How to Play the Talent Game

These days, companies are more hungry for candidates with wisdom -- with the quiet confidence that they only get if they've been through a war. Companies want people who are "old" before their time. People who are wiser for having been beaten up in previous startups. People with street smarts, those who can turn on a dime when the situations calls for change, who are open-minded enough to listen to someone else's opinion and recognize that opinion as a good idea. Raw energy and blind commitment just don't count for as much as they used to.

There's another attribute that distinguishes people who succeed in the startup environment from those who don't: self-awareness. If you don't understand your strengths and your weaknesses, if you think that you're better than you really are, then you're fried. Working in a startup can be a humbling experience. When you're under fire during every minute of every day, it's awfully hard to hide. Everybody can see what you are and can smell what you're made of. So, if you don't know what you need help with, and you're too cocky to ask someone about what you need help with, you're going to pay a price.

What do you tell people at big, established companies who decide to enter the dotcom fray?

I tell them that I'm sure they're very excited about the Internet and about the technology behind it, as well as about the business culture that goes along with it -- because they certainly wouldn't be dumb enough to make a major career move based on greed. My advice to anyone who wants to join a startup simply to cash in on the gold rush is to open an Ameritrade account instead. Day-trading is the same kind of crapshoot -- without the chaos.

People who want to jump from a 20-year career with an established company to an Internet environment had better ask themselves some tough questions: Do they really want to live a startup life? Do their families know what they're getting into? Are they eager to be in an environment where almost all of the perks they've gotten used to -- doting secretaries, car services -- simply do not exist anymore?

I wouldn't be surprised if we begin to see a talent migration from dotcoms back to big companies -- people who signed up with a startup, didn't make millions, and now see big companies as more stable and more humane environments. Big companies should put scale models of the Statue of Liberty outside their offices: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free." That might be all it takes to win back some of the people those companies lost a few years ago.

Anna Muoio (amuoio@fastcompany.com) is a senior writer for Fast Company. Contact Colleen Aylward by email (colleen@devonjames.com), or visit Devon James Associates Inc. on the Web (www.devonjames.com).

Sidebar: Ten Questions

Colleen Aylward, Web recruiter extraordinaire, has created all kinds of tactics to attract and to evaluate talent. And she's heard just about every interview question ever asked. Here are 10 questions that she believes will always get you the information that you need.

1. Take me through a time when you took a product or a project from start to launch.
2. Describe the way that you work under tight deadlines.
3. Describe how you work under tough managers.
4. What is your definition of working too hard?
5. Persuade me to move to your city.
6. How do you manage stress?
7. What kinds of opportunities have you created for yourself in your current position?
8. In a team environment, are you a motivator, a player, a leader, or an enthusiast?
9. In the past three years, what part of your professional skill set have you improved the most?
10. If you were a new employee, what would you do to gain respect from peers in 30, 60, or 90 days?