Recruiting is perhaps the most difficult, yet important, challenge facing any new company. It was definitely the thing I underestimated the most as a first time founder. We desperately needed help and Alana came very highly recommended through a trusted advisor. Those looking for a quick “fix” should probably look elsewhere as Alana’s program dives deep and builds a true process from the ground up. It goes without saying that this is hard work and requires real buy-in. For us, Alana’s workshop went way beyond recruiting and was a true turning point for our company. Before you can really be effective at recruiting you have to understand the mission, vision and values of your company, which was something we had struggled to discuss as a team until our weekend with Alana. Once we had a good understanding of who we were and what we wanted, we were able to start learning about the process that would help us attract and close those candidates. Throughout my career i’ve always looked at recruiting from mine and the company’s perspective but never until Alana did I think about things from the candidates perspective. What did they want from a job, what drove them, what made them happy, etc… The cost of one bad hire, culturally and monetarily, could be huge for an early stage company so it’s incredibly important to be confident that the candidate is right for you and that they really want to work for your company. You can’t be sure about the latter if you don’t understand their “drivers”. Additionally, in a competitive hiring market, how professional and enjoyable your recruiting process appears to a candidate can be a huge deciding factor on whether or not they want to work for your company. Why would anyone be excited to work at a company when multiple people came in unprepared and asked the same questions? If you can’t coordinate interviews properly why should anyone believe that you can execute your business efficiently. All in all, these are things I never thought about before Alana but they are clear as day to me now. The truth is, recruiting is really really hard. It’s also the most important part of any business, your company is only as good as the team you build around it, which is why I find it crazy that so many companies “wing it” or look for easy shortcuts instead of rolling up their sleeves, invest in developing a process and do the hard work it requires. If you’re serious about doing it right, then Alana is the perfect person to guide you and your team through the process. I’m positive that by the end of it you’ll look back and be baffled by how you operated before her.