Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Rebecca Lovell
Hi. My name is Rebecca, and I worked for a recruiter.
That’s right, as part of my checkered (professional) past, during the last downturn I was the director of biz dev for an executive search firm. Acknowledging the high fees and low placement rates in the profession, my colleagues coined the tagline “tripping over the low bar.” In the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, we meant it with all due respect. Nonetheless, some good advice surfaced out of those dark days. A year ago, we got more good advice, from seasoned entrepreneurs experienced in the art of recruiting, and it’s as true today as it was then. Plus, in the vein of decreasing the carbon footprint, reduce-reuse-recycle is the right thing to do. Matt’s open letter addressed recruiters—so for the flip side of the coin check out the below advice to entrepreneurs.
Hire slow, fire fast. Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, attributed the CEO of Alaska Airlines with this quip. One of our most colorful panelists, Kelman cited another mentor who described that when he had cancerous employees in his organization, he just “couldn’t fire the f-ers fast enough.” Clearly, the team dynamic is so crucial to scrappy start-ups that the bad apple curse can be devastating.
Hire for human qualities. When pressed on the assertion that “you can’t just hire for the resume,” Jeremy Jaech (founder of such favorites as Visio) replied “how do you find your wife?” Personality goes a long way. My boss at CTPartners, then CEO Jeff Christian, explained the hiring manager’s dilemma: if you hire for experience, you fire for human qualities. So turn it on its head: If you hire for human qualities (both personality and aptitude), you’ll never have to fire. If everyone just hired for experience, we’d all still be flipping burgers.
(That said) Domain expertise matters. Case in point, don’t get the b-to-b band back together when tackling the b-to-c space. In the spirit of Mikhail Seregine’s post, Jaech was incredibly candid about the challenges Trumba faced when the experience of founders didn’t match the vertical they wished to pursue.
Check references. Though the Seattle entrepreneurial community may seem like Mayberry when it comes to degrees of separation, there is no excuse for taking shortcuts in reference-checking. Jaech cautioned against talking to the potential hires’ last employer– they might just be trying to get rid of them!
ABR. Widemile’s CEO Bob Bergquist’s phrase: “Always be recruiting.” Recruit early and often. Andy Kleitsch, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Billing Revolution describes: “Our best luck has come from handpicking people we worked with in the past. Who was your favorite co-worker at your last job? Start buttering them up now… it takes months to convince someone to quit their steady job to join your start-up, so have them swing by the office, meet the team and go out for lunch (this is a no-pressure date, just for fun) then plant the seed, water, and harvest 3 months later.” Recruiting and retaining talent is so core to success that Bergquist (of his then 20-employee company) asserted “I’ll be personally involved in hiring for a long time to come.” Sage advice– even if you’re using a recruiter.
Note: though an avid environmentalist, the author does not advise recycling ex-boyfriends.
