Who's Your Dream Hire?
Re-think your recruiting process by beginning with the end in mind
Welcome to the latest entry in The Captain’s Log…
I’m your host, Bob, and my mission here is to share personal, behind-the-scenes stories of ups and downs from my career leading tech startups and corporate innovation.
I write to make you think, smile and discover a shortcut to success or a trap to avoid.
Here we go…
Many of you dear readers are beginning to see the light at the end of a tunnel of layoffs and hiring freezes. It’s time to think about growing again, which usually involves adding new members to your team. That means we’ve got to knock the dust off our recruiting processes and interview skills.
But restarting is also an opportunity to adjust and refresh our approach. I’d encourage you to try “one simple trick” we’ve recently discovered for better hiring. And as a bonus, it’s an example of co-creating process innovation with a customer.
“We’re not hitting the mark.”
It’s Friday morning, the point in the week when every recruiter hopes for magic to happen. Our startup, Hearty, has been in the recruiting business for a little over a year, and by now, we have seen clear patterns emerge. Friday tends to be when companies close email and focus on the important but not urgent to-dos of the week—and hiring tends to be one of those tasks that fall here.
So we anxiously await feedback on recent candidate submissions. And whether we admit it or not, getting candidates accepted for interviews will set our team’s mood for the weekend ahead. Will that first drink be to celebrate success or drown our sorrows?
Our latest client—let’s call them Acme—brought us a very tricky recruiting assignment a few weeks ago. It’s a job that involves a combination of software engineering and marketing. The role is so new that you can’t find many people with such a title, and it’s so hard to fill that they hired us to help.
It’s a sexy consumer startup with an outstanding culture and a bright future. We saw no problems getting candidates excited about this one. After signing on with us, we had an excellent kick-off meeting. Acme brought its HR lead, hiring manager, and engineering leader to the meeting. We walked through the job description, which was well-written and clear. We discussed some of the priorities and aligned on a process of working together. No work is easy—but we couldn’t imagine a better way to start.
But we’re struggling. The first few candidates we suggested got a thumbs down. The Acme team shares color on the reasons, which helps and is a normal part of the process. We start getting candidates accepted into the interview process, but they stall mid-way.
So another Friday passes without an offer from Acme to one of our candidates. Pour me a bourbon. Make it a double…
But Monday afternoon, our HR contact, Kelly, sends me a message via Slack. She shares some LinkedIn profiles of “Dream Hires” that she and her team have pulled together over the weekend. Along with the examples, she adds details on what they like about these individuals.
Our team eagerly digs into her examples and notes—and lets out a collective sigh of relief and understanding. Now we’ve got a better picture of the kinds of people that will trigger the “Yes” on our candidates. These examples also allow us to ask deeper questions and clarify their priorities.
A few days later, I grab some time to check in with Kelly, mainly to get feedback on what’s working and what’s not. She says: “The first batch of candidates was off. Then after that feedback, they got better. We realized we needed to see examples to help us hone in on the right candidate. And decided it would be more efficient to find examples of ‘Dream Hires’ to share.” They will make this a part of every new job opening. Kelly briefs me on a new role and search they would like to start—along with new Dream Hire profiles.
“It’s funny,” I reply. “Our team just decided that we’re going to ask our clients to go through this Dream Hire exercise in the future.”
Who Are Your Dream Hires?
Let’s face it, job descriptions suck. As hiring managers, we develop gut feelings for what we need in an open role, but it’s crazy difficult to put that down “on paper” without leaving something out or turning someone off. The result is often copied and pasted from the last open role—or what another company posted.
As a recruiter—whether internal or external—it can be a struggle to get in your hiring manager’s head. So that means we spend the first few weeks of any search putting candidates in front of these decision-makers and using feedback on specific people to learn what they’re really looking for.
The problem is that this can waste tremendous time and create frustration on all sides. It’s very challenging to get happily employed candidates to reply to outreach, then sell them on a role and take an interview. If these people are just decision-refining fodder, everyone wastes time and money.
That’s why asking (and helping) the hiring manager identify Dream Hires is a breakthrough. A few things happen when you start with the end in mind like this:
Forces some empathy and understanding - Hiring managers rely on recruiters but often don’t put themselves in their shoes, leading to misperceptions and miscommunication. When the hiring manager sits in front of LinkedIn and starts searching, they realize this is a tricky operation!
Unearths new information - When a hiring manager shares a Dream Hire example, it leads to a discussion of “Why?” This, in turn, helps get to what’s really behind that algorithm in their heads. In the Acme role above, we got profiles of people at “sexy” tech brands. Our initial take was that they just liked the sexiness. We asked for rationale and learned that this role needed someone who learned the basics at a strong training ground. That made perfect sense.
Drives better decisions - Building out a list of example candidates before you start recruiting can help establish priorities and practice decision-making with potential scenarios. For example, are you willing to lean forward on salary to get someone with this experience? Would you take someone stronger on X but would need to learn Y?
Examples Power Many Choices
Reflecting on this recruiting pro tip, I started to see it being used in so many ways every day.
Netflix doesn’t ask you to write up a description of the ideal TV show you’d like to watch tonight. It makes recommendations based on your and others’ viewing history. Spotify streams songs based on the artists and genres you listen to most often. The server at the restaurant asks what other types of wine you like before suggesting what will go best with the duck.
Hell, until writing this, I had forgotten that we used to do something similar in our previous Influencer Marketing business. During campaign kick-offs for new clients, we would ask them to share examples of their favorite social+influencer campaigns. Everybody loves to talk about what they love. And by asking “Why?” we immediately gathered insights that would help us meet and exceed the creative bar in their minds.
Some may argue that asking for examples this way might hurt the drive for diversity in the workplace. But I’ve seen it lead to improvement in two ways. First, the process helps get requirements down on paper so that individuals can be judged equally based on skills and experience.
Second, the “Why?” discussions can open up different ways to deliver on what’s truly needed. For example, a client recently insisted that a marketing hire have previous work at an early-stage startup. Why? Mainly because they would know how to work effectively with a small budget and an unknown brand. But there are several ways to get this experience—from a personal side hustle, a non-profit volunteer role, or even a skunkworks project at a bigger company.
Cherish the Clients that Improve You
A bigger lesson here is the value of working with clients that are willing and open to change. As you know, this is not always the case…
Instead of saying, “These guys suck…” when we struggled to meet their needs, they took a step back to say, “Something’s not working…what’s a better, different approach we can take to help?” Unsurprisingly, Acme has strong company values, which include “Helpful” and “Pioneering.”
Hiring isn’t easy, and neither is working with service providers—probably because both are heavy on the “people stuff.” Nothing is harder, but nothing is more rewarding when you get it right. Here’s to more happy Fridays—Cheers!
As always, thank you for reading and sharing my posts. The more subscribers I get, the more motivation I have to keep writing!
Bob Gilbreath is a 2x-exit entrepreneur and co-founder of Hearty, a curated matchmaking service that combines top software developers with early-stage, venture-backed startups.