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The Four Skills That Will Get You Hired By A Startup

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“People really underestimate how important hiring decisions are at startups,” says Elli Sharef, co-founder of HireArt, a recruiting firm serving the country's rising tech community. “If you’re a team of two founders and you’re hiring your first, second, even tenth employee, the stakes are disproportionately high to find the right person with the right skills.”

Long story short, it’s under enormous amounts of pressure that entrepreneurs vet each potential candidate, looking for both the technical chops and enthusiasm that person needs to fit the (very high) bill. But Sharef says there’s another element that makes scoring a plum gig in a rapidly-growing startup: “The technology behind startups is often so new that there aren’t enough candidates with experience in the right skills. It’s simply not possible.”

As a recruiter, she’s been asked for all manner of impossible in this area. “"My favorite was a company that recently asked us to get someone with at least five to eight years of social media marketing experience,” she laughs. That’s a tall order for any recruiter: social media has barely been in existence for that long.

But tough as it may be, you only have to look at Google and Facebook’s stock-rich early employees to know that landing a job at a promising startup is a lucrative opportunity. From her eagle-eye view of the Bay Area hiring landscape, Sharef offers the most critical skills to brush up on, prove competency in and—most importantly—showcase to make yourself attractive to the founders who could become the next titans of tech.

No. 1 Sales Experience

Most startups, whether they’re consumer-facing or B-to-B, are selling something and as such need effective sales people, but Sharef says there is a serious lack of salespeople interested in entering the startup economy. “I’ve noticed that people in the Millennial generation just don’t think sales is a cool job,” she says. “Among our parents generation there were millions of people making decent salaries as a sales rep for this that and the other thing. These days salesmen are regarded as shmucks.”

But that attitude is what’s making sales representatives among the most highly-coveted hires of the startup economy. There just aren’t enough enthusiastic salesmen to go around, making this a qualified candidate’s market. Sharef says trained and untrained sales candidates should seize the opportunity to showcase their acumen and understanding of the tech industry landscape

No. 2 Marketers with SEO Skills, aka Marketing Hackers

Nearly every startup she works with is looking to hire marketing or social media marketing experts, Sharef says, but the most in-demand marketing hires are those who can understand SEO strategies or—even better—read and manipulate code.

“They’re looking for that marketing person who can also do a bit of hacking for the company,” she says. “Maybe it’s scraping websites for info to target a set of customers or the ability to do the development necessary for an initiative you’ve planned, you’re really putting yourself at an advantage.”

Traditional marketers—or marketing majors—take note: developing these skills isn’t as hard as it seems. Myriad resources are available online and at resource centers like New York’s General Assembly, where courses like “Programming for Non-Programmers” are offered regularly. “The beauty of SEO and minor coding is you can learn it at home,’ Sharef says. “Build something yourself and experiment with making it work. If you can prove to employers you’ve got the skills you can be an attractive choice even without years of experience under your belt.”

No. 3 Data Analysis

“If entrepreneurship is a management science, then knowing what to measure and how to measure it is important,” Sharef says. “It’s really rare for startups to find candidates that have the appropriate experience to conduct data analysis for their growing organizations.”

The most interest thing about the technology being built in the startup world is the amount of data it produces. Websites capture data at every click of a user. People who are able to measure, maneuver and find insights in that data are invaluable to early stage companies, because they can quickly realize what’s working and what isn’t. “The thing about data is that you really can’t make a significant decision these days without it.”

This though, is one of those areas where companies might be looking for years of experience that might be hard to prove for young candidates. Here again Sharef suggests taking the DIY approach. If you can demonstrate your ability to create A/B test campaigns on your own to analyze what works you’re giving yourself a leg up.

No. 4 Engineering

Not to bemoan the obvious, but engineers are, and will continue to be, the most coveted hires for startups as they build out their technology. Sharef says that in her experience most employers are looking to hire people savvy to Ruby and Python, while iOS and Andriod developers continue to attract attention from app-based products and services.

The challenge for employers here is less about finding someone with these skills, but hiring and holding on to the best ones. “It’s definitely a developer’s market and that’s not changing any time soon,” she says. “For startups it’s not just about finding these people, but about selling them on the promise of the company.” For the lucky few qualified in this area, congratulations: sign on to the right early stage company and you could be on the fast-track to success.

Developing these skills is one thing, Sharef says. Communicating them effectively to the startup employer of your dream is another challenge altogether. “It can be really challenging,” she concedes. In her experience startups looking to hire fall into one of two camps: their decisions are either driven by experience (those looking for the years to back up the skills) or enthusiasm (those who recognize great people and are willing to train on the job).

Either way, building the team is a huge decision, so expect days, if not weeks of deliberation before hearing about a job offer, far longer, Sharef says, than you would wait at a larger organization. This is especially the case if the founders are generalists or looking to bring on a skill-set they don’t have themselves.

“I’ve seen drawn out fights last days over whether to hire one candidate or another,” she says. “These decisions are critical, so candidates should expect to prove themselves all the harder.”