Business starts ups on a candidate’s CV are highly regarded across all industries/geographies and disciplines. The term is fairly self-explanatory but start ups spearheaded by a candidate will see them build up business in a region from a “blank piece of paper”. Their employer will have little if any presence in the region or even industry. Candidate focus is required to build a project that will make progress in capturing market share in a bid to become competitive.
Members of our team have experienced two start-ups (2008 & 2011 Shanghai and Singapore) and spoken with candidates who have shared their start up experience with us in the following areas
Heavy Equipment
Capital Equipment
Management Consultancy – metals and mining
Supply Chain
From our discussions we can summarize the following:
Challenges
Working without a map and outside of the official job title is normal
A hands-on approach is inevitably required
Often offices, legal business formats/licensing, data bases, hiring, branding will need to be built up from scratch
High energy levels and a positive attitude required and at times long hours
There is never a perfect time to commence such a chapter in your career and start ups are for those that can handle a degree of risk
Rewards
Start-ups is a great career investment to put on the CV and a career accelerator for candidates
Provides great stories to tell in future interviews
Enhances your candidate stock as will give you more and more quantitative individual and collective achievements
Leads to bigger platforms including Country Manager and C level roles
Develops more and more candidate transferable skills
Younger candidates with potential and good work ethics often successfully grow into such roles
Other rewards include sense of achievement, steep learning curve as well as climbing up the remuneration ladder.
Several of our Heavy Equipment and supply chain clients are looking for pioneers to start up their businesses in new locations including US, Italy, Singapore, Malaysia and Australia.
Our role is to hold discussions with candidates to see if they are suitable and to assist them with good communication lines with our clients to ensure clear expectations including current status of projects, progress, targets, time frames, where our client is, where they want to be and how and the support the candidate can receive in making this happen.
For a further discussion reach out to Robert - rmaguire@rjm-associates.com
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