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Inside the Rocketship: Talent Brand Tips From Top Startups

Recruiting high-caliber technical talent is a constant challenge. Especially in Silicon Valley, where stealth-mode startups battle alongside well-established, global brands for top engineers.

To find out who’s winning Silicon Valley's battle for the best and brightest engineers, we compiled our second-annual list of the Top 10 InDemand Startups (click here for last year’s list), based on LinkedIn.com activity among 287,000+ Bay Area engineers on LinkedIn.

Today, we're excited to share this year's honorees: (InfoGraphic Below)

Nimble Storage’s Paul Whitney says, “People increasingly choose companies, not jobs. So, create the culture and the company that people will want to join.” That’s easier said than done. So how have this year’s Top 10 honorees built successful talent brands from scratch in just a few years? We reached out to their talent leaders and asked them to give us a peek inside their startup’s mission-control center.

Here’s what they had to say:  

1. Clearly articulate your long-term mission and vision

When everyone across a company shares a clear mission and vision, a company becomes a magnet for the best and brightest. Identify your long-term mission and vision and share it with employees to help them, as Nutanix’s Kevin O’Kane says, “sell the company.” That will help prospects see your vision of the future and get excited about it with you, says Jawbone’s Steven Grant.  

2. Encourage employees to spread the word

Most employees want to talk about their companies. Use that to your advantage! Employee referrals are Nimble Storage’s main source of hire, so Whitney says he, “markets strongly to employees to continue to encourage referrals.” Big Switch Networks’ Ellen Roeckl says, “Most everyone at the company is very experienced in either networking or virtualization, so our own personal networks are invaluable for recruiting.” They’re also invaluable for helping you spread the word about your talent brand.  

3. Showcase your talent brand online

After hearing about your company via your brand ambassadors, prospects are highly likely to do research online. So, no matter how large or small your company is, make sure you have a strong presence online that best showcases your company’s talent brand. Whitney says Nimble Storage is placing greater emphasis behind its social-media strategy and developing rich content -- like pictures, videos and employee testimonials -- to further showcase its story online.

For ideas on how you can use rich content to help tell your company’s story online, check out Nimble Storage’s Company Page -- where it posts photos of its employees, showcasing its culture -- as well as Nutanix’s and Cloudera’s Career Pages, which are chock-full of employee testimonials, videos and photos.

So there you have it. If you’re interested in learning more about how to establish and strengthen your talent brand to attract and hire the best and brightest (regardless of the size of your budget) check out these 10 ways to build your talent brand on LinkedIn. Good news: seven of them are free!