Recap: CEO Peer-to-Peer Lunch about Human Capital

One of the most common reasons for startups not to make it, is not finding the right people to work with. That is why last Thursday, October 3, 2024, Rotterdam Square invited Leon Commissaris, Managing Director at SPRING SEARCH International, to host a peer-to-peer lunch for CEO’s from the Rotterdam Life Sciences & Health network at Little C, all about human capital and how to find the right people to work for your company.

During the session, Leon interactively discussed four steps with the CEO’s to set up the recruitment process:

• Firstly, the job description – build the job description around the mission of the position, the outcomes you want to achieve with the position, the competences that are needed to do that, and the culture of the company and how the potential candidate would fit in that culture.
• The second step is to find the right people to interview. Build a talent pipeline: look for people in your personal or professional network and get referrals. You could also hire a recruiter to support you in this process. More is needed than ‘just’ a LinkedIn ad!
• When you have your candidates, you start the interview process. Limit ‘doing things by feeling’, but instead, Leon recommended to follow four structural steps: a 30 minute screening interview, the live in depth interview, the cultural fit interview, and the reference interview with the candidate’s former manager(s).
• And lastly, when you find the right candidates you would like to work with, how are you going to sell the position to them? You need to convince them to want to join your company by using the company’s selling points. You can set these up via for example the ‘Four F’s’: Fit, Freedom, Fortune, and Fun.

The session was very interactive, and provided the CEO’s a handout to set up their hiring processes structurally, hopefully contributing to solving the human capital challenges they are facing. The session also gave the CEO’s the opportunity to connect with and learn from each other.

The bottom line, according to Leon, is that companies need to put people first. Finding the right people has to be a top priority and an active process, specifically for startups. If you would like to know more about this topic, connect with Leon Commissaris on LinkedIn and visit the SPRING SEARCH International website.

Date: October 7, 2024