Why Us?
“Bay Area Caliber or Better People” on the East Coast (and the West Coast)
Since staffmagnet’s humble beginning as a shared recruiter service for Washington, DC area startup companies that specialized in helping startups to identify, attract and hire elite Ruby on Rails programmers to their teams our specialty has been team building. People often confuse the role of a recruiter with what we do because the end result is someone being added to a team, however, that is about as similar as it gets. Staffing agencies specialize in transactional recruiting that involves finding someone and placing them in a job at a company. staffmagnet specializes in team building which begins with developing the client partner’s team building strategy at the organization’s executive and management levels. We address the team’s organizational objectives before staffing strategy is even considered. For example, one client’s core objective may be to build a team with “Bay Area Caliber or Better People” who will never interact with a client while another team’s objective may be to build a team with heavy client facing experience. While these may seem like subtle differences, there are a wide variety of considerations ranging from team culture to non-monetary compensation to be considered (e.g. support of conference participation, types of laptops issued, office amenities). In many cases, our clients would like to hire the best and brightest but they need some help developing an interview process that differentiates the people who look great on paper, but who do not exactly rate an A+ as a coder, online marketer, or in whatever their role happens to be. We also work closely with our client partners to develop and successfully execute team building activities. For some client partners this means college recruiting. For other client partners this means community engagement. For others this means straight up recruiting the right people consistently. The bottom line is that we partner with clients and deliver superior individual and team results.
“It isn’t the cost, it is the time lost.”
While our methods are innovative, effective, and market tested, it is also important to point out that superior results are driven by superior people. Our team members are active participants in the community that we serve. Going to an occasional event is not enough. To get familiar with Ruby on Rails by reading up on it online is not enough. Our recruiting team is hand picked because of their people skills and because of their contextual aptitude. If a candidate gets a call from one of our team members about a Ruby on Rails job you can bet that they know what they are talking about from the start. We know our community and spend the time required to become familiar with the many facets of it. Try asking a staffing agency recruiter how to interview a Ruby on Rails programmer. Better yet, try asking a staffing agency recruiter to tell you what the difference between Rails and Django or Zend or Spring is. Our team has been regularly attending Ruby on Rails user group meetings since around 2006. We will not waste your time with keyword bing, though we might play it at a conference or user group event if invited to do so. The problem with staffing agencies is that they don’t invest their time getting familiar with your community, your context, your company and that is a big problem for your team. “It isn’t the cost, it is the time lost.” Taking a call, having a lunch, swapping emails, and interviewing people who are not a good fit for your organization or the role all cost your team members and management valuable time that is better used building your product and taking it to market. We firmly believe that our success is tied directly to your success. We put the time in to save you time when you call us for help.
“Geeks Like Us”
Our founder’s first computer was an Atari 600 with a cassette tape drive that he used to program games back in 1982. Members of our team enjoy playing computer games, are Ruby on Rails programmers (and Hackers too), and have even presented at SXSW (South By Southwest). We attend BarCamps, co-organized Facebook Developer Garage (our founder is in the official Facebook Developer Garage Video) when it came to Washington, DC, catch up at Refresh DC and Refresh Baltimore, and frequently stay late at DCRUG. In addition to our regular event attendance, we host the well known Social Matchbox Startup Launch Series and have received coverage in the Washington Post alongside the region’s leading investors and entrepreneurs for our contributions to the Washington, DC Startup Community and the greater DC Tech Scene. We are often characterized by members of the community as “Geeks Like Us”.
Actual Specialties
We help web and software product companies and teams. If it is in the space we can help regardless of whether the need is for a CTO, product manager, software engineering manager, software engineer, web designer, tester, online marketer, VP of Marketing, VP of Sales, sales representative, or college recruits for entry level jobs or internships.
We spend more time recruiting web developers and software engineers than on anything else. This usually means Ruby on Rails, Java, Python, PHP, and ActionScript/Flex programmers. Lately we have had a lot of requests for Objective C and iPad Developers. From 2009-2010 more than 75% of our recruiting efforts inovlved these types of searches. We have also spent a considerable amount of time recruiting Account Managers, Automated Testers, CTO’s, DBA’s, Directors of Engineering, Email Marketers, Graphic Designers, Marketing Managers, Performance Architects, Product Managers, Systems Administrators, Testers, Web Designers, and Web Strategists.
We’ll consider making an exception, but there has to be a really good reason. A few years ago we got a call from a Presidential campaign asking for help rapidly building a team of elite volunteers from around the country. We took that call. We are always wiling to consider working outside of our niche so if you are not sure ask. Our email address is info@staffmagnet.com.
One of the most important considerations for working with the staffmagnet team is Quality. There are staffing agencies out there who tell you that that they recruit “good people”. We strive to find exceptional people for every client, every time. This means we work harder, smarter and more comprehensively to deliver smart results.