Specialization in recruiting with Nicholas Strange of Crypto Talent

Maren Kate
Today, my guest is Nicholas Strange, who is the founder and CEO at Crypto Talent a recruiting an HR consultancy agency that works specifically with Web3 companies. And prior to founding Crypto Talent, Nicholas worked at Randstad, one of the world's largest HR services firm, specifically supporting the recruiting needs at Microsoft. So excited to chat about all things talent, especially in the crypto and blockchain space. Welcome to the show, Nicholas.

Nicholas Strange
Thank you so much, Maren. I'm excited to be here and stoked to have this conversation.

Maren Kate
Awesome. So how did you originally land in talent?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, so it's kind of a long story. I think it's probably safe to go back all the way to college. In my undergrad, I was taking a few of the beginning classes, kind of, the general ed courses and things like that, and really became obsessed with psychology and just became a psychology nerd. So I ended up majoring in psychology and, as I was going throughout my degree, I was looking for different opportunities that I could apply my degree. At first, I thought maybe I would go get my doctorate and become a psychiatrist but school and I just didn't necessarily jam that well and I was kind of concerned about how much debt I would put myself into if I got my doctorate. So I actually, oddly enough, got reached out to on LinkedIn by a recruiter that hit me up about staffing and recruiting and I had never heard anything about it. My parents probably still don't know exactly what I do. Like having a conversation with them they're like, I still don't know, I think you like find people work. Yeah, kind of, I guess that's what you could say. So I started as a technical recruiter for a small startup in the Seattle area supporting the needs of all the tech companies that are in the greater Seattle area. And I quickly moved up from there into like business development, doing kind of full desk and getting the needs from our clients, as well as recruiting on those opportunities. And throughout my time there at that startup was really fortunate to be one of the first few members who started on that team. We grew quite rapidly throughout the big boom out there in 2019 of tech in Seattle. And then, of course, COVID happened and things went crashing down. I was fortunate enough to have just broken into the Microsoft account with a focus on gaming, which saw a huge increase, huge uptick, in revenue despite the pandemic. So I worked there, I'm supporting the needs of the Microsoft account to that startup, and then actually got recruited out of there to go join Randstad, which I was brought on to be a Strategic Account Manager helping support the needs of line-level managers all the way up to CVP levels over at Microsoft for all things talent acquisition, whether it would be hiring best practices, manage consulting, recruiting efforts, etc. That was my journey into it. I know, I remember I had given a speech to a class, my practicum class in psychology, where I was, like, “I'm going into tech recruiting”, and I was the only person in my class of like 400 people that was doing that and I was kind of an oddball.

Maren Kate
It sounds like you were lucky enough to keep your job in recruiting throughout the worst parts of the pandemic, which I feel like a lot of people didn't have that experience, so that sounds like that was fortunate. What made you decide to start your own thing and to take that plunge?

Nicholas Strange
So I became an investor and, again, like down the rabbit hole into blockchain technology and when I was early working at Microsoft, Microsoft was actually kind of doing some stealth mode stuff back in the day before it kind of hit mainstream in 2018/2019 era. So I became privy to the technology and what was happening and where the direction and how all of the thoughtful technology leaders at Microsoft were thinking that this technology was going to go. So I became a personal investor at first and started following a bunch of…

Maren Kate
Specifically in crypto?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, yeah

Maren Kate
What were the first things that you started investing in?

Nicholas Strange
Bitcoin. Bitcoin and Etherium were the two ones.

Maren Kate
What was it at when you started investing?

Nicholas Strange
4000

Maren Kate
Which is less than it is now, right?

Nicholas Strange
No, it's 30,000 right now. So yeah, had a huge uptick at 60,000. It's down 50% from its all-time high, which is kind of unfortunate.

Maren Kate
But it's more than what you bought it for so whatever.

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, that's right. At the beginning of the pandemic, Bitcoin crashed a little bit and I got in around the 4500/4000 mark. That’s when I first started investing.

Maren Kate
Okay, so you got interested in the space and then how did you decide to create Crypto Talent? What was the process like? What was the gap you saw in the market?

Nicholas Strange
I always saw a specialization, from an agency side of things and staffing recruiting, as a big upside to any organization that was supporting the needs. Like if you have an organization that's just supporting the full desk of technology, it's really hard to recruit effectively. So back in the day, when I was working in traditional Web2 companies, I saw specializing in gaming technology as a big need as all the clients I was speaking to, like, people just don't understand the lingo. They don't understand the different engines and how to recruit effectively here. So I positioned myself in a market before everything crashed and gaming took off, to be specialized in that space. So that's why I saw a lot of business coming through that space. And similar things happened to me within the crypto market. I was looking at, I think, the Chief Executive Officer of a Binance, Changpeng Zhao, had a tweet that really resonated with me. He was saying, we are hiring aggressively, we're going to be hiring X amount of people to cope with our growth. And I think that word cope stood out to me, right? It's not like we're trying to hire a bunch of people, that we just got VC funding to go out and grab a lion's share of this market, it’s like we're trying to cope with the amount of…

Maren Kate
Just to manage.

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so I saw a need for and I started to do research into the space and saw that there weren't very many firms out there that were specializing in the Web3 and there's all these new acronyms. There's all these new technologies. It's kind of hard to find the right information out there to be able to define and describe what is Web3 and why is it this. Is it more than just Bitcoin? Is it more than Dogecoin? Is it more than, etc? And so, looking at all of these different founders and looking at all the job increases, I saw LinkedIn had a stat that from 2020 to 2021 they had an increase of 400% of crypto-related jobs, and one of the leading crypto job boards saw an increase of 15% in paid subscriptions. So I was like, this is the time for somebody to position themselves in the market to be able to really add value to Web3, to be able to be specialized, be subject matter enthusiast, I never say experts because I think that this space moves too quickly to be an expert but to be a subject matter enthusiast about the space and how to navigate these really weird waters that are very non-traditional from what we see in other tech companies. I mean, people are getting hired off of Discord and Twitter and there's all these new mediums to be able to be discovered and put yourself out there and network. So in order to tap into the right ecosystems, I saw that there was a big need in the market for specialization in Web3 to be able to support this next iteration of the internet and the new technology that was being created that's eventually going to be and currently is changing the world.

Maren Kate
And so you just decided to kind of take a bet on it.

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I kind of had a non-traditional viewpoint on that. A lot of my mentors, they're like, hey, so go out and find a bunch of recruiters that you've worked with before in the past, and things of that nature. And I said, this is new, these are new waters. I want to redefine how business works. I want to redefine how the agencies work. And so I actually went into business with my two best friends and a couple of my family members. Had a little bit of a diverse skill set, some had recruiting experience, and all were huge enthusiasts of Web3. And so we kind of started back in November as a small family moving unit, looking to kind of differentiate ourselves in the market and provide real value to our customers and bring humanity to the recruiting processes. I saw on the agency side, working in Web2, there were so much metric-driven things I need to do and to accomplish, that sometimes I was in a very human-focused role but I felt a lack of humanity just based on the pressures that I had to be able to hit my head count or etc. And so our model is a lot different. We're a very candidate-first-focused firm looking to really add value to our candidates that are in this market. I always say if we had a product, people are our product, so we invest heavily into our product, into people that come into our ecosystem from training to education, to networking tips, to a lot of different things in the space.

Maren Kate
I love that. So what is the business model?

Nicholas Strange
So currently, we only do full-time direct hire support of companies.

Maren Kate
So placement fees.

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So we do placement fees based on per placement higher. We also once we gain trust with clients, we engage in a retainer-based model as well. Usually, that happens after we kind of prove ourselves, in our utility, that we're able to do.

Maren Kate
Yep, that makes total sense. And then I know it's only been going on for the last few months or weeks or I've lost track at this point but how has the recent crypto winter, so to speak, how has that impacted the way your clientele are approaching hiring? Like is everyone still going ahead full steam? Like, obviously there's going to be collateral damage. We're seeing that already. But what have you seen both from the companies that are still hiring and also from the candidates?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, so it's a little bit ambiguous, right? There's been some interesting downturn a little bit but, in general, I would say that the crypto job market is still holding up despite other tech industry cutbacks. So what we’ve seen is, like, we see a little bit of the crypto job market, like, Coinbase recently announced that it was slowing down its hiring after posting a $430 million loss in Q1. So they also had, before Q1, they had plans to triple their headcount in 2022 but we're on hold due to market conditions. But with that being said, with our clientele and in different projects that we've worked with, we have not seen an incredible slowdown in crypto and we're still busy as ever. One of the things that's interesting with that is that most crypto projects are still in startup, in the early stages of their lifecycle, and still are operating off of venture capitalist funding secured last year. In Q1 of 2022, we reached an all-time high in the three-month period with venture-backed funding for crypto-based companies which went all the way up to 9.2 billion beating the preceding quarter of 8.8 billion in Q4 of 2021. So it was the seventh consecutive quarter of record blockchain funding. So with that VC funding, there's still a lot of hiring going on and we're still seeing an increase in headcount across our portfolio of clients.

Maren Kate
Are you also seeing an increase in interest from candidates that are coming from more traditional and Web2 backgrounds?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, so when it comes to that we've definitely seen a little bit. With bear markets, sometimes, when people are trying to make that transition from Web2 to Web3, or a different industry into technology, bear markets typically, sometimes, make people a little bit more wary of joining the industry. But people who are truly in the space, they're true believers in Web3 and have been here for a while. They've suffered a lot of different bear markets so they have a little bit thicker skin and they’re a little bit more adaptable in that sense and they're still plugging forward. All of big tech has invested in this space too. And so in its essence, bear markets are like, it's a subject of value that the market is providing that we deem necessary, right. But the blockchain doesn't sleep, the technology is still pushing forward. They're still people trailblazing new technology, too, especially in a bear market. If things are going down it's going to take human capital in order to survive that bear market to go back up into more of a bull market. So even in bear markets, we still see people joining the crypto space, making that transition, as well as companies that are a lot more responsible with managing the treasury. Now, even given a tax back in like 2017/2018 era, companies are a lot more responsible with managing their treasury. So I think we're in a good position.

Maren Kate
Yeah, I actually do. I mean, I think that's the thing, markets go up markets go down. It's very short-sighted to focus on just the right here right now. And I wonder, where do you see opportunities? So if you were a job seeker right now, what do you see? And even outside of Web3, if you were talking to people that were wanting to, let's even say, just break into technology and startups or tech companies, what would your advice be?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's kind of twofold. One, if we're going to kind of unpack the Web3 question, there is an incredible amount of opportunity to redefine the traditional mediums of which people enter into new markets. What we saw on Web2, one of the things that kind of sucked was that there were a lot of underrepresented communities that were unable to break into the market because of one, the expense of college, private tutors, and kind of these bars that required friction for people who couldn't afford to come into the space. And that's why I think what's so cool about Web3 is that there are so much open-source learning and education out there that will provide an equitable future for us all. And with that being said, there's a lot of DAOs that exist. For example, the developer DAO, and other DAOS that exist out there that you can go into and get involved in these different communities, and be a fly on the wall, and just listening and engage and be in these different Discords and things of that nature, and be able to learn more about the lingo, learn more about what you're doing, and then also network and connect with people to be able to maybe trade your time for experience, be able to beef up that resume a little bit. So what I would say is that there's so much information out there, right? We have the Library of Alexandria at our fingertips but the directory sucks. So sometimes it's kind of hard to figure out where we are and what the right information is. But for people out there looking to join Web3, just like self-education on different platforms, such as like even Tik Tok, which is hilarious, Twitter, YouTube, all these different social media sites, to follow the right people and engage with their content and to create a more robust knowledge of the space and hiring managers. I mean, there's a common misconception in Web3, that you have to be a blockchain developer in order to join the space. That's just not necessarily the case. I mean, they make up roughly about a third of the positions to like four-tenths of the positions in the space but these are technology companies, they need sales, they need marketing, they need design, they need HR. HR saw an increase of 200% in the crypto job market last year. So there's a lot of opportunity to join the space and be able to translate your Web2 experience.

Maren Kate
In like non-technical roles it sounds like too.

Nicholas Strange
Exactly yeah. I mean, that experience translates. What people are looking for is just people that are passionate about the space. This industry thrives on passion and it's really, really cool. Crypto never sleeps so some people work from dusk till dawn. Some people are doing this as a side gig and then they fully transform themselves into Web3 from a full-time perspective. So I would say, in general, just being able to exist in different communities and follow different influencers in the space and figure out what you're most passionate about. Because web three is huge and there's a lot of use cases and utility and you have to find out what's most important to you, what you're most passionate about. Like, for example, there's a lot of sustainability, ESG compliance, green energy, Bitcoin mining operations that are coming out and so if you're passionate about climate change and things of that nature and providing green energy then maybe concern yourself with a company like DMG Blockchain Solutions up in Canada who's doing sustainable blockchain development with hydroelectric power. Something like that would be something to concern yourself with. And so being able to find what you're most passionate about and what gets you out of bed in the morning and be able to relate that to the crypto market, Web3 markets I think is most important.

Maren Kate
And I think that and that's a great point, figuring out what resonates with you. That applies to looking for work, whether you're right out of university or early in your career, whether you're later in your career and you're looking at shifting. I think figuring out what drives you and interests you versus just picking a quote-unquote sexy space and trying to break into it without really having that interest. You'll have a better career and you'll enjoy your career more if you spend the time doing a self-audit and understanding your strengths, your weaknesses, where you can provide value, and what really drives you?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, definitely. I mean, blockchain technology has a lot of utility and use cases across a number of different industries. People just think tech is tech but Blockchain is being used in finance and logistics and shipping and all different sorts of industries. So wherever you are, you currently sit, being able to craft that story. I think storytelling is a huge superpower. For people to be able to really truly understand what gets them out of bed in the morning, what they're passionate about, what resonates the most with them, and why they want to go to work every single day and then be able to apply that to the market that makes the most sense to them is my best advice.

Maren Kate
I love that. I totally agree. What are you seeing in terms of compensation and maybe compensation packages, in general? How are they different in Web3 companies versus in more traditional technology or professional services?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah. So I would say that in order to stay competitive hiring managers in Web3 have to understand who they're competing with. They're competing with traditional Web2 companies, which doesn't make them completely out of the water because a lot of Web2 companies are investing heavily in the space. Google and Microsoft and Amazon are investing billions of dollars into creating their own Web3 technology as well. And actually, those departments of traditional Web2 companies are seeing huge increases in hiring and they have a lot of money to throw around. And so they are coming in and offering packages that people can't turn down. We had one of our clients, for example, we were working with, they came in and offered a very fair market value for a position that they were looking to fill, and that candidate up and ended up turning down Google for a similar kind of package to go work in Google's NFT Department and Google ended up coming back and tripled the offer overnight. So big tech is still out there and they are bullying a lot of these smaller projects around from a hiring perspective. But in general, Web3 companies are completely competitive against market rate. And one of the things that's really, really cool is that if you look at like Google stock options or Microsoft stock options, like, very secure, very stable, but the upside in speculative investing, it's probably going to stay the same, right, it's about what it is and it will probably stay there unless something crazy happens in either direction. But you know, joining a project, a lot of things that people take into consideration is like coin. So certain coin offerings that you get AirDrop to you upon four-year vesting periods that really can start to increase that total compensation package. That's a huge speculative investment for a lot of our clients and candidates that are joining in the space to be able to have access to those tokens that, if you're working for a project that has a true use case and true utility, then you never know what could happen.

Maren Kate
So is it still the same structure with the standard one-year cliff, four-year vesting, or are you seeing everything being given when someone signs, or what does that look like?

Nicholas Strange
It depends on the client and the candidate. The one thing that's really cool about Web3 companies is they're so flexible, they're so nimble and so agile. So whatever makes sense. If a client needs to offer that vesting immediately as a signing bonus for a certain candidate in order to make this offer stand out more, I've seen that happen. Typically, what we see is like a four-year vesting period with those tokens available to you after a year usually getting like 25 to 33 percent of the tokens after one year, and then the rest is vested out on a monthly basis.

Maren Kate
Got it. Okay, so similar to kind of traditional. I will say the Web3 companies that we've worked with and we have seen in the candidates that has been one of the most interesting aspects is the flexibility they have with offers, with pay, with structure. Another big flexibility is it seems to be a lot more global, fully remote, than traditional businesses, which I love as being someone that's been fully remote for the last 15 years. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So I guess some of the final questions I have, which really digs in more to the tactical hiring side of things, what tech stack do you all rely on to do your hiring both for clients and even internally? What are the tools that you use or have you built things from the ground up?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, so as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of non-traditional mediums by which we are getting connected to people to be able to plug into certain ecosystems. When I was working as a recruiter in Web2 I relied almost solely on LinkedIn, which is still an incredible tool in Web3, and being able to connect with people who are looking for opportunities in Web3, but one of the most fascinating things to me is this idea of pseudonymity and like reaching out to people with different communities that only have like an NFT and their avatar and some alias within a community like Web3 PMs is an online Discord community where it has people posting intros and job opportunities and bios about themselves. And so networking in these non-traditional mediums such as Discord and Twitter and Reddit and GitHub is what we've seen a lot of success and being able to plug into these ecosystems, tap into them, make people aware of what we're doing, and allow people to say, “Hey”. As I mentioned, the candidate focused firm in itself is that we want to reach out to candidates not maybe just because we have a job opening for them but to bring them into our ecosystem and help them navigate these strange waters, and how to apply, and everything like that as well. And so the tech stack that we're currently utilizing right now is LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and Discord, as well as, obviously, organic word of mouth referrals because that's the best way to build a business.

Maren Kate
And then in terms of the tools that you use to kind of maybe even manage those relationships, do you use an ATS? Do you use a CRM? Do you use AirTable?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, yeah. So we do a combination of a couple of different things. LinkedIn is a fairly highly functional CRM for us that plugs into our ATS, Bullhorn. So I’ve used Bullhorn throughout my whole entire staffing career so very comfortable with that

Maren Kate
You’re a pro.

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, so I was comfortable with that so I plugged that into this system and it's been great for us to be able to track people. There's a lot of different custom fields that we had to add into Bullhorn that was different than traditional Web2 companies that I was working with. But yeah, that's what we've been using so far.

Maren Kate
And then what product or tool do you use personally to do your best work?

Nicholas Strange
I would say personally, is Discord. I love Discord. I think one of the coolest things about it is, as I mentioned, the pseudonymity. People say, that's really hard to vet people out and navigate with that but what it does is it creates nonbias within recruiting. So it's not like we're recruiting on the LinkedIn public profile, where you can see everything about this person, where they went to school, what they look like, etc. We're on Discord where they have a picture of some kind of Avatar or NFT and you're just communicating with people in real-time with no biases or anything like that, that are becoming in place, because you’re not able to do that, right? And so you’re having a more human connection and then you get on a video call and you're like, “oh my gosh, this is awesome”. So I personally love using Discord as a means to communicate and kind of network within the Web3 community.

Maren Kate
I like that. I actually haven't thought of it from that angle before around the minimizing bias but that makes total sense. And so then, I guess one of my last questions is, what is your favorite podcast or book from the last year?

Nicholas Strange
Oh, wow. That's a tough question. I am a huge podcast guy so I would have to say that it's kind of tough. I would have to say just, in general, which is one of the…I'll just go to a book. I’ll go with my favorite book - it was Principles by Ray Dalio.

Maren Kate
Man, you're speaking my language. I’ve read that book multiple times.

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, the first time I read that in the last year. Actually, I'm a kinetic learner so I can't read. I have to be doing something so I listen to Audible and walk and workout or go for a walk so I can listen to stuff that way I can digest content. But yeah, I think principles as being a leader, being a new leader as well, I've been a leader before in my past and different careers and I played sports in college, in that respect, but being the founder and a CEO of a company, and working with family, and trying to navigate those waters as well, and lead friends you have to operate based on principles. And I really love that book and instilled for me to be able to go out and find what my principles are, and what that is, and how I can equate that to the market, and how I can become a better person for myself and for my family and for my company as well and show up for the people who are trusting me to do so every single day.

Maren Kate
I love that. And I also think that book is excellent. And just anytime you're approaching business and life in more of a holistic way and like how do we start with first principles and what's important, and how do I want to show up in my business and in my personal life. It tends to all tie together really well. So lastly, Nicholas, how can people find out more about you? How can they find more about Crypto Talent online?

Nicholas Strange
Yeah, definitely. To all the people listeners out there, we love to be able to connect with as many people as possible in the space. If you're a candidate that's interested in how do you transition into the market or you don't know if there's a job out there for you please feel free to reach out to myself or anybody on our team to be able to go through that. We can help you do resume revision, we do some career coaching, show you the appropriate means to network within the space, and everything that comes into getting a job in Web3. You can find us on LinkedIn, we're very active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Discord. LinkedIn is just Crypto Talent. Our Twitter is @talentcrypto, and then on Discord we have a community that I can drop in the show notes here. You can come join our community where there's other like-minded individuals networking and talking about ideas and how to get a job in Web3 as well.

Maren Kate
Awesome. It was so great having you. Thanks again.

Nicholas Strange
Thank you so much Maren.