Start-ups with Enterprise Resources

Start-ups with Enterprise Resources

I have been told far too many times by so many people that working for a start-up means long hours, low pay, and poor benefits. Importantly, I’m told that the resources are not there and you won’t get the training and professional development, conferences and education that you would get at a larger company.

I am the founder of a start-up recruitment company focused on helping start -ups to grow their technical teams. I have a good understanding of what it takes to succeed at a start-up, and a deep understanding of the culture, benefits, perks, and professional development that is offered at start-ups. I wholly disagree with the aforementioned statements and intend on telling you why these people are wrong.

I will start with my own company, and will remind people that we are hiring (not to sound too obvious ;-)). First, we pay over market rate salaries and offer bonuses quarterly and annually. We offer very strong benefits the first day you start, 100% company paid. We offer more resources than most enterprise agencies, including Linkedin Recruiter Professional, Linkedin and Indeed job slots, Salesforce database, and a Connectifier Social Tool. We offer professional development that includes weekly training by a Director of Technology, extensive and ongoing recruitment training, Linkedin recruitment training, Harvard Computer Science Course, and even Training in HTML, CSS and JavaScript! In addition, we offer meet up groups and conferences / seminars where applicable.

We offer work-life balance in that, while you work (sometimes) long hours, you get to work from home from time to time and we even offer unlimited vacation. Oh yes, we offer catered food, Friday (and other day) drinks (we have a beer keg), and meals out at least twice a month. Finally, with apple equipment (including laptop for work from home) and a beautiful newly renovated office in the heart of downtown, you cannot go wrong.

Ok now that’s enough marketing, let’s talk about Toronto’s Technology start-ups. A typical start-up company (that we work with, anyways) has anywhere from 10–50 million in series ‘A’ funding and a board of investors breathing down their necks pushing growth. Growth is at the forefront and founders are being pushed to hire a lot of talent, fast. Since they are heavily funded and the push for growth is coming from VC’s, they have the money to compete with enterprise corporations.

It’s inevitable that start-ups will start offering more, which is exactly what we have seen in the market over the past 5 years. We work with nearly two-dozen start-ups and every one of them offers competitive pay, bonuses or stock options, education and professional development (two of my candidate have started their Masters’, paid by my client), work-life balance (one even sends people home if they are still working at 6pm!), top of the line software and equipment, and offices that will take your breath away. About half of them offer catered food and work from home. I consistently hear from my candidates that they could not have acquired the same level of knowledge they have acquired at our start-up clients in any other organization. If you’re sitting next to the CTO, you will likely learn more than if the CTO is in another country. Enough said.

No wonder why companies like IBM are now competing with start-ups, breaking their company into small “start-up like” sections, and offering more and more perks. The question is, will talent gear towards start ups that have the resources of enterprise, or enterprise that acts like a start-up?

Two points. First, we operate in a similar way to our clients because we don’t want to just know our client’s business; we want to ‘be’ our clients business. Second, start up’s that are well funded can offer you the same level of ‘perks and incentives’ than enterprise, however you get to work at a start-up, which is much more awesome.

What will you choose?

Thanks for reading. For more information on Sage Recruiting please check out our website — www.sagerecruiting.me

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