Do you celebrate International Women’s Day? If you do, I wish you a Happy International Women’s Day.
Personally, I think every day is a good day to celebrate the women in our lives and the women in tech. So today’s episode is meant to celebrate yet another female role model for women in tech: Alexa Lane.
Join us on episode 45 as we travel the world of recruiting for tech startups and discover:
- Why she moved from doing sales in Silicon Valley to recruiting in Silicon Alley🗽
- How her mentors at SuccessFactors and Optimizely helped her build her career in tech 🚀
- How to build a recruiting playbook for your tech startup from scratch🌱
When you’re ready to dive in, tune in to the episode below.
Episode 45: How To Create a Recruiting Playbook For a Tech Startup From Scratch | Alexa Lane on Women Disrupting Tech – Women Disrupting Tech
About Alexa Lane
Alexa Lane is the Head of Recruitment at Placements.io. As the daughter of a father who is a radio host and author and a mother who is a food and drug lawyer, she is not your typical tech prodigy.
Yet, one thing was pretty clear early on: Alexa Lane loved tech and the fast-paced tech ecosystem.
She’s spent almost all of her working life in tech, working at startups like Yelp, Optimizely, and Pendo before moving to Placements.io. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
About Placements.io
Placements.io is an AdTech startup with offices in New York, Denver, Seattle, London, Taipei, and Singapore.
It helps companies like Apple, Microsoft, and SalesForce manage all their online advertising in one place.
You can learn more about the company and any career opportunities they may have by visiting their website, careers page, or Glassdoor page and by following them on LinkedIn.
The Magic You Can Expect in this Episode 🪄
How do you do recruitment for a tech startup? After all, you have no large budget to work with. Nor a reputation that attracts talent on autopilot.
As with many things in the startup world, and in fact in life, having a plan is a great start. For recruiting, this means creating a recruiting playbook.
So, in this episode, Alexa Lane helps us create a recruiting playbook. Alexa is our guide on this startup recruitment adventure as we uncover:
- Which skills new employees need to have to thrive in a fast-paced startup environment 🌱
- Why you should not rely on referrals if you want to build a diverse employee base 🌈
- How to balance an attractive base salary with enticing perks like hybrid work, healthcare, and equity. 💰
Plus, you’ll discover the pivotal role of mentors in shaping Alexa’s tech journey and how being a recruiter helps her as a working mom in tech.
When you’re ready to dive in, tune in to the episode by clicking the button below.
What makes this episode magical🌟?
Alexa’s mentors played a crucial role in shaping her career and helping her become the successful tech professional she is today. In fact, thanks to them, she can’t imagine doing anything outside of tech at this point in her career.
So, did her mentors help? Alexa shares that her first mentor, a manager at SuccessFactors, pushed her out of her comfort zone and persuaded her to move to New York. Mind you, she was working in the center of the tech startup world: Silicon Valley.
Her mentor at Optimizely taught her to negotiate well, both for herself and for her employers. As we’ve heard before, negotiating is a skill that is particularly valuable for women who want to grow in their careers.
When Alexa made the move from Silicon Valley to Silicon Alley, as the New York Startup Ecosystem is called, little did she know that it would also lead to a romantic encounter. It was there that she met her future husband.
Now, as a working mom in the tech industry, Alexa faces the challenge of balancing her career with parenting. She refers to this juggling act as “Scheduling Tetris.”
Are you ready to listen to Alexa’s story?
What’s coming up?
On International Women’s Day, I’ll interview Arosha Brouwer to learn about Quan’s journey after she was my guest on episode 3. The episode will air on 15 March, and you do not want to miss it.
In the last two weeks of March, we have an AI doubleheader. First, a female professor of artificial intelligence will decode the road to AI for women. Then, I’ll interview a female AI marketer to discover how we can use AI in marketing beyond the obvious ChatGPT.
So stay tuned for some great episodes!
Did you know…
… that you can discover more incredible stories and learn from trailblazing women on Spotify, Google, Apple, or Goodpods. There, you can find the entire inspiring archive of episodes with over 1,000 minutes of Women Disrupting Tech content I have published since September 2022.
Feedback? Let me know!
When you’ve finished listening to this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this episode.
I’d especially like to know if I should include my guest’s bio or if you’re OK with being sent to the blog for more info.
So please do not hesitate to contact me via LinkedIn or email if you have any positive or negative feedback or if you would like to suggest a guest that I absolutely must have on the podcast.
Do You Want to Be a Male Ally
How do you get started with diversity, equity, and inclusion in tech when you’re a man?
Let me give you a few suggestions, courtesy of ChatGPT:
📚 Educate yourself about the topic.
👂🏻 Listen to underrepresented people and amplify their voices.
💪🏼 Support inclusive practices like fair compensation.
🫱🏼🫲🏾 Collaborate with DEI organizations and advocate for DEI within your company.
By listening, you’re already ticking two of these boxes. And maybe you’re ready to do more.
My own journey to being a male ally
About 18 months ago, I was in your shoes. So, I started a podcast to interview women working in tech. I wanted to learn why there are so few of them. This podcast is called Women Disrupting Tech.
Since I started, I’ve interviewed 44 women about topics ranging from founding a startup to managing intellectual property. My goal is to provide them with a platform so they can inspire other women to consider an education or a job in tech.
But my goal for 2024 is to have more men join the conversation as guests and members of the Women Disrupting Tech Community.
Why you want to join?
As a member, you’ll receive a free email every Friday. By reading it, you’ll learn something new about diversity in tech. Like how we can prevent the gender pay gap. Or how to start with DEI in a startup. The women I interview inspire you with their stories, help you understand their points of view, and advocate for them. Of course, I include links to the most recent podcast episode and the show notes for further reading and education.
So, it is an excellent way to start educating yourself. But reading the newsletter and listening to the podcast also ticks other boxes on the list. By sharing the articles, you can amplify their voices to other people in your network. With the wisdom these women share, you can support inclusive practices in your company.
Ultimately, that’s good for business and gets you karma points. All of that for free.
Are you ready to join?
When you’re ready to join the Women Disrupting Tech Community, enter your best email address below.
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