- The speaker suggests two ways to compete with big tech companies when hiring someone with competing offers.
- The first way is to emphasize the advantage of speed that startups have in their hiring process compared to the lengthy process of big tech companies.
- The second way is to provide personalized attention and follow-up from multiple team members, showcasing a special culture and making the candidate feel valued.
- The speaker also recommends discussing how big companies often shut down projects, contrasting it with the direct impact and satisfaction of working on projects in a startup.
- In summary, to hire someone with competing offers, startups should prioritize speed, personalized attention, and emphasize the direct impact of their work compared to big tech companies.

Harj Taggar explains how a startup can compete with FAANG Companies when hiring employees. Harj Taggar is a partner at YC and was the CEO and co-founder of Triplebyte, a tech recruiting startup.

I'm a partner at Y Combinator, and I'm going to answer the question of how do

I hire someone who has competing offers from the big tech companies?

There's 2 ways I think you can compete with someone who has an offer from a fan company.

So if you've ever received an offer from Facebook, Apple, or Google, or 1 of these big tech companies, it can take weeks for you to go from having an initial call to scheduling an interview to hearing back on if you got the offer or not, to even getting the offer details, getting a formal offer letter.

This process can actually end up taking longer than a month.

And as a startup, you have the advantage of speed.

And 1 thing I've seen a lot of startups do really well is when they find someone who's really great, they move really quickly.

So at my startup, TripleByte, we would often call the person at the end of the day and let them know straight away we thought they were really awesome and that we would have the offer details over to them ASAP usually by the following morning and we were available to talk through all of those details, answer any questions they have and generally just be moving really quickly.

And that really impresses people because 1 of the big fears of someone who's ambitious and has an offer from joining a big tech company is that things are going to be really slow moving, that there'll be too much bureaucracy to actually get things shipped that they'll feel like a cog in the wheel.

And you can confirm that suspicion by comparing how slowly these big tech companies move to just give them a basic offer with your own blazing fast startup speed at getting them an offer and making them feel loved.

It's really, really low hanging fruit to start competing with the big tech companies.

The second thing is when you're talking through, so career options or convincing someone to join your startup, really give them a lot of individualized personalized attention from multiple members of the team.

Something we would do at Tripwide a lot is I'd ask everyone who had interacted with that candidate during the day, whether it was at lunch, whether they'd interviewed them, to reach out with a personalized follow-up email that included 1 thing they really liked about the person or what interaction they had, telling them they really hope they would join, and being available for calls and answering their questions about the company.

And that's the kind of thing that just doesn't happen when you interview at an Apple or a Google.

And it, again, goes to show that candidate that this is a special culture, that they're going to feel more valued and more like a real member of the team than if they go and join 1 of these giant tech conglomerates.

The next thing I suggest you talk about with them is how often big companies end up shutting down projects that people have worked on for quite a while.

I have multiple friends who ended up joining a big tech company, and they spent a year working really, really hard on a project they were really excited about, only for it to be cancelled at the last minute.

And there's nothing that frustrates good people more than feeling they wasted their time and energies on something.

So make sure you emphasize to this candidate that a startup doesn't have time to work on projects that get shut down.

Like everything they do from day 1 is going to directly impact real users and real customers.

This works really great if you can find someone who's a friend or someone in your network who had this same experience of working at a big company having a project cancelled, and put them on the phone with this person to visually communicate how painful that experience is.

Okay, so to sum up, if you're trying to hire a great person who has competing offers from a fan company, make sure you move really quickly to Give them the offer and answer all their questions so they can see just how much faster a startup moves than a big tech company.

Make sure you follow up with them personally and ask everyone on your team to send them a personalized follow-up email.

And third, emphasize how big companies often shut down projects and have lots of wasted effort which can be really demotivating, whereas startups always work on things that directly impact their users.


Speaker 0: Hey everyone, I'm Harj. I'm a partner at Y Combinator, and I'm going to answer the question of how do

Speaker 1: I hire someone who has competing offers from the big tech companies? There's 2 ways I think you can compete with someone who has an offer from a fan company. And the first is on just process. So if you've ever received an offer from Facebook, Apple, or Google, or 1 of these big tech companies, it can take weeks for you to go from having an initial call to scheduling an interview to hearing back on if you got the offer or not, to even getting the offer details, getting a formal offer letter. This process can actually end up taking longer than a month.

And as a startup, you have the advantage of speed. And 1 thing I've seen a lot of startups do really well is when they find someone who's really great, they move really quickly. So at my startup, TripleByte, we would often call the person at the end of the day and let them know straight away we thought they were really awesome and that we would have the offer details over to them ASAP usually by the following morning and we were available to talk through all of those details, answer any questions they have and generally just be moving really quickly. So that's the first thing. And that really impresses people because 1 of the big fears of someone who's ambitious and has an offer from joining a big tech company is that things are going to be really slow moving, that there'll be too much bureaucracy to actually get things shipped that they'll feel like a cog in the wheel.

And you can confirm that suspicion by comparing how slowly these big tech companies move to just give them a basic offer with your own blazing fast startup speed at getting them an offer and making them feel loved. So that's just the first table stakes. It's really, really low hanging fruit to start competing with the big tech companies. The second thing is when you're talking through, so career options or convincing someone to join your startup, really give them a lot of individualized personalized attention from multiple members of the team. Something we would do at Tripwide a lot is I'd ask everyone who had interacted with that candidate during the day, whether it was at lunch, whether they'd interviewed them, to reach out with a personalized follow-up email that included 1 thing they really liked about the person or what interaction they had, telling them they really hope they would join, and being available for calls and answering their questions about the company.

And that's the kind of thing that just doesn't happen when you interview at an Apple or a Google. And it, again, goes to show that candidate that this is a special culture, that they're going to feel more valued and more like a real member of the team than if they go and join 1 of these giant tech conglomerates. The next thing I suggest you talk about with them is how often big companies end up shutting down projects that people have worked on for quite a while. I have multiple friends who ended up joining a big tech company, and they spent a year working really, really hard on a project they were really excited about, only for it to be cancelled at the last minute. And there's nothing that frustrates good people more than feeling they wasted their time and energies on something.

So make sure you emphasize to this candidate that a startup doesn't have time to work on projects that get shut down. Like everything they do from day 1 is going to directly impact real users and real customers. And that's a really satisfying feeling. This works really great if you can find someone who's a friend or someone in your network who had this same experience of working at a big company having a project cancelled, and put them on the phone with this person to visually communicate how painful that experience is. Okay, so to sum up, if you're trying to hire a great person who has competing offers from a fan company, make sure you move really quickly to Give them the offer and answer all their questions so they can see just how much faster a startup moves than a big tech company.

Make sure you follow up with them personally and ask everyone on your team to send them a personalized follow-up email. And third, emphasize how big companies often shut down projects and have lots of wasted effort which can be really demotivating, whereas startups always work on things that directly impact their users.

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Harj Taggar - How Startups can Compete with FAANG Companies when Hiring Employees