Episode 51. Shaping Roles Before Hiring

Speaker A: You're listening to Startup Recruitment Failures. Behind every successful founder lies a tale of recruitment ups and downs. Join me on this thrilling journey and learn first hand from top leaders on how to navigate through challenges and stay

Speaker B: ahead of the game.

Speaker A: We all make mistakes, but the real growth happens when we learn from them early on.

Speaker B: Hello Darren. Thank uh, you so much for participating here today at Startup Recruitment Failures Podcast.

Speaker C: Hi, how are you?

Speaker B: I'm great, how are you? Um, good. Uh, maybe firstly you could introduce yourself ah, to the listeners because you have uh, really impressive experience, ah, working in impressive companies.

Speaker C: Thanks. Um, I've been involved with a number of different types of companies in professional services and technology. My career started, started as a software implementer in the days of large SAP implementation projects and it grew from there where I started working with systems integrators that would implement large platforms, large business software platforms along with infrastructure and additional software and components for quite large companies, enterprise level companies. And as my career grew I started taking on roles as a board member of medium size companies, scaling and growth oriented companies. And now that's what I do full time is I spend all my time with companies who have achieved their first level of growth and they're now trying to scale from that initial point either globally or to broader products or platforms and get returns for their investors.

Speaker B: Okay, that sounds super interesting. Um, and um, today you agreed um, to share um, a few examples um, about uh, proving how important is to correctly uh, shape a role before starting hiring, uh, and all the recruitment tasks. Um, maybe we could start from the first one, um, where you had the situation when uh, a startup, or was it a scale up, already hired a first time team lead.

Speaker C: Yeah. When we first started talking about, you know, what are some of the experiences I've had where um, my recruitment experience or journey didn't go quite to plan. The examples that I've been closest to are examples in scale up. So the company wasn't quite a startup. They had some initial signals of growth, some initial signals of traction, but they also weren't repeatable quite yet. So they sort of sat in that middle zone.

Speaker B: So when that's the most difficult one.

Speaker C: Yeah, because you need characteristics in the role from both sides of it. You need people who have a growth mindset, they have experience in a growing company where everything isn't figured out but they also need to know a little bit about where you're going next. So they need some of those business models or experiences or um, history in the maturity levels of something that's a little bit more than what a startup had.

Speaker B: But a lot of it's kind of a transition period, right? So, and the role itself is changing, right? According to the changing circumstances.

Speaker C: The clue is in the word scale up. You're on a journey to change. Your purpose is to not remain a startup. Your purpose is to get the business into something more mature, more repeatable. So those types of companies attract a lot of profiles that sit on either side of that. And so a number of the folks that um, are often attracted to scale ups are people who are looking to maybe get like a first time team lead role. They might have been a really successful individual contributor, but now they want to do a little bit more. And going to a scale up which is a little more complex, a little more advanced than you know, their history is a pretty good scenario for them to get that kind of opportunity. The challenge becomes is taking a look at where their skills, their personality and their experiences really fit with what has to happen now, but also where you're going and if this is the first time they've moved to the next level, is this the right place for them to do it, given what the business needs to achieve? And, and I had um, a role that we were filling on the people team. In a past experience where it was a team lead role, there was going to be a couple, a handful of individual contributors reporting to somebody who was going to be the team lead. The role wasn't shaped at a, uh, senior level, but it was at a functional lead level. So you did have to have some good solid domain experience and knowledge in the function. You did have to have some cross functional knowledge in terms of what are the other functions in the business doing. And you did need to have some stakeholder management experience because we did have a senior leadership team, we did have a board, we did have more senior colleagues, you know, people at director level, VP level. So you did have to have some background, but didn't how big was the

Speaker B: company and how big was the team M?

Speaker C: The company had about, it was uh, under 100 employees, but that would have been the business plan range would have been moving from sort of that 75 employee level past 100. So it would have been in that range that the role would have had to cover in say a two to three year time frame. And so the challenge was that one of the candidates had very strong domain experience and uh, broad functional experience where they had done in the past, each of the functions that we needed, but they hadn't sat in the chair in the past. So we were going to Be hiring them into the chair for the first time.

Speaker B: You mean without leading experience?

Speaker C: Yes. They hadn't led all of the functions before, but they had done all of the functions before. So that would have been favoring the domain knowledge as opposed to favoring the leadership experience.

Speaker B: Mhm. And how big was the team?

Speaker C: The team would have had two direct reports and then some service providers for some of the functions. So relatively complex already. Unemployment environment where there were several countries already that they would have had to cover. So it wasn't super complex. You know we didn't have 500 employees, we didn't have you know, a six level structure. But there was some complexities around where people worked, you know, the governance of those countries and so forth. We had a flexible uh, employment model. So some of the issues that happen, you know, pre Covid and post Covid were some of the questions we were facing. Um, so we erred on the side of somebody who had experience in the domains thinking that they could expand because

Speaker B: their um, intention, which makes sense actually.

Speaker C: So strong.

Speaker B: So what happened? Ah, why it went wrong.

Speaker C: It went wrong when, well I'll phrase it this way, it started to wobble when the issues that we really needed someone to start tackling sooner rather than later, um, were sort of happening within the first three months of them joining. So they didn't really have a settling in period to get to know the functions within their remit. They had to really hit the ground running and start analyzing our issues and working out how to handle um, some of our key questions right away. So you can imagine if you're somebody who had done the functions but hadn't led the functions, that analytical process of making a decision about what to do about it versus someone has already made the decision and you're sitting down and working on it. That was a challenge.

Speaker B: Can you give an example of um, like um, these uh, challenging situations or like problems the person was not capable to handle?

Speaker C: The global payroll environment, there's um, you know using uh, an employer of record is a key decision that a lot of scale ups who have employees in more than one country decide how they're going to handle that. Like are they going to manage their own payroll themselves and create the legal entities in several countries or are they not going to do that? Are they going to use an employer of record to basically provide that infrastructure to them and run the payroll situation for them. So there's um, pros and cons and various costs to both those situations. And then there's sort of the choice you might make under different growth models. So depending on how you think you're going to grow, your decision might be different in terms of how you go with each of those decisions. So landing on the ground and having to very quickly jump into quite a large topic proved quite a big jump to make. So early on in the role, I think if the individual had had more time to settle into what their own leadership style was going to look like and their own decision making framework was going to look like, it could have

Speaker B: gone a little bit better basically to have a vision. Right, how they think things should be working in most efficient way.

Speaker C: Exactly. Have more time with the functions to sort of understand what they looked like today before they had to come up with okay, here's what I think the strategy needs to look like. It probably could have gone better but our needs were we needed them to hit the ground running much earlier um, with that particular topic and um, it caused a lot of stress for the person and it caused more cycles on the topic and the decision than um, was comfortable for the other leaders in the business. And it meant that we were sort of cycling over the decision quite a few times. Ultimately the decision we made was probably the right decision but with the not right service provider, so it was sort of half okay and um, you know, was it the end of the world? No. Did we experience um, any side effects or long term consequences? Not exactly. It wasn't completely terrible but it wasn't an overly pleasant experience going through that journey and it was probably quite stressful for, for both sides of the equation because you know the person was getting to know everybody. We didn't all know each other yet. So um, you know, if I was to reflect back on the, what would I have done differently? I would have balanced what, what are the key choices, key strategies, key decisions that the person has to do in their first 30, 60, 90 days and what's the magnitude of that compared with what are the experiences the person has to have on the way in?

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Speaker B: But isn't it that uh, people don't want repeat um, working um, on the same after same uh, problems. Right, so it's uh, Very normal that you expect to grow into your role by changing a company.

Speaker C: You do. You typically believe that if somebody is selecting to apply for a job at a scale up company that they're choosing to do that and so they're ready to be doing something new. They have the enthusiasm for that journey and they will jump in with both feet. They know they're going to face some stress. So when they face some stress you sort of expect that they're ready for that.

Speaker B: Um, so was the problem that the person experienced too much stress and they were not happy themselves or it was more like a company's decision? Okay.

Speaker C: No, they experienced the stress of that process because it was quite early in the curve and in their, in their onboarding and then correspondingly their colleagues that were also team leads and leaders within the business that were, they weren't making the decision but they were participants in the decision. They also experienced the additional time in the decision making process. And that's a lot. When you're early on in your journey with a company and you're trying to get to know those people and they're experiencing the stress of the fact that you're not processing the choices that, that we're kind of trying to decide between with the company.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: So it was if they had more experience being a team lead and with that process of proposing a decision and working through might have been a little less stressful for all concerned.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: What it, I think what it felt like for a lot of people was this churning through alternatives that didn't make sense, hadn't been vetted, hadn't been researched sufficiently before they were kind of brought

Speaker B: to the table until um, the person noticed that it's not going to work long term.

Speaker C: Um, better part of a year.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: Better part of a year. Yeah. Because they had experience in the doing. They had. And so when it came to just the, this is how it's set up, just keep doing that, they were actually fine with that part of it. It was when decisions for new things came up and they had to act like a leader. They had to bring the team to the table and facilitate making a decision, making a change, proposing something new. That was all first time experiences for this person. Mhm.

Speaker B: Do you think that anything, um, could have helped, for example some additional coaching or some uh, I don't know, learning, uh, or conferences or finding a mentor, I don't know, like uh, something to help that person to be more uh, supported in their function early on?

Speaker C: I think shaping the role around emphasis and focus would have helped the candidate but also the other leaders working with the candidate in terms of saying, look, there's these really important topics and then there's the business as usual stuff. We're going to need your time to be split with like say 60% of your time on the new stuff. And there's already people in the team for the old stuff that you know, can kind of carry on the way it has and then also shared that, shared that with other people so that the people that the candidate would be working with would also understand. Oh okay. The majority of their time is going to be spent on these emerging topics. It's going to take a little more time and have everybody's expectations managed around where the emphasis would be what they're bringing to the table. Not everyone participates in the recruitment process, do they? So some people know the new person well because they might have interviewed them during the process or met, but then others don't. So kind of more that upfront sharing and surfacing, what are the priorities of the role? So how is the person going to be coming in? And you know, maybe if the candidate knew that I think they might have chosen something different also.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Um, because it's a very common problem. Right. And especially uh, when you just start scaling. Um, because there's no time for things like, you know, um, I think it's the best when the whole team can meet the candidate and they all can agree and at least know their experience and everything. And um, onboarding process. It also uh, like everyone is like in such a rush and it's no time, you know, to really sit and talk and discuss all the details. Um, so because we, we in our heads we think that everyone knows what it's needed. Right. And like you're working in the same company so how come you cannot see it? Um, but yeah, so like as always we need to really take our time because this is the most important time thing.

Speaker C: One of the other things that was sort of going on in the background is um, the hiring manager for that role probably started hiring quite late, probably later than they should have like starting the recruiting process. So by the time the person sort of joined the business, the need for some specific decisions to be made was very, very high. And ah, so there was this pent up energy around. Okay, now we've got this person, we'll be able to move forward on that topic that we've been waiting for for so long. And that pent up energy isn't really, you know, it's not the new person's Fault. It's the fault of the people that, that have been in the business for a while.

Speaker B: Exactly. If there is already going soon enough, if ah, there is already a problem in a company, you cannot expect that the person, the new person will come and solve everything. Right?

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: So there's the pent up energy with somebody who this is a real opportunity for them, they're excited. This is the first time they've been a team lead and they arrive and there's a bit of pent up energy. They didn't necessarily understand the emphasis of like how much of your time should be spent on making this new stuff work versus just um, keep the old stuff going. It's fine. So it really put a lot of stress on things. And so I think that up front shaping of the person, the role but also the situation. Mhm around the role and the person is really important for the person but also the colleagues of the person, everyone

Speaker B: has to be aligned. And um, you also um, mentioned a similar um case, maybe not so similar, um, hiring a person from only having experience working in a startup for a scale up company.

Speaker C: Yeah uh, it can happen on both sides where scaling sits in the middle as you said. So if you hire somebody who perhaps is early career or mid career but really all of their experience is coming from quite small companies, they might only possess knowledge of those quite small examples of how a function or a process might work. Then on the flip side there's the other direction where you're a scale up and you want some of those heavy hitting skills, you want some real maturity out of maybe a, a more senior role and you might be looking at candidates and finding the ones that have worked for very large companies attractive. But on the flip side they sometimes, not always, but a lot of times have only worked in a context where a lot of things have already been figured out for them. And so then they come to work for a scale up and the job is to figure out how.

Speaker B: So um, maybe to continue with. You could share an example uh, when a person only with a startup experience joined a scale up and what was their position?

Speaker C: So in a prior role one of the companies that I had been advising on their go to market strategy and some of their key roles in sales and business development, they were taking a look at what they needed to move beyond sort of founder led sales and the original model where they got their early product market fit, started scaling into more repeatable sales and expanding their footprints with customers. And the candidate that we ended up hiring was a very charismatic um, Large personality, lot of domain experience. But most of their experience, even though they carried a title in past roles that suggested they'd been a little more senior, like a manager or director level, the scenario that they were in was startups, quite small startups, startups of like under 10 employees. So really most of their experience had been going from zero to uh, not a very sophisticated um, sales approach and strategy and go to market. And so when we started to need more mature approaches for the kinds of clients that we needed, um, the person who took on the role just simply didn't have them in their experience and would actually feel somewhat intimidated by other folks on the team that had seen other types of business models or approaches or processes. And it started to create some friction.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Between various team members. And so I was um, an advisor to this business and they were sort of describing what the scenario was. I met with the various players in the team and we came up with a bit of a strategy around reshaping some of the roles to play to the individual strengths. Mhm. When you take a look at like how did this happen? How did this get here, how did that get there? The thing that appeared to happen is the product for the team was a very high knowledge value product. And so because the candidate had such strong industry background, they really valued that separately from the other skills that were needed. So great skills in that area but missing skills in the other areas which were actually the areas needed to start to scale.

Speaker B: What were the missing skills?

Speaker C: The missing skills were team development. Like how do you develop a sales team? How do you add others to your team that have the right.

Speaker B: What was the role of the person?

Speaker C: It was a sales manager role. And it was in the time when we were moving from having individual salespeople, uh, to having a sales team, moving from having uh, more like founder led sales to having a base of customers that could then be grown like accounts and from capturing more market share from the ideal customer profile in our target segments. So those concepts where you are trying to move to a more mature place possibly because you're getting another round of funding where um, you need some more maturity in that business model and you need to be able to showcase that you're capturing more. Um, the company had valued the domain experience of the individual more than their ability to grow a team. Mhm. And probably because the people interviewing for the role were the founders of the business. So in a way they were hiring in their own image versus getting input from other people that had hired for roles at different more mature stages. Of the growth of the business. Mhm.

Speaker B: It's more like a bias hiring. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Which everybody, if you're a founder and you trust sales, like business development into other person's hands, um, the chemistry has to be there. Right. And sometimes we overestimate, um, overvalue actually the chemistry.

Speaker C: Yeah. And it sort of begs the question when you're a scale up and you're starting to fill in some of your roles with a little more maturity experiences from a broader range of companies, you know, who is doing the hiring, who is involved in the hiring process, who is involved with shaping the brief for the role and you know what's getting included in there. Because you might be hiring for a person that isn't currently employed in the business. And so it's difficult, it's difficult to describe somebody you don't work with yet.

Speaker B: Exactly. So it's in both ways.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Uh, uh, on one hand, um, like I always suggest founders to interview at least 10 potential candidates, 20 the best, and then to select. Because if you're, especially if you're not a specialist, like if you're like a technical founder or you don't have experience in marketing and you're hiring cmo, so better ask candidates and uh, then you will understand what your business needs. Right. On the other hand, you need to have like business goals at least. Right. In order to check whether these people know how to achieve these goals.

Speaker C: Um, I had one recruiter that I worked with in the past that did a good job of showcasing a slate of candidates, a range. So that when you were in the interview process you could actually see different levels of maturity in an individual candidate. And that was helpful for um, the hiring manager to see what they didn't currently work with. See a live example of somebody that maybe overshot the requirements but also was maybe on the lower end and make an informed choice of where in that curve do we need to hire for the business plan, how far we expect that person to go.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because we always talk about the ideal candidates profile. Right. But on the other end it's like is it really possible to draw the ideal candidate profile?

Speaker C: I doubt.

Speaker B: So it's really good to compare, um, and then to make the final decision.

Speaker C: I really find that when candidates are really good at not treating the interview like an interview, but treating the interview like a conversation, you actually learn quite a lot as the hiring manager in the conversation as well. And it's, it can really change your mind about where you want to hire from.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it also helps a lot to Give a task assignment on a very high level, uh, but basically reflecting your company's needs and just to see the thinking process. Right. Just asking a person, a candidate to walk through that thinking process. And in this way it's pretty easy to assess the level of uh, maturity um, for the role basically. Uh, and it doesn't have to be like really specific or like solving a specific problem, but just to see like what, what is, what are the habits and are they already formed or the person will just come and learn uh, at your company. Right. And maybe for corporate it's great but for a scale up it's could cost too much.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's like a live example where you get to see how they shape their thoughts, how do they shape the questions and answers that they might consider for the exam question. Um, having that sort of at the later stages of the interview process, especially for team lead roles or senior contributor or expert style roles, it's not so much that every single thing they have to do needs to be in their background, but if you can see how they think, you can start to estimate how might they handle it in the future? How might they interact with people when they're working out the way forward.

Speaker B: I remember once, um, um, I was working with a company and they were hiring for a manager's role and um, a person um, that was in a HR department and the person literally had to spend the whole day talking to all the team leads um, and managers, uh, and really grasping, not identifying. I mean you cannot do the whole job in one day but just measuring the temperature and then at the end of the day uh, presenting their findings and what would be the focus if they would be joining uh, that role. And it doesn't have to be 100% accurate. Um, because of course the person cannot understand the whole situation of uh, the company's uh, state. Uh, but um, yeah, it just helps to see how the person is asking what is the communication between, with various uh, stakeholders. Because this is super important too. Right. Um, so yeah, basically I always suggest to um, create like a few pillars where you see the person should perform and then to test those. Right. Uh, because sometimes like experience cannot can be different in different companies. Right. And just the title, it doesn't represent everything as much.

Speaker C: No it doesn't. And with certain industries, even for entry level roles or early individual contributor roles, the amount of thinking and processing that the role requires is actually quite high. So there's a lot of industries now where the roles that were merely following steps or merely doing as you were told they don't actually exist quite like that anymore.

Speaker B: So almost you are coming to the market, right?

Speaker C: Yeah, almost. M. Every role requires some level of structured thinking or some level of listening, you know, responding back, giving feedback. And so creating a, um, scenario where you can watch some of that happen. Um, yeah. Tells you a lot in terms of what you want out of the candidates, but also as the candidate, it. It gives you a chance to showcase what you can do.

Speaker B: Yeah. And for the candidate themselves. Right. Um, they can see whether they will feel really in their shoes talking to these people. Right. Every day. So it's a nice test for both of the parties.

Speaker A: Great.

Speaker B: Darren, uh, thank you so much, uh, for your time and participating today.

Speaker C: It's been great to speak with you. Thanks very much.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit subscribe on the media of your choice. You can find us on Spotify, Apple and YouTube. And if you need help with your recruitment, please visit jabberlai.com.