Today, we had the opportunity to chat with Liana Gavrilkina from Clearbanc. Clearbanc offers fast, affordable growth capital to eCommerce and B2B/SaaS companies. The investments range from $10K – $10M. Tune into our chat as we learn about what’s it like to work at Clearbanc:
Thanks so much for joining us today. What does Clearbanc do and how it got started?
Clearbanc provides entrepreneurs with the fastest and most affordable growth capital without taking any equity. How we got started is with our two amazing co-founders, Michelle and Andrew and I would encourage everybody to look up the story because no one can tell it as captivating as they can and how they came from such different backgrounds and how they struggled with the same problem. There has to be a better way of finding entrepreneurs without taking any equity.
What gets the call on the resume? What elements do you look for in an application or resume?
A little unknown fact about our recruitment team is that for entry level roles, we actually call every single resume. Because we don’t believe in judging somebody that’s right out of school looking for an opportunity by piece of paper. So we would call, we would make 300 calls if we got the 300 resumes. So our positions like BD, we try and talk to every single person and see what got them to apply. And if there is a really good fit here, for more senior positions, we try to call as many people as we can. But we do keep in mind the more detailed resume so because there’s so many different organizations with the same titles. A lot of times it’s really, really hard to understand what an Account Executive did in one company versus another company, and what that really means, especially with rules like Account Management, and even Product Management, it is so different and so vague. So try to give us details about what project you worked on. What How do you do work on with your team, what size was your team to get us a better idea of where you fit in the organization. Because a lot of times I will be looking at a resume for one role. Actually, this happened so many times. The most recent is with Jennifer, who was applying for a campus recruiter role. And after having chatted with her more and understanding her background, we actually hired her as a sales enablement associate and she’s crushing it. And she loves it. So give us detail.
You mentioned a story about standing out in the application. Can you elaborate on that?
One of my first hires for Clearbanc, actually was Kieran, who had a line or something about being a sales and pizza enthusiast. And I remember like, after going through so many resumes and doing so many calls and coming across this and made me laugh, and I was so excited, and I got my second wind of energy, and I was like, can’t wait to call him and he did great. And he was, he was, he tailored his resume to Clearbanc and he had a little bit of snippet of how excited he was going to sales. And now he’s on a sales team and he’s doing great.
What do you look for besides resume before calling for an interview? (Github, Online website, Side-projects, and Linkedin)
The truth is we know how hard applicants work on their applications. So we try to look at everything. And we try to go into the background, we like to gather some knowledge before we give you a call, because we want to know, we want to have more meaningful conversations with you.The more you know about us and the more we know about you, the more meaningful the conversation can be when we come together. So whatever you submit, and whatever is public, we try to take a look at it and get to know you.
I get the call on the resume and coming in for an in person interview. What happens next?
You can expect to meet a lot of people and a lot of people to ask you, if you want coffee or water, if you have about four or five people pass you by and ask, that’s one of the most common comments that I get from all candidates. And and after you get through the interviews with the recruitment team, which you have a really, really great bond with. And rapport, because you get to know each other so deeply, and you meet a lot of the teams. So you’ll meet at least four people that you will be working with, you would also meet somebody that you would be reporting to, and maybe the head of the department of the VP of the department, it might not be all in the same day might be over phases, or it might be in the same day, depending on how how quickly our recruitment process is moving for that position. But we want to make sure that you know what kind of environment that you will be in if you accept this position, and we want you to be sure that you can thrive in this environment that’s motivating for you because just as we’re getting to know if this is going to be a good fit for you, you’re getting to know we’re going to be a good fit for you, which is so important.
Have so many conversations with candidates about how they had a position before where they weren’t as happy or as motivated, and it changes your personality and it doesn’t make you feel good coming to work. You’re not energized were like, at Clearbanc if you talk to anyone, everyone’s so excited to come in. We have great leadership, but we also have a lot of the team that’s just super passionate about exactly what they’re working on.
What roles are you currently hiring for?
We’re actually looking to hire across the organization. We have an open role in almost everything. department and our growth is going to keep going into 2020 and past 2020. I really encourage everybody to take a look, see what they’re aligned with. Another thing if you want to get to know a little bit more about an exact role that you’re interested in, we have a lot of videos for job descriptions, our wonderful social media guru Lisha, she does a lot of fireside chats with different people in the organization to get to know what they do and and how they do it. So that might give you a little bit of insight how you’ll be working with them or what you’ll be doing in a position that’s similar. Definitely, I think I want to leave you with a lot of research to do if you’re interested in in Clearbanc, because things that you’ll find this. It’s more captivating if you take a look at it.
What piece of advice do you have for applicants that are looking for a new opportunity?
I think that a very general conversation that I have with a lot of my friends, a lot of a lot of candidates is to we were told in school to write a very generic resume that had an objective, help the organization with my skill sets to achieve revenue goals. And it’s like, that’s wrong advice and like applied to 100 organizations, and you’ll get like two callbacks. And you know, and from those two callbacks, you’re guaranteed at least one interview, and it’s all a numbers game. And what I want to say is like, it’s not, don’t do that.
One of the things that best thing for yourself to do is see what you’re interested in because you’re going to be talking about the company that you work for at work outside of work. I talked to people on public transit, somebody that met at a hair salon. And it because you’re always it’s always in the back of your mind. Work is such a big part of what we do. So think about something that you enjoy talking about. And after you’ve identified that pick five of the most interesting companies with the best aligned missions to what your values are. And then get to know the company, get to know where your skill sets is at and look at the job descriptions, see where your qualifications align with, and then go in for an application and be very specific about what you want. Because the best way to be the most happiest at work and to be the most productive and engaged is to love what you’re doing. And even if something is really hard, it’s really challenging, as opposed to being stressed.
About the Author
Eric is founder of FoundersBeta with a wealth of expertise in startups, building high-performing teams, and product development. He is a top ranked tennis player and always up for a conversation about startups. Connect with Eric here.