We all wish we’d worked for Facebook or Google or Intuit or HP before they went public.  We’d all be retired by now, or close, or funding our own new ventures.  But as some smart jerk says, hindsight is 20-20.  How can we identify start-ups that are taking off before they’re saturated with interested candidates and investors? I ask three big questions of any potential client before deciding to bring them on and inform my network about them.

1. What are you selling? …

Folks who are successful in their current roles (read: busy) do not have the time to spend hours updating their resume.  And why would they?  Assuming they are worth hiring, their company history and tenure speak for themselves.  They aren’t in dire need of a new job, and they’re busy doing whatever they do well.  They may even be interviewing based off their personal networks and the attractiveness of their LinkedIn profiles.   

When I have a new client and they’re hot to…