Why this CEO wants job applicants to text him (before they even land an interview)
In Silicon Valley, the hiring crunch is very real. Getting technology talent to heed your job listing when opportunities abound is beyond challenging. With this in mind, Crunchbase's Jager McConnell is stepping up his hiring game: He just posted his cellphone online.
The CEO of the San Francisco-based business information aggregator, included his number in a recent press release. He wants every job applicant to text him directly--even before landing an interview.
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In addition to capturing the attention of elusive technologists, McConnell believes the move will help his company overcome unconscious bias involved in the traditional hiring process. He also hopes to promote diversity among his staff. So far, the company says that 49 percent of its team is non-white and 43 percent are women.
"Something that happens as a company grows is that the unrepresented folks have trouble even getting to the recruiting process," says McConnell. "They have trouble getting noticed or there might be unintentional bias where the name may imply a gender or race and you might discover someone doesn't get considered but they should be."
Crunchbase is an online information database that lists investments, news and key executives from a myriad of businesses. According to the company, it has 27 million active users a year.
It has been less than two years since McConnell joined the ranks, right after Crunchbase spun out of AOL in 2015 (it had been acquired alongside news site TechCrunch in 2010.) Under his leadership, Crunchbase has doubled its size from a 20 to 40, and McConnell intends to double that number again by the end of the year.
Its recent $18 million funding round should help. "We're scaling the team to match a product that is scaling just as quickly, if not more so," says McConnell.
Crunchbase also announced a new premium service called Crunchbase Enterprise intended to help businesses identify trends and "key buy signals in the market" to highlight acquisition opportunities, among other things.
McConnell envisions Crunchbase as the 'master record' for business information. According to the company, its dataset receives more than five million annual updates, split equally between community updates, automated web-crawlers and internal team research and analysis.
He also revealed that Crunchbase is working on a new and free product called Marketplace. The service intends to partner with other online information platforms like Glassdoor and give a more holistic view of a company or industry. It is expected to be available sometime this year.
In the meantime, Crunchbase has about 12 open positions. If you're interested in applying or reaching out to learn more, don't forget to text McConnell. His number is 415-881-8828.
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