Huge Hiring Boom

By Nick D'Ambrosio


Over the past couple of months we have seen a huge increase in hiring activity. All of our clients have multiple job openings and are aggressively seeking talent. We are also hearing from job seekers that they are getting a lot more recruiter calls. This is shaping up to be a great year for those seeking new employment and I am confident we will continue to see steady growth throughout the year.
While this hiring boom is great for everyone, it is still a buyers market – more job seekers than job openings. To ensure that you are benefiting from this increase in hiring, you will need to be proactive during your job search and find some of these companies on your own.
If you are willing to put in the extra effort, the rewards can be great. The other big advantage to finding companies on your own (not through job boards or recruiters) is that you typically will not be competing with tons of other job seekers for these positions. Since most people know how to find the big companies in their respective “markets”, I am going to focus on helping you find early stage companies, the ones you probably have not heard of. Three great ways to locate these companies:

1. Try visiting the sites of the top 5 VC’s in the US. Once on the sites you can look through hundreds of the companies they represent. Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Matrix Partners, Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins.
2. Another excellent list of startups to watch can be found on the Information Week site. They list their top 50 startups to watch. http://www.informationweek.com/news/services/saas/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PMMC1PUSZQ1IMQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=216600068#
3. Not only are cloud computing companies getting alot of buzz, they are doing a ton of hiring. This article talks about the companies to watch. http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/12297_3835941_2/85-Cloud-Computing-Vendors-Shaping-the-Emerging-Cloud.htm

Once you have identified companies to approach, communicate with them using a method we developed . This approach can increase your response rate significantly. Read: “The best ways to approach hiring managers”.