Is Hiring The New Status Symbol?

There is a decent chance that you've seen friends and connections sharing "the exciting news" that because of "how fast things are moving" they and their team "are proud to announce, We're Hiring!" (Yes, StockUp is hiring also) In the past two months, I have seen more "We're Hiring" posts than ever before and I spent some time digging into it last night on the train. There are three possible motivations behind these posts:

1) You're signaling that you're now in a position to make a hiring decision for your company.  Mommy wow, we're all big kids now.

2) You're reminding anyone reading that your company is in fact growing and moving forward. Any company that isn't currently hiring likely won't be in business a year from now.

3) You've joined the ranks of people baffled by the seeming contradiction in headlines of "Over 40% of Millennials and unemployed or underemployed" and "Companies of All Sizes Struggle to Retain Top Talent." (In a survey of top CEOs by INC Magazine last month, over 50% said that their biggest challenge right now is attracting and retaining a skilled employees.)

And that last one is the one that keeps sticking out to me.  When I look at the current head count of our team at StockUp, and where I expect us to be, both with our developer/design team and our sales/marketing team, in the next six months, I am a little bit overwhelmed. Sure, there is a lot of work that goes into finding, hiring, and onboarding any new hires, but it is much more than that.  Each one of the people that, for whatever reason, say "yes, I want to be a part of what you are building" are also saying "I trust you enough and believe in this company enough to say 'no' to everything else and chase down this big idea together." And when you're a part of a young growing company, that takes a lot more trust than when you're a well established company.

Simon Sinek, in the now most over quoted TED Talk in the history of TED Talks, says that you're not "looking for people who need a job, you're looking for people that believe what you believe."  That is our challenge, as those looking to attract and retain amazing people, drill down to the core of what we believe and be able to make a case for why saying 'yes' to our opportunity is worth the cost of saying 'no' to all other options that are out there.

So maybe, instead of "We're Hiring" the announcement should be "Open seat on a rocket ship, You're invited."