Hi all!
I am finally settling back into SF and a bit of routine. Part of that routine involves re-committing to a weekly newsletter cadence (ta-da!), and part of that routine involves making slightly healthier choices… I feel like I could use a bit of balance after a summer of many drinks, many late nights, approximately no workouts and mucho junk food (including a week of eating exclusively chicken tenders in Minneapolis…shoutout Cane’s, I now understand the hype).
Replace ‘cookie’ with ‘any fun sounding vice’, and it me…
Per last week’s post on goals, I’m trying to refocus on doing more things that enable me to feel productive and positive (a few of my values!), and being hungover and sleep deprived has not helped… so taking baby steps to being more functional. Then, watch out world!
One thing that should hopefully contribute to establishing more of a routine is moving into a new apartment, which I’m planning to do at the end of this week!
After living for ~6 months in friends’ guestrooms and Air BnBs, out of a measly 1.5 suitcases - I am very much looking forward to having a closet! And automatically connecting to the WiFi! And buying an airfryer if I so choose, because I’ll have counterspace!
This week’s newsletter is all about hiring. The “who” in the subject line alludes to the fine art of finding the right person (or people) for a certain role or team. In the Bay Area, it feels like the job market is currently super robust. I think it’s some combination of tech companies performing well in the pandemic, and candidates are restlessly moving around after a year of inertia at their existing companies.
A lot of people I’ve talked to recently are evaluating a potential company or role change, and, relatedly, I’ve talked to a lot of people that are frantically trying to hire to either grow or replenish their teams.
BTW, the ‘who’ in the subject line is a reference to the song “Who Are You”, by The Who. (double whammy!) Before there were unlimited true crime podcasts and documentaries to consume, the CSI franchise gave those of us that have a morbid fascination with serial killers plenty of content to indulge in. I loved the original, set in Las Vegas (and hated the Miami and NY spinoffs), but fun fact: all of the versions of CSI used songs by The Who as their title theme:
CSI: “Who Are You”
CSI: Miami “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
CSI: New York “Baba O’Reilly”
CSI Cyber “I Can See For Miles” (did you even know there was a CSI Cyber? I certainly did not)
Now that you’re well armed for a future trivia night, let’s proceed with this week’s newsletter!
Musings
Hiring is hard. Yes, there are macro parts that are hard (like a tight job market), but I’ve also found in the last few months of growing our team, and chatting with others that are looking to do the same, that hiring can be difficult due to problems that are less structural, and more process related.
Some large institutions (e.g., banks, tech companies) have massive HR teams and processes they consider to be efficient and effective, but for smaller companies/startups, hiring isn’t always a high priority with a consistent, ongoing strategy.
Smart people at the helm of fast growing companies assume that they can easily build teams. They assume they can recognize talent, that they have a broad pool of enthusiastic candidates to choose from and the specifics can be worked out once someone has been hired into a role or team.
My former boss when I worked as Chief of Staff oversaw a myriad of functions at my prior company: strategy, fundraising, legal, finance and people. When I worked for him, we were hiring like mad at every level of the company, in every investment strategy, and we hadn’t yet formed an HR function or appointed a designated people leader. Even though we were a small company, it was a complex organization that spanned a few different geographies, and organizing the interview process was often a bit of chaos.
As a reference guide, he recommended a book called “Who: The A Method For Hiring” (see now the relevance of the song reference? Who Who! Who Who!)
In short, the method is comprised of four components (turns out authors Geoff Smart and Randy Street love alliteration 😏)
(1) Scorecard - a framework for the job to be done. the Scorecard describes the mission for the position, outcomes that must be accomplished, and competencies that fit with both the culture of the company and the role. It’s more than a job description, and requires a specific rating/assessment
(2) Source - having access to a great pool and pipeline of people
(3) Select - interviewing well
(4) Sell - convincing candidates you can deliver on what they really care about if they join your team/company
The framework is helpful, sure, though to be honest, when I first read it, I assumed a lot of this stuff was fairly intuitive.
But as I currently work through an effort to build out our team, I’m re-reading the book and discovering our blind spots. Even though the 4 S’s are somewhat obvious, in practice, it’s challenging to actually effectuate unless you are vigilant about the structure.
Some examples of my own learnings below, which you may be able to relate to!
(1) Scorecard
“They just need to be good at stuff. The more good, the better.”
Again, this seems fairly obvious, you want someone that can do a specific job well. A common fallacy here is being drawn to smart generalists. Yes, generalists can be agile in their mindset and their approach to problems, but when you interview someone, you shouldn’t walk away from it thinking ‘they seem like they’d be good at everything’.
It implies that you haven’t structured the interview or process in a way that requires them to prove they will be good at the specific outcomes you are looking for them to achieve. They might be all-around athletes, and generally smart and able to figure things out (all goof things), but per the framework, you should be asking questions that enable you to connect the dots between a candidate’s competencies and the expected outcomes of the job.
Another common pitfall of hiring without a formal scorecard in hand, is scope creep. We started off hiring for an associate role, but started meeting people that had awesome, diverse prior job experiences. Without being anchored firmly in the original role description, we started looking at candidates with more and more experience, who ultimately expected different titles and compensation. If one of our original required competencies was 'ability to conduct full-scale financial and returns analysis’, we should have also added ‘humility to be managed by senior individuals’; so that we couldn’t overindex on the first without consideration for the second, and have the scope completely run away.
(2) Source:
“If you’re posting this, it’s too late.”
A common misconception about quality sourcing is that you can easily access resources and candidates at the moment you are looking for a specific role to fill. You can instantly hire a headhunter, or post on LinkedIn/job boards that will reach millions of eager candidates, and you’ll have your pick of great people to fill your role. This is rarely the case.
One major learning for me has been to always, always, always be sourcing. Especially for lean teams where a person or a couple of people leaving can create a massive hole. Timing of when people are searching may not always line up with when you are looking. There are cycles of graduation, promotion, compensation and many other factors to be mindful of. At the individual level, someone may not be looking for a job when you first connect with them, they might be waiting months or years for a natural change point, professionally (promotion or bonus that comes at a designated time etc.), or personally (their kids to reach an age to change schools easily, looking to move etc.) Usually, the candidates you mean when you’re not actively looking are high quality (they’re not actively looking either), and come in through trusted personal or professional networks vs a formalized process.
By the way, constant sourcing doesn’t mean to be always cold messaging potential candidates or LinkedIn scraping. It’s more about putting it on your network’s radar:
“We’re excited about what we’re building here, and always love to meet people that are similarly enthusiastic about [mission/industry]. If you come across like minded folks, please connect us!”
(3) Select
“Ohmigod, you like sports? Me too!”
I used to fancy myself a good interviewers. If you’re a personable individual who is excited about your role and company, I’m sure you might fancy yourself the same. “Who” reminded me that interviewing is not an off the cuff chat. Interviewing is a unique conversation, that without structure can go off the rails.
The book calls these ‘Voodoo Hiring’ methods. A few (v. relatable examples below):
“The Art Critic” approach - Hiring based on a gut feeling.
In the same way I strongly dislike this philosophy for dating, I hate it even more for hiring. Yes, you can have a gut feeling for someone in an initial conversation or in an interview, but small talk (or even worse, having someone agree with you and nod along) isn’t exactly an indication of how someone will perform in a job.
(Imperfect analogy, but in a dating sense this classic article from the New York Times Modern Love column is a quick hack to go from small date first talk to soul-bearing intimacy: “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love” and in some ways, it’s like an interview - asking pointed questions touching on themes of how someone has conducted themselves in the past, what they consider their greatest accomplishments and how they plan for the future, among others.)
“The Sponge” approach - Everyone asks the same thing.
This is actually extremely common and what happy go lucky teams are at the highest risk of doing - everyone on the team meets the candidate and thinks that between all of them, they are conducting a comprehensive, 360 review of the person. But without structured questions designed to solve for slightly different things, everyone ends up asking versions of the same questions, the candidate gives the same canned answers numerous times, a lot of time is wasted , and it ultimately comes down to if everyone ‘liked’ the candidate.
If you are going to have multiple people interview a candidate, each person should have customized questions based on how they will interact with this role. A more senior teammate should ask questions to gauge how the candidate prefers to be managed, what their achievements have been, how they see their career progressing. A contemporary teammate should ask questions about how the candidate communicates, collaborates and manages their time.
“The Chatterbox” approach
If you read this newsletter with regularity, you know that I HEART random tangents, and pop culture. I could very likely strike up a 45 minute conversation with almost anyone about any random-ass topic and walk away from it feeling like I enjoyed the conversation. However, this is incredibly counterproductive for interviews. Just because you enjoy a conversation with someone, doesn’t mean they are the right person for the job.
(4) Sell
“You’re gonna LOVE IT HERE”
The main tenet of the ‘Sell’ section of the book is to exemplify that you and your company care about the same things that the candidate cares about (they identify 5 - alliterative *LOL* - factors that you should sell candidates on : Fit, Family, Fortune, Fun, Freedom).
It’s a solid framework, but implies a few nuances. First of all, ask about these things early on to learn about how the candidate thinks about these factors and what fulfillment in each of these dimensions looks like for them. Be realistic if you can deliver on these - if someone is unwilling to permanently move, what can be done remotely? What is the tradeoff between autonomy (freedom) and structure (fit)? Be realistic on if your current team is operating consistently with these factors - otherwise does it just come across as lip service.
Also, selling doesn’t just occur at time of offer, it should occur at the initial stages of interviewing, through the offer period, prior to starting, in the first 100 days of a new hire’s start - and likely as a touchpoint for future reviews. If someone feels like all of those parameters are being met consistently, it’s hard to imagine them wanting to leave.
Resources/Links
Cool Ladies Doing Cool Things: Loved this article, and it was written by an excellent woman I went to university with, Raksha Vasudevan “How Some Women Are Remaking the Workplace to Better Suit Their Lives” (New York Times)
“How to Hire in a Tight Labor Market” (Monster)