The Recruiting Support Marathon

It’s Patriots’ Day in Boston, which means that thousands of people are making their way from Hopkinton to Copley Square while participating in the Boston Marathon. While I was a student at Boston College, we spent the entire day cheering on runners towards the top of Heartbreak Hill, which is one of the most grueling parts of the race (or so I hear).

OpenView is a Boston Venture Capital firm, and although we have a regular workday today, I was thinking about the type of attitude and training involved in a marathon. The saying is cliche, but when it comes to recruiting for expansion stage companies and top venture capital firms, it’s true; “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.”

When I ask a hiring manager or CEO when the “ideal start date” would be for a particular position I am recruiting for, the answer is usually, “as soon as possible.” Based on this answer, it may seem like whoever is providing recruiting support for your company may be in a sprint. But in reality, you must always be recruiting– whether it is by branding your company through marketing to make sure that talented professionals in your industry are aware of your company, or by getting involved with local colleges so that you have a pool of candidates for future entry-level positions.

Recruiting also does not end when a candidate has accepted an offer, or even when a candidate has had his/her first week of work.When a salesperson begins working for one of OpenView‘s portfolio companies, they often work with Brian Zimmerman and Devon Warwick at OpenView Labs, who focus on sales support for our portfolio companies, and help to train sales professionals (in particular, lead qualifiers) on best practices. While recruiting often seems like a sprint, it requires constant inertia in order to be successful.