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- #18 JooBee's newsletter
#18 JooBee's newsletter
JooBee Yeow
May 30, 2024
TL;DR
📌 Get to know the other ICP (Ideal Candidate Profile)
🔥 Avoiding the Pokémon trap in hiring
💥 Start-up career hacks with Sami Maiden, Chief of Staff (exclusive content)
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Question: I want everyone to want to work for our start-up and we will do whatever it takes to attract them. How can we achieve that?
Get to know the other ICP (Idea Candidate Profile)
In your business, are you targeting just any customers? No! You're focusing on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) - it’s the strategic focus guiding every decision you make in your business.
🎯 Strategic alignment: Every decision, from brand colours to product features, revolves around our ideal customer. With a clear focus, we cut through the noise, tailor our strategy and put our effort into serving them best.
⌛ Resource optimisation: When we get funding to grow our customer base, the temptation is to throw money at everything. But by targeting our ideal customer, we make the most of our resources - time, energy, and money - maximising impact and minimising waste.
❤️ Customer loyalty: Your ICP isn't just a target market; they're your best customers. By catering to their specific needs, we're not just making sales; we're building relationships, fostering loyalty that keeps them coming back for more and turning customers into advocates.
Saying ‘no’ to customers that do not fit your ideal customer profile is vital at every stage of the business. We encourage our companies to be “uncomfortably narrow” in the customers they choose to sell to and build for. Customers who do not fit, will bend you out of shape and then churn. What a waste.
The hardest part is saying ‘no’
Just as you shouldn't seek to serve every type of customer, you should seek to attract every type of employee.
“Start and scale-ups are unlikely to be for everyone. This is for a variety of reasons; environments are often less structured, sometimes less stable and often have limited resources both in terms of people and money. With limited resources you need to focus on finding resilient candidates who thrive in these environments. Make it clear up front who you are and who you're not, you want candidates to understand from all interactions what business they are joining. In a scaling business you don't have time to fail with too many candidates. So the bottom line is, it's OK to not be for everyone, actually it's better. Make sure your whole organisation understands this.”
“It takes vision and guts to turn someone down and focus on a different segment, on people who might be more difficult to sell at first, but will lead you where you want to go over time,” said Seth Godin.
For long term success, we must get "uncomfortably narrow" with the customers we serve, and we need to apply the same vision and gut when it comes to candidates by having a clear Ideal Candidate Profile.
Avoiding the Pokémon trap in hiring
Let’s imagine Ash from Pokémon, determined to "catch ‘em all." In the realm of talent acquisition, this mindset spells disaster. Here's why:
🎯Generic people strategy
Just as building a product for ‘everyone’ dilutes its effectiveness, so does formulating a talent strategy that tries to appeal to ‘everyone.’ By neglecting to define your Ideal Candidate Profile, you risk attracting individuals who may not align with your company's mission, values or long-term goals.
Example: Crafting our careers page is not just about drawing people in; it's also about helping them to opt-out if it’s not the right fit. While we often focus on what appeals to our Ideal Candidate Profile, it's equally important to share details that let candidates decide if it’s not for them. For instance, if you don't offer remote work, be upfront about it. It helps you focus on finding the best-fit candidates.
⌛Resource drain
Without a clear focus on your ideal candidates, you squander resources on recruiting efforts that yield subpar results. Your hiring process becomes scattergun, consuming time and energy without delivering the desired outcomes.
Example: When your Ideal Candidate Profile is unclear, you might attract a huge number of applications, necessitating significant time to sift through resumes and conduct interviews only to realise that a large portion of candidates are not the right fit. This high volume of applicants coupled with a low conversion rate is an example of the inefficiency and resource drain of not having a clear focus on ideal candidates.
💔High churn rates
When your organisational offering fails to address the core needs of the candidates you hired, dissatisfaction and turnover ensue. Just as your product must solve the biggest pain points of your Ideal Customer Profile to ensure customer retention, your workplace culture and environment must resonate with your ideal candidates to foster employee engagement and longevity.
Example: When your new hires get a firsthand look at what your organisation offers them and if it's not aligned to their needs or you may have hired the wrong fit, this misalignment can result in churn. Research indicates that up to 20% of employees leave within the first 45 days. Just as your product must match your Ideal Customer Profile to keep customers, your workplace has to fit your ideal candidates to retain them.
In essence, just as you wouldn't build a product without a clear understanding of your Ideal Customer Profile, you shouldn't approach hiring without a well-defined Ideal Candidate Profile. In the fast-moving landscape of start-ups, precision, not proliferation, paves the path to success.
 | B.E.S.T. framework for hiring To build an Ideal Candidate Profile, you can begin with the B.E.S.T framework. As start-ups progress across different stages of growth, your Beliefs & values (B) and Traits (T) will likely remain consistent, while Experience (E) and Skills (S) are likely to evolve. |
What do you think❓If your start-up is currently falling into the Pokémon trap of attempting to attract all candidates, what is the biggest impact are you seeing? |
From HR to Chief of Staff: don’t stay in your lane
 | Chief of Staff
|
The mistake I made
When I first started my career, I thought success meant vertical growth on the career ladder (that’s what society drums into us!). So, entering the start-up world, I saw the opportunity to climb the HR career path quickly, my sights set on becoming a Head of People or CPeO. On reflection, this focus meant I’d fallen into the trap of pigeonholing myself in my career before I’d even really started it.
By focusing on climbing the career ladder, I fixated on the skills I thought I needed to get my foot on the next rung, rather than ones I was good at or even enjoyed. HR partnering and employee relations, in particular, drained me and didn’t align with my strengths or passions. But I convinced myself it was necessary to add more ‘HR experience’ for top roles - as if there were no other viable options to explore in start-ups!
The one thing I wish I knew to avoid that mistake
Looking back on my career journey, I wish I had known the value of not limiting myself. Along the way, people suggested various roles where they saw potential for me to thrive - from product management to delivery management to community management, and more. But I was adamant about staying focused (blinkers on people, people, people people!) - I worried that diversifying might muddy my CV or slow down my progress.
But I should've ditched the tunnel vision and embraced the wide development opportunities uniquely available in start-ups. It hit me when I began exploring different roles and found my skills were easily transferable across domains. I realised, in start-ups, driving the business forward matters more than titles. Rather than clinging to a predetermined path, I should have pursued what truly sparked my passion while having a tangible impact.
One tip to hack your career in start-ups
When it comes to navigating a career in start-ups, my number one piece of advice is: don’t stay in a narrow lane! The beauty of a start-up is the opportunity to gather a wide range of skills and experiences that light you up. And because it lights you up, it enables you to have a more significant impact (we’re more likely to deliver great work when we’re passionate about it!) - which in turn will accelerate your growth as you learn different ways or stretch different muscles.
That's what ultimately landed me in the Chief of Staff role: a varied role by nature where I can be parachuted in to solve any problem on any given day. I don't know what the next step is, and honestly, I find that incredibly liberating. I could explore a thousand different pathways and switch directions as I see fit, all while focusing on what’s going to have the biggest impact on the company, product and people around me. It's truly exciting when you break free from the traditional constraints of the corporate ladder.
