Entrepreneur First brings together the world’s most ambitious people to build startups from scratch in Europe and Asia. We help individuals form teams, develop ideas, and subsequently raise funding from investors to build the world’s most important companies.
To date we have helped over 1,000 individuals build 150 companies with a total valuation of just under $1.5 billion. They’re funded by leading VCs and Angels investors from across Europe and the US, including Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, and Y Combinator. Our major exits to date include Magic Pony, led by Rob Bishop and Zehan Wang, which was acquired by Twitter for a reported $150m only 18 months after the Founders met on the EF programme.
Most recently, we have raised US$12.4M in a round led by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, with participation from Greylock Partners, Founders Fund and other top US venture capital firms as well as the Deep Mind founders.
The Role
We are on the lookout for an Associate who will play a vital role in making Entrepreneur First the default career preference for the most ambitious individuals in Asia. As an Associate, your primary responsibility is to engage smart, talented individuals with strong founder potential and encourage them to start companies. For the highest-potential individuals we identify, you’ll be their first point of contact from the initial coffee meeting to their interview, offer, and the start of their programme.
This role sits within our Talent function and you will have the opportunity to help us shape our Talent strategy going forward. You’ll work closely with our Global Talent team and local company building teams, but this is a role with lots of autonomy and self-direction day-to-day. There are several possible growth opportunities which stem from taking on this role – EF is growing rapidly and as we scale, new functions and roles with lots of responsibility are created.
Responsibilities
Engagement – You will need to identify, source and curate the best profiles online and offline and build relationships with these high potential individuals. You will be meeting over 500 people who EF wants to talk to across 6 months and it will be your mission to get them to think of EF as a valid career path. Sometimes this means going to them (we often find ourselves drinking lots of coffee at university campuses or jumping on planes for a week of meetings). You’ll also be a regular contributor to the content EF produces, which helps engage specific communities of interest (and build on your personal brand).
Conversion – We currently ‘convert’ people to apply to EF through face-to-face meetings and invitations to exclusive events. It will be your responsibility to increase our conversion rate by meeting the best people face to face and building long-lasting relationships with them. The most interesting individuals are usually highly sought after talent, have many options to hand, and have lots of questions about EF. They require special attention and having you on the team means we can give it to them. Across our 6 month recruitment period, we would expect to see around half of your positive engagements turn into applicants. In line with our data-driven approach to talent acquisition, you’ll also help us set up a system to track our interactions and measure effectiveness of different types of engagement.
Cultivation – Building effective relationships does not end once someone applies to EF. You’ll also help us get better at retaining the best individuals by cultivating them throughout the interview process, during the offer window, and the period between accepting our offer to starting the programme. Typically this involves answering their questions, giving them advice on what to prepare, and putting them in touch with EF alumni. Here you’ll also work closely with the Programme team to ensure a smooth handover of information once they start with us. We expect nearly all of your engaged individuals to start the programme, with the only dropouts owing to personal reasons beyond our control.
About you
You should have:
- A strong educational background
- 1-2 years of prior work experience
You also:
- Have excellent interpersonal skills and be a confident public speaker
- An interest in technology and startups
- Possess a ‘Hands-on’ work ethic – we are looking for people who just get things done and actively seek ownership.
Bonus points for:
- Fluency in more than one language
- Startup experience, either as founder or early employee.
Reporting: You will report directly to one of our Form Advisors and work closely with the rest of the team in Hong Kong.
You’ll also get to:
- Surround yourself with the world’s smartest and most ambitious individuals and have the opportunity to help start an institution that can change the way the most ambitious people think about their careers. The potential impact is enormous.
- Supercharge your learning – you’ll have a very steep learning curve and work in a talented, ambitious, and committed team.
- Embed yourself within the EF network – we work with the best technologists, founders and investors in the world. This is a very valuable community to be a part of.
Location: You will be based in our offices in Hong Kong
Start Date: ASAP
If interested, please apply here.
