Don’t be cheap. Get off-the-record references. Write a real job description.
We’ve shared our views on some of the advantages of promoting up from within over hiring executives externally, but there are of course times when the skill gap is too wide to overcome with an internal promotion, you are creating a brand new role, or you are backfilling a recent departure.
Here are our best practices when hiring externally for your executive team:
- Don’t be cheap - Particularly as you move into the growth stages of your company, specialized recruiters (e.g., Daversa Partners and True) will build better candidate profiles than you can and they’ll bring higher quality candidates into your hiring funnel than you can. These firms have been tracking top executives in the tech ecosystem for years and have a great feel for the market of who is available.
- Tap your network - Hiring top talent is one of your primary jobs as CEO. Just like in fundraising, warm introductions go a long way in recruiting talent. A reference from someone you trust who has worked with the candidate is the very best way to reduce risk when hiring an executive.
- Go slow - Hiring is expensive, but the cost of getting it wrong at the executive level is many times more expensive.
- Get off-the-record references - Dig deep and call around extensively. Find at least 2-3 people who will speak to you off-the-record, beyond the references that are served up by the candidate themself. Don’t outsource these chats to recruiters or other teammates. Talk with the references yourself and look for dirt not for praise.
- Review your management principles - Evaluate their reaction, response and engagement as part of your decision-making.
- Probe on culture - Competency and domain expertise matters, but so does culture fit. Consider critically how they’ll fit into your current executive team and broader organization and what new dimensions they’ll add.
- Meet in-person - Regardless of whether you’re fully remote or not, meet in-person during the interview process.
- Trust your gut - Don’t hire an executive if you’ve slept on it and you’re still not over the moon excited the next day. And if you are over the moon excited about a candidate but can’t close them, consider alternative ways to get them involved. Can you get them onboard as a part-time advisor? Can you become professional friends with them as a starting point?
- Write a real job description - Write your job description for the role in advance and then rewrite it after you’ve met the first five candidates. You’ll have a clearer idea of what you’re looking for after doing this twice and it will help you better assess candidates against your actual needs for the role.
- Future-proofing - Think about the what you need today, in 12 months and 24 months from now.
- Stay disciplined on compensation - It can be tempting to stretch on salary to land a candidate. Its rarely worth it and has knock-on effects across the rest of the executive team and company. If the candidate isn’t comfortable with a (relatively) lower salary and bigger equity upside as compared to the corporate world then they probably aren’t a good fit for your start up anyway.
References
Defining your management principles
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