Getting There First and Fast
By Laura Ianuly
Founder and CEO, Ianuly Talent Accelerators
There is no shortage of good ideas in the world, but there is a shortage of people who can actually translate those ideas into reality. That’s why virtually every disruptive start-up shares a common challenge – recruiting enough talented people, fast enough, to achieve its vision before a competitor gets there first. And in the 5G arena, this competition is especially fierce.
Given this challenge, Ianuly Talent Accelerators is excited to be partnering with 5G Open Innovation Lab as it develops a unique ecosystem of developers, start-ups, carriers and other innovators who are pioneering the frontiers of 5G and edge computing. Since these fields are relatively new and evolving fast, recruiting great candidates means finding people not just with specific technical skills, but also more intangible qualities – innate curiosity, a collaborative instinct, comfort with ambiguity, and a capacity to adapt in times of rapid change.
I learned to identify such qualities early in my career as a recruiter, when I joined a small start-up as its first head of HR. My own job interview had taken place in the back of a car in bumper-to-bumper traffic, as the start-up’s CEO grilled me on his way to catch a flight at JFK, and I grilled him. I had never heard of his company, and it truly was an interview.
Two days later, I signed on, and helped grow DoubleClick from 87 employees in one office to 1,500 in 18 countries around the world – growth that eventually led to its purchase by Google for $3.7 billion. Since that time, I have applied that same recruiting expertise to build my own recruiting company, and to help more than 100 start-ups build great teams in Cloud Computing, E-Commerce, MarTech, AdTech, HealthTech, FinTech, InsurTech, CleanTech and Digital Media.
5G Open Innovation Lab’s experienced leadership, its drive to create a holistic ecosystem, and the way it promotes the cross-fertilization of ideas and solutions make it an especially attractive partner for Ianuly Talent Accelerators. We’re also a great fit, because our team specializes in researching and identifying people, skills and companies that may at first seem tangential to an emerging technology, but are in fact extremely relevant or even congruent to solving related challenges.
For my team of recruiters, working with the 5G Open Innovation Lab is a great opportunity to help people who are really great at what they do engage like minds to achieve even more, together. And because we build long-term relationships with people and companies alike, we are well positioned to help talented candidates build their careers over time, especially as the 5G ecosystem grows and evolves.
Like the start-ups we help, we aim for speed, simplicity, scalability and impact in our approach to recruiting. Unlike traditional approaches – search and contingency – our model attacks open positions with an entire team, yet offers clients both a single point of contact and a customized dashboard to track progress. Critically, we’re not just filling positions, we’re aligning our recruiting strategy with each start-up’s own business plan.
This strategic, systematic approach to building teams drives us to seek candidates who bring the relevant qualifications and the right chemistry. Because in start-ups, where one wrong hire can become a major setback, finding candidates who are a great cultural fit is especially important. Personally, this is what makes me good at what I do – I love the hunt, especially in challenging terrain.
Some years ago, VC Andy Rachleff noted that “when a great team meets a great market, something special happens.” In coming years, the 5G market is going to be transformative, but only those start-ups with great teams are going to thrive. Let’s get there first and fast, together.
