3 unconventional ways Curalate found potential employees

Hiring ain’t easy.

Curalate CEO Apu Gupta has said that he needs to hire in order for his company to grow but that there seems to be a shortage of qualified staffers in Philly. So what’s a startup to do?

Curalate found Penn grad Chris Cruz through Venture for America.

Here are three ways that Curalate has recently found potential employees:

• Venture for America: Curalate is the first Philly startup to hire a fellow from the recently-expanded program that connects recent graduates with tech startups. It hired Chris Cruz, a Penn grad, as its Business Operations Manager. He’ll start in August.
• An investor nod: Last month, LaSalle graduate Alyssa Dingwall wrote a guest post on Technically Philly about how she couldn’t find a job that would keep her in Philadelphia. Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, a Curalate investor, read the story and offered to meet with and help Dingwall. He connected her with Curalate, and the startup offered her a one-month trial as a market developer (meaning Curalate management will decide in one month if she’ll become a permanent employee).
• Social media courting: Ryan Werner, also a LaSalle grad, took to social media. The former Hibu social media manager said he noticed that the Curalate job listing was playful and social media-focused, so he made a Ryan Gosling meme and his own “Hire me” hashtag. Curalate offered Werner a similar one-month trial as a market developer, where Werner will hunt down client leads.

And if you’re wondering how to get Curalate’s attention, here’s Gupta on that topic:

We like people who know how to balance unconventional with tact. In other words, don’t stalk us in a clown suit. Oh and we screen for people who love animated GIFs.

It’s worth noting that of these three hires, of a team that is still less than 20 people, none of them are in the engineering and IT space that is typically seen as most challenge to hire and retain. In past conversations, Gupta has said he needed to hire sales and marketing talent in addition to developers, but with the regional degree mismatch being what it is, for IT talent, it seems still the hunting is on the company, not the employee.