Shortage of start-up talents in Switzerland (and everywhere, maybe except in big startup hubs) is widely known.
Fortunately, as the startup spirit is growing in Switzerland, high schools have understood this and several initiatives have been launched to help startups recruit among young graduates. In Lausanne, the students association «Forum EPFL» (for my readers outside Switzerland: EPFL = «Swiss Federal Institute of Technology») is organizing for the 3rd time the «Start-up Day» on Friday 5th of October.
Entrepreneurs have the possibility to book a booth for free (yeah, they know that money is scarce in startup world!), attend a pitch training and then pitch their project to a students audience, and even buy the «CV book» of all EPFL graduates of the year (ask the organizer, they should have a start-up friendly price!).
Last year, around 40 companies had a booth. Promising start-ups and support organisations like Venturelab or some technology parks, where you can get some useful advices if you’re planning to launch a new business, made their best efforts to seduce the visitors.
I was there for the last 3 editions for my previous employer (but I won’t be able to attend this year) and I’d recommend you to consider participating. There were a lot of interesting people (alongside students, investors, mentors and other entrepreneurs) around, looking for promising startups to invest or to help.
Even if you’re not planning to recruit people in the next 3 months, my opinion is that a startup is always in a «recruiting mode» (if you raise money tomorrow, you should already know who you’d like to hire!). And by acquiring the «CV book», you can already prepare yourself for the event by screening the best talents… and invite them beforehand for an interview/discussion!
If you’d like to register to Start-up Day @Forum EPFL, organize yourself to be present during all the day. An empty desk half of the day is just a waste of resources for everyone (and that is giving a bad image of your company!). If you cannot commit to be there, better avoid registering than not being really present.
Lastly, hurry up to register! Deadline is on 31st of August!