Talent Strategy

Since joining my current company I’ve been mostly absorbing new information while trying to add a bit along the way. In my role leading Executive Search I have a unique vantage point where I sit next with the rest of the recruiting team but a lot of the issues that they have to deal with, I don’t. Namely, how an inefficient process can compound so severely as to completely slow down an entire recruiting team. We just recently switched out ATS and while the new ATS is fantastic, it’s been interesting for me to watch the inefficiencies a recruiter working on 20 roles at the same time will find, particularly when most of their job is phone screens, a very different experience than I have.

If there is anything that I’ve walked away with it’s how important an efficient process is in enabling talent to quickly walk through the door, and in conjunction, how much effort it takes to develop a process that makes things smooth. At a certain level, most issues become people issues (a hiring manager is being too specific, a recruiter can’t execute quickly enough) but there’s this massive foundation that is required to even run into those problems, namely developing effective tools and systems. For example, one thing we never thought about at my previous company was sponsorship or stock complexities. In comparison, those are big questions that our recruiters deal with every day. Particularly with a pool of technical talent that is highly sought after, being able to sponsor a candidate can be a competitive advantage. However, in practice, that means developing the system to sponsor unique candidates, the ability to track and sequence their sponsorship process in conjunction with the hire, and constantly evaluating against federal guidelines that change every day. In short, the question isn’t “can our recruiters recruit this person effectively” the question becomes “can we actually feasibly hire this person and ensure they are legally authorized to work here without needing to buy an entirely new tracking system. Then, who is responsible for tracking it?” At a high growth startup, the overall issue is a systems issue, which of course, you need to couple with great recruiting talent.

At the executive level, a large part of my job is trying to think critically about what we actually need. At other companies, a hire can be a plug and play, even at an executive level, around a VP of Brand Marketing. There are literally thousands of VP’s of Brand Marketing. Some are better than others but for the most part, the experience is roughly the same. Here, there is a far more interesting question, which is making sure we are identifying the right talent, with the right scale, who can help us at this specific phase in our growth and over the next 5+ years.

For a company that is growing, a business may look incredibly different in 5 years which means the profile we may want today isn’t necessarily the profile we might need 5 years from now. I spend my time trying to understand if someone can balance the near term agility and systems building required for a role, with the experience at scale that we aspire (and are growing) towards. Then, of course, this is all through the lens of an executive team & CEO they will work very closely with, and more than anything else, those people need to be able to partner and have fun working closely together. The reason I’ve liked this job is because while I’m still working on some relatively standard stuff (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) I am constantly engaging with these thornier strategic questions that don’t have clear answers.