Josh Praus
People & Talent Partner - Scaling Startups
I am a talent expert of 19 years with an entrepreneurial spirit and deep experience spread between agency, consultancy and in-house engagements. I am also a servant leader with 11 years experience as a people manager. I have primarily supported technology start ups at a variety of stages (seed —> D). Helping founders to effectively scale through people is my passion My top areas of my expertise: org development, employer branding, talent acquisition, interview guidelines, performance ena…
Work
Core 5 Project
The "Core 5" alignment project was at an early stage start up and was based on identifying 5 Values and 5 Core Competencies that best aligned with the organization. I helped in defining these elements and the correlating skills, attributes and behaviors that would be affiliated with each. These really were embedded into the fabric of the company and utilized at different stages of the candidate/employee life cycle. It started with the content in our employer branding and job descriptions, giving talent a realistic and compelling look into what it is like to work at the company. Secondly, we laced these into our questions and assessments as part of our structured interview process. The leadership team exemplified the "Core 5" and we rewarded team members when they did as well or gave redirected feedback if they were to go against these values. Finally, we utilized them as part of our scoring in our bi-annual performance enablement cycle. This process and due diligence helped us to scale from 40 employees to 400 in 18 months while having a very low attrition rate.
Experience
Linden Lab
Senior Director, Talent Acquisition
Apr 2022 - Aug 2024
Linden Lab first launched Second Life, the groundbreaking virtual world enjoyed by millions around the globe, which has since gone on to boast nearly two billion user creations and a vibrant $500 million (USD) economy Tilia Pay enables publishers of video games & virtual worlds to create in-world economies and monetize user interaction. An "All-in-One" payments platform for the UGC and virtual creator economy - Gaming, Metaverse, Web3 marketplaces, Mobile Applications and NFT providers
- Oversee Talent Acquisition, Management and Development for two separate business entities (Linden Lab and Tilia)
- Help lead Organizational Development
- Building Performance Enablement Cycle, Incentive & Rewards and L&D program
- Manage Career Tracking and Employee Engagement
- Created interview guidelines, recruiting best practices and DEI initiatives
- Set up recruiting operations, analytics and reporting, ATS and sourcing platforms
- Employer Brand Strategy
- Manage consultants and agency partners
- Global Recruitment
Nextbite
Senior Director, Talent
May 2019 - May 2022
Nextbite is helping drive and shape the new digital era for the restaurant industry. A leader in virtual restaurants and the pioneer in online order management, the company is focused on helping restaurant partners successfully enter the virtual restaurant space with new delivery-only menus, using underutilized labor and kitchen capacity, to increase margins and revenue. Originally founded as Ordermark in 2017, Nextbite is the only all-in-one virtual restaurant solution for existing restaurants and kitchens that pairs the proven Ordermark online ordering/delivery management system with a selection of highly visible, on-trend, delivery brands.
- Hyper-growth SaaS startup that scaled from 40 to 400 remotely distributed employees in 18 months
- Led a large team of professionals between Talent Acquisition, L&D and Business Partners
- Employer Branding and Organizational Development
- Defined Interview Guidelines and Talent KPI metrics
- Created DEIB initiative and managed ally partnerships
- Created DEIB initiative and managed ally partnerships
- Performance Management Program
- Learning & Development ~ Strategy ~ LMS Content
- Assisted in building of feedback and reward programs
- Leadership Training & Coaching
Square Peg
Principal People and Talent Consultant
Oct 2015 - Oct 2020
Sole Member LLC - Partner with the leaders of some of the most innovative companies to identify needs and help onboard top digital creative, product and engineering talent. -- define core values, strategize hiring, build recruiting teams, employer best practices, employee retention, coaching
- Support technology startups during hyper growth scaling periods (seed to Series D)
- Sourcing strategies to support culture and DEIB initiatives
- Recruit impact players for design, product, marketing, engineering, and data science teams Hired and led TA and POps professionals
- Partnered with executives to strategize hiring process and implement interview guidelines
- Utilize data and OKRs to improve the efficiency of the process and increase ROI
- Implement proper on-boarding and goals for improved employee experience
- Educate and enforce best practices for professional feedback, learning and development
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