WhenU, DoubleClick and Did-it on the human capital problem.
Ken Evans, EVP, Advertising Sales, WhenU, Inc.
The problem is simple. VC is driving growth again. This time, however, the companies that are growing are real, and they are working against real business plans.
The bubble-burst era drove many salespeople to less risky sales jobs. Those that remained are getting premium comp offers from companies desperate to find professionalism and consultative style salespeople. You know the kind, they take time to learn your business before they call you, figure out your problems and figure out ways that there product and service can help grow your business. This kind of salesperson has always been in high demand and low supply, but the problem is compounded now by the business growth without the requisite growth in heads.
I see two solutions to this problem. Short term: pay more (perhaps over your plan) and take your chances with what you get (can you say desperation?). Long term: hire good people with less experience (perhaps from other industries) train them all the time to get them up to speed, pay them well but not so much they don't need to sell, and get management out on the road helping with the sales process.
Lynn Tornabene, VP Marketing, DoubleClick:
Here is our take on what's happening. As a tech player and not a media player, we may have a different view.
Today's hiring market feels a lot like 1999. There is significant hiring throughout the industry, which is putting pressure on the recruitment of new talent. The New York market is particularly tight right now versus other markets such as San Francisco, Colorado and Chicago.
We are seeing challenges that almost seem contradictory. On the one hand, there is some hesitation about joining the Internet space, with financial services and banking, in particular, attracting a lot of interest from potential employees. At the same time, those that are attracted to, or already working in, the space are either looking at start-ups, with many executives from existing firms setting up new companies, or are looking for significant moves up-- employees aren't jumping around any more and won't leave their existing positions for lateral moves.
From the DoubleClick perspective, our priority is to clearly position our strategic focus to candidates to ensure that they understand the business mission, the company culture and the specific opportunity that is relevant for them. We were acquired by H&F last year and have redefined DoubleClick's mission as a company laser-focused on leadership and innovation in delivering digital advertising solutions (display, rich media, search, affiliate and emerging technologies) and thought leadership to our clients and the industry. Given our rich history, we find that we need to clarify our current position to potential candidates, who may assume that we are the same company as the pre-2005 acquisition. DoubleClick is a global market leader and is growing to support the needs of our clients today and those we anticipate in the future. Recruiting top talent across our critical functions in engineering, sales, service and marketing is a critical global priority for the company in 2006.
We have implemented a number of programs to attract potential employees (see below). We have built out and re-structured the recruitment team to work more closely with hiring managers and to tailor the hiring process for different functions, and have had executive level input into training contingency agencies that has increased their knowledge of DoubleClick and has also helped to generate an effective feedback loop.
Our programs include:
Reconnecting with Alumni: We've organized very targeted events to educate former employees on the "new DoubleClick" and more than 10 percent of our hires this year have been former employees
Branded multi-level employee referral program: We've expanded what used to be a bounty program and built a four-tier branded program -- Drive to Hire -- that gives employees an increased bounty for all successful hires. The top bounty is an opportunity to win a payout large enough for a two year lease on a BMW Mini Cooper for the highest number of qualified new resumes that resulted in hires submitted during a six month period. In the first week of this program, we saw a 65 percent increase in referrals.
"Reverse engineering: process: Monthly lunch meetings with new hires to learn about how they found DoubleClick, why they chose to work here, and what was most effective during the hiring process
And our executive management is actively engaged in the recruitment process.
David Greenwald, President i2i Placement:
As a recruiter, I face these issues every day. Companies I work for want to hire only the top talent and pay a low/medium base salary with "lots of upside," while top talent (people who know that they are) will consider a better opportunity if the money and the environment (company/culture/management) is better than what they currently have. If so, then they may jump after a long back and forth with hiring managers and recruiter, but employees/candidates are skeptical.
Meanwhile, companies think too highly of themselves and what they offer to invest in educating and developing talent and helping to train the people they are looking at, not to mention they are just plain not patient and are not willing to invest in and nurture mid-level talent to higher performance.
One of my clients recently said, "We'll just wait for the best." Another said, "I know we are tough and demand a lot, but we only want the best."
This makes it hard for everyone. Schools are not focusing on interactive media training, so people come out of the education system with no understanding of online media and therefore do not have the basic knowledge it takes to get in the door.
Companies need to invest in their hires and think more strategically about the process of developing talent or this problem will become a crisis.
Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder, Dit-it:
Clearly there is a talent shortage particularly for those with experience in both the interactive marketing area, and particularly in the area of search marketing.
Being an industry leader, with a corporate culture of innovation and service, helps with both recruiting and retention.
Also, we find that recent grads will respond very positively to the right job ad. Every once in a while you'll find a superstar fresh out of school.
In addition, we have had tremendous success recruiting from our internship pool. Interns, including foreign interns, make income sacrifices to learn an industry and therefore tend to be highly committed to learning and to the industry they select.
The key to making new grads and internship programs successful is a killer resume-weeding process and a training program. Once new staff are on board, they need to know they are trained and supported.