Founder in Eleven

When I began my career at Andersen Consulting/Accenture, I started alongside 12 other college recruits in 1986.  In the 35+ years since then, I would count many of them as my closest friends and business network (I both met my wife through my start group friends and helped to introduce one of my start group friends to their eventual spouse).  Just like first-year college friends meeting in the dorms, the first bonds made between college recruits can be very strong as they transition from college to work and experience their final stage of becoming an adult.

Rather than hiring and starting recruits at different times, the onboarding of a group of 5+ employees at one time can have substantial advantages including:

• Culture: as opposed to starting a new job by themselves, being part of a group provides for an easier transition and bonding within the start group.  Instructors also bond and have the reward of “giving back” and sharing their experience with the group.
• Greater efficiency: one current employee can share or be responsible for the training of the group rather than a single individual.  For TSG, we would vary instructors based on their desire and availability to try providing as many introductions to the start group with as many existing employees as possible.
• Easier planning: since college hires typically graduate in May or December, a group of recent graduates can all start at once.  Founders and managers can plan for the training and later staffing of the group rather than one-off individuals.  Typically, we would start planning for job assignments in August or September in time for when new recruits were done training in October.

When to Start a Start Group

Typically, TSG would look to start the main start group in September, right after Labor Day.  This was for a multiple of reasons:

1. The best college recruiting happens in the fall –Strong candidates typically have job offers by Thanksgiving, making spring recruiting difficult.
2. Most recruits graduate in May – If we hired a December graduate, we would start one or two in the February or March time frame and send them through training in September where they could instruct or lead for culture continuity and bonding with the May graduates.
3. May recruits are often want to travel after graduation. – Whether it was travel, summer classes, or different graduation dates, we moved to a focus on September and pushed recruits to take that last “big trip.”  September also corresponded well to the Chicago rental market, where most rentals start in August/September.
4. Our busiest months began in October – For TSG, our heaviest workload was typically during October, November, and December, where clients had end-of-year budgets and goals that needed to be met.  Having new recruits fresh out of training and available in October always seemed to work out well.  Other busy months were typically January, February, and March, when new hires were now experienced.  Our slow time was July and August, because of client summer vacations.

Planning for the Start Group

With the knowledge that a group of hires would be starting in the coming months, client projects can be sold and managed with the idea that, in October when clients are trying to finish off projects before the end of the year, multiple new hires will be available.  Additional experienced hires can also be added to the start group to acclimate into the company alongside college recruits, which is both efficient and has the cultural benefits of shared onboarding.

In training the start group, we would look to get as many existing employees involved as possible, each picking a module rather than have one resource responsible for the entire course.