4 Tactics to Ensure Quality of Hire During Hypergrowth

February 5, 2014 at 10:00 PM by Rob Stevenson

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This is the second in a two-part series covering how to recognize top recruiting metrics and refuse to sacrifice one for another, particularly in times of hypergrowth. In this post, Sr. Tech Recruiter Andrew Parrott discusses how to maintain quality in hectic times of hypergrowth.

In my previous post, I discussed Quality of Hire as the most important recruiting metric, and explained methods for recognizing quality in potential hires. Unfortunately, finding quality hires can be a lengthy process, and oftentimes, recruiters have an immediate need to put bodies at desks. It is, however, possible to find a balancing point between the two and not sacrifice quality for timeliness. Follow these 4 tenets to ensure both hiring quality and quantity for your organization.

Hire From the Top Down

As an example, if you hire a dev team before you hire a Dev Manager, that’s a recipe for disaster. If someone is willing to take a full-time job without knowing to whom he/she will report, their motivations for taking the job may be less than ideal, and far worse, they could wind up clashing and working poorly with their future boss. There are multiple advantages to “top down” hiring; among them:

  • The best know the best. Managers may be able to bring some key people with whom they have worked in the past, not only saving recruiting time and cost, but also creating a more seamless team dynamic, which has efficiency implications ranging from onboarding to production.
  • Referrals are statistically better performers and more loyal employees.
  • Each successive employee who is added to the team has the ability to participate in subsequent interviews of his/her peers, giving the individual a voice and vested interest in the team’s success.
  • The manager is unable to play the victim card, or to be used as a scapegoat by the company: He/she selected and built the team and can confidently take ownership and accountability for both the successes and learning opportunities.

Backwards Plan

When you grow 28 percent YOY as ServiceSource has done the past few years (we hired 1,000 people in 2013), you can’t just go crush LinkedIn and other job boards without a plan. You have to build a recruiting team, an engine. You have to conduct meetings with executive stakeholders and outline every step of the recruiting process, from how long it will take to source candidates to what vendor(s)/tool(s) you may use and projected costs, to interview teams/areas of focus, to hiring and selection timetables, all while perpetually gathering input and commitment from hiring managers to participate in the process, emphasizing that placements “yesterday” depend upon iterative, timely feedback and involvement from the manager and his/her teams.

From a recruiting team standpoint, self-awareness is key. Hire top performers who complement your weaknesses, aren’t afraid to challenge your opinions, and sometimes drive you crazy. The goal is not to have 10 All-Star quarterbacks—it’s to have a versatile, All-Star team of role players who can all teach, learn from, and grow with one another. Implement standard operating procedures (SOPs), but give people the freedom to create, produce and do their best work within these (sometimes flexible) parameters.

Patience/Creative Thinking

Most of us are familiar with Apple’s recent hire of Angela Ahrendts, Burberry’s CEO, to run Apple’s retail efforts. The story behind the story is that Apple CEO Tim Cook was willing to wait 18 months to find the right fit, placing an emphasis on cultural and strategic intangibles rather than traditional pedigree (Why Apple's Talent Approach is Becoming Increasingly Common). Obviously, not all hires should take 18 months. But the business maxim “It’s better to be first with the worst than second with the best” does not apply to talent recruitment—in fact, it’s a detrimental and dangerous approach to long-term team building.

My good friend and SendGrid’s Manager, Recruiting Operations Josh Anderson, dropped this gem over lunch last week:

For me, the turning point was when I started treating vendors as partners instead of as annoyances. I realized their tools often had a lot of value-add and was able to forge reciprocal, symbiotic partnerships, effectively helping build multiple companies simultaneously.”

In order to grow, the right partnerships—both internally and externally—are key. Get out and evaluate existing and new technologies, and see what best fits your org.

Cash is not (necessarily) King

Pay market rates, as the best candidates know their value. But the best candidates also know the value of opportunity via career path, mentorship by a talented leader, etc. Great money does not outweigh poor management, culture, or product. The advice I give candidates is “better a great leader/team with a poor company than a poor leader/team with a great company.” I’ve had candidates accept offers $25,000 less than competing offers based on cultural fit and growth opportunities. The best talent wants fair pay and stretch opportunities on an A+ team.

To sum up, you don’t necessarily have to choose between quality of hire and time to hire. Hiring from the top down, working backwards and complementing your weaknesses, emphasizing cultural and strategic fit, and knowing what truly motivates talent are all ways you can begin to lock down top candidates while navigating the hectic and time-sensitive hypergrowth waters. 

Andrew is currently responsible for Technical and Executive Search for ServiceSource (SREV), which he joined shortly after the company’s IPO to establish internal recruiting. Andrew has nearly a decade of experience building recruiting and technical teams, working with high-growth technical startups in the Denver-Boulder area such as Photobucket, mywedding.com, EffectiveUI, ibotta and others via his own consulting company, D3 Inc.

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