Q and A with Emily Landon from TheCryptoRecruiters
What a thrill to meet and catch up with Emily Landon, founder and CEO of The Crypto Recruiters! We spotted her, wearing her signature swag–bright yellow sweatshirt with black logo–at a function that Bulla Network sponsored in Chicago.
The Crypto Recruiters, which launched in 2020, was one of the first to focus exclusively on web3 hiring, so we asked about her experience as an intrepid founder in a volatile industry and what she sees emerging among crypto companies from an HR perspective.
What is your background and how did you become a recruiter?
I personally come from a sales background and fell into recruiting. I was working at a tech sales company and while I was there, one of the clients I was talking to was from a recruiting agency. He mentioned I might be good at recruiting because I’m inherently curious about people. I ended up leaving sales, and he became my boss!
How did you get involved with crypto and how did you start your business?
My fiancé was really involved in crypto, and my mom happened to be unbanked at the time and wanted to use the blockchain, so I started learning all about crypto and saw a great opportunity. I launched my firm as a New Year’s resolution in 2020.
For the first six months, all I did was meet people, not clients specifically but I just met people in the industry. It sounds cheesy but the recruiting business is very cutthroat, and I thought I could make the hiring process more fun and more ethical with the right recruiter. What’s great about the crypto culture is that people are generally really helpful. There’s no such thing as a crypto expert, everyone has something to learn and is excited to chat.
And where is your business now?
We’ve grown tremendously. We now have a team of 20, and we’re just about to make our 300th placement. The Crypto Recruiters is actually under our main brand, Land On Top, and we now have an APAC partner in Hong Kong. Through all our brands, which include The Crypto Recruiters, The Web3 Recruiters and The Compliance Recruiters, we’ve expanded into other tech areas like gaming, compliance, AI, DeFi and FinTech.
From your position, you must have seen the industry evolve quite a bit. What stands out to you?
Yes, it has been through a lot. The job market for crypto is very aligned with the status of [crypto]; if markets are down, everyone stops hiring. 2023 was our worst year ever, but we have started 2024 100 percent differently, maybe 200 percent.
With these boom and bust cycles, I see most firms go through the same basic growth and hiring process: they hire operations, developers and product people first, then marketing and sales.
The excitement from the industry also really stands out. People are generally really passionate about their products.
What are your thoughts on where the industry as a whole is going?
Of course we’ll probably have more cycles, but the clients I’m speaking with now are very optimistic, excited for DeFi and fintech and somewhat excited for AI. The crazy AI boom has slowed down a bit.
I’m finding the industry to be a lot less bro-ey and more professional, and as we have these boom periods, I try to educate my clients that they should stay a little lean and not hire everyone at once. There’s a saying, “hire slow, fire fast,” it’s true!
Do you feel like the U.S. is possibly losing ground due to the strict regulatory environment?
There’s a lot of concern and a lot of talk about these companies moving overseas, but I work mainly in the U.S. with U.S. companies, and everyone I talk to here still wants to hire in the U.S. They have to be realistic and frankly, how many people will actually leave their hometowns, where they have security, families to take a job in another country?
How has this affected the type of hiring that crypto companies are doing?
It hasn’t affected us that much. A lot of companies are decentralized in their structure, and they will hire remotely but I have noticed that they want people who are all in the same time zone, that has become a lot more important.
Since Bulla Network facilitates web3 invoicing, payments, payroll and account management, we would also like to know how many companies are now offering to pay in crypto?
About 10% of the Web3 companies are paying their employees in crypto in some form. The majority are offering to split the salary, with partial payment in fiat, plus the option of partial payment in crypto.
They are also offering to pay for the full time salary in fiat with a crypto bonus–token package for team members and for executives, they’re offering equity. It ranges from .25 percent to 10 percent equity. For early stage companies, they’re offering more.
In a lot of cases, the companies that pay in crypto really want to align with the ecosystem. It’s about their reputation and their dedication. They feel, “we’re in the industry, we’re committed to the industry.”
What is the demand from the employee side?
It’s a plus side, it’s a bonus. Not that many want to only get paid in crypt, but for a lot of employees, getting a portion in crypto, that’s great for them. More specifically, It’s great for someone who is not risk averse and wants capital gains.
And where do you see The Crypto Recruiters in the future?
My end goal is to eventually include aerospace recruiting into what we do, probably two different verticals, the generic travel industry but also the space industry.
The Crypto Recruiters is an innovative woman-owned recruiting firm based in Chicago. Landon launched TCR, in 2020, and now serves clients in Fintech, Gaming, AI and all other forms of emerging tech.