was looking at a client’s site today. They have a couple of hundred open positions–not surprising, since they’re a large company. You can sort by date opened and location. But you can’t sort by type of job. Well, you sort-of can–by alphabetical order.So if you’re a developer, do you look under “A” for analyst? Or “P” for programmer? or “D” for developer? And, since the page only shows 10 jobs at a time, your readers–potential applicants–don’t have enough context to see.It makes some sense to name jobs by the job title. But the job title is an internal name, not an external name that means anything to potential candidates.If you’re a hiring manager or an HR person, take a critical look at your site. Can your potential candidates find the jobs that fit for them? Or, are the jobs organized so that it’s easy for you to post?

Labels: ,

Add comment January 9th, 2007


Hiring technical people and being hired can be difficult, no matter what the economy is doing. Use the tips here to hire better, or find a new job.


Search