- BairdTech
From Rhymes to Resumes: How a Hip Hop Career Shaped a Successful Headhunter
David "Stock" Baird, founder of BairdTech, is not your average headhunter. With 20 years of experience as a hip hop artist, he brings a unique perspective and set of skills to the table. His music has been heard in films such as "White Chicks" starring the Wayans Brothers, November Rule produced by Queen Latifah, and TV Shows such as "House of Lies" Starring Don Cheadle. He has released music under the moniker Stockmashin and David "Stock" Baird and has a catalog of 50+ fully mastered songs he has yet to release. But how did his musical career lead him to a successful headhunting firm?
Writing a song and being a headhunter may seem unrelated, but they both require creativity, attention to detail, and the ability to connect with people. In the same way that a musician must understand their audience and craft lyrics that resonate with them, a headhunter must understand their client's needs and culture in order to find the perfect candidate.
Baird's experience as a hip hop artist taught him the value of building relationships, loyalty and connecting with people, skills that he now brings to his headhunting business. He uses his network and industry knowledge to find top talent for his clients, resulting in a high success rate and a personalized approach to talent search. While he pursued his music career Baird worked and lived between London, UK and Detroit, his hometown. He would perform to a crowd of 30,000 one day and the next day you would find him in the office working within sales, Stockbroker in London, or maybe a Headhunter. His experience within music and business gave him the perfect edge over other firms when he started BairdTech in 2017.
But why would a company choose to work with BairdTech over other headhunting firms? The answer lies in the statistics. Research shows that many musicians, who have become successful tech entrepreneurs, bring a unique combination of creativity and technical expertise to the table. Musicians are in essence their own mini-startup. The search to find people that believe in their talent and story is no different than a headhunter looking for an engineer that will believe in their client's vision and story. By working with a headhunter who understands both the music industry and the tech industry, companies can tap into this valuable talent pool, network, and custom search expertise. Someone like Baird has had decades of experience finding needles in a haystack and has developed unique sourcing methods in order to land on someone's radar.
How can a company trust that Baird would know technology if he was a musician? Baird started by tapping into his passion for music and opened up a music tech Startup in 2012, called Selocial. He researched who his competitors were, what languages their platforms were written in and then sought out engineers that could write in the stack. After forming a rockstar team, that believed in his vision, they had coded over 100,000 lines of code and built a unique platform that was noted by the press as Instagram meets Spotify app for musicians and fans.
Baird worked tirelessly with the developers and stayed up almost every night until 5AM until he was able to set up his own local environment and code in the changes he wanted to. He learned how to work with AWS, Github, NodeJS, CSS, HTML, MongoDB, Javascript, Angular and QA and resolved any Github conflicts if needed. Selocial went on to receive a Detroit Fintech Award in 2018 and earlier in 2014, their innovation landed him and his team on Richard Branson's Private Island called Necker Island for the first Extreme Tech Challenge, originally started by Susi Mai and Bill Tai.
Baird developed a connection with Sir Richard Branson and has since been invited into a couple Virgin Group companies where he was a part of brainstorming sessions with upper management. Out of Selocial, BairdTech was born, and Baird has been consulting with well-funded startups on their direct hiring ever since. He and his team have worked with thousands of candidates and filled numerous roles within technology and software development including CTO, VP of Software Development to Junior Full-Stack Engineers. He and his team also built their own Applicant Tracking System called Bairdhunt.com to help streamline the headhunting process and keep track of their own candidates.
In conclusion, a company looking to fill technology positions would benefit greatly from working with BairdTech. With Baird's background as a hip hop artist and successful headhunter, his company offers a combination of creativity, expertise, and personalized attention that sets it apart from the competition. So if you're looking to build a strong tech team, let BairdTech help you find the right rhythm.