WHEN DAVE CARVAJAL TALKS about recruiting for more than just “technical chops,” he reminds me how I’ve tried to look beyond the job specs. While spending nearly a decade as an executive at Microsoft and later as the founder of the not-for-profit, Room to Read, I’ve searched for candidates who were passionate about what we were trying to accomplish. This was my sine qua non for filling any job.
Obviously, the two organizations are quite different: Microsoft a titan of the technology world, and Room to Read, a little-known startup promoting literacy and gender equality across the developing world. Yet despite the differences in purpose and size, I recruited the same type of people for both—people who communicated their zeal for and excitement about our goals.
Were Microsoft candidates amped up about building a great technology company? Were Room to Read candidates juiced about educating kids and helping millions of children who had lost “the lottery of life” and risked never gaining even a basic education? Who were vulnerable to being caught up in terrorism, human trafficking, and other horrors if they were denied access to education?
I needed to see that spark in their eyes and hear the enthusiasm and commitment in their voices. If I saw it and heard it, they were as good as hired. If they lacked it, it didn’t matter how skilled they were; they weren’t going to receive a job offer from me.
When Dave writes about the benefits of recruiting people whose mission mirrors that of the founder(s) and whose values fit the culture, I know exactly what he’s talking about.
For entrepreneurs, be they startup or not-for-profit founders, overcoming obstacles is crucial for success. The obstacles can run the gamut—competing against better-known not-for-profits for donations or convincing a prospective customer to give you their business rather than a bigger competitor. I’ve found that when I didn’t hire people whose passion and gumption resembled my own, they struggled to overcome obstacles. They gave up, or settled for compromises.
But when they were as stubborn and committed as I was, they found ways to hurdle obstacles—or barrel right through them—in order to reach an objective.
That’s why I listen for very specific stories from job candidates. It might be a story about how education helped their grandmother break free from the poverty cycle. Or how when they were a kid, they walked into the school library and the books they discovered were a portal to the world that changed their lives. Or how a teacher helped them achieve something they thought was impossible.
Whatever it is, if I don’t hear examples of passion and enthusiasm during the first ten minutes of an interview, my mind starts to drift and I won’t hire them.
As I read Hire Smart from the Start, I was particularly impressed with Dave’s advice about the need for a structured recruiting process—and the process that he details. Dave is someone who has used this process countless times to recruit people for jobs in the hotly competitive tech sector. He’s been able to convince leaders to leave great jobs at huge companies for positions at startups.
How? By following the process steps rather than winging it. By definition, entrepreneurs like to fly by the seat of their pants (I’m guilty as charged!). This works in some areas, but it can be a problem in recruiting. For instance, as you may imagine, I tend to respond instinctively when I interview job candidates. If I really like someone, I tell my people, “Hire them, they’ll be great.” When they ask me why I believe they’ll perform well, I respond, “I’m not sure, but just bring them in, let’s let them prove how good they can be.”
I do not recommend this approach, since it leads to mistakes. And hiring mistakes are costly—especially when you only have a handful of employees. As one of my mentors told me, “People problems tend to age more like milk than wine.” If you have four good employees and you hire an ill-fitting fifth one, 20% of your workforce has gone bad.
Entrepreneurs in both the not-for-profit and private sectors can’t afford these errors. As Room to Read started to grow (to 1400 employees as of this writing), our team recommended that we implement a more structured process in which they would do the initial round of interviews, asking all those technical questions I’d be less likely to ask. If the candidate made it through those rounds, I could then act as the “closer,” assessing for cultural fit, passion, work ethic, and commitment to our cause.
Before we had implemented this structured recruitment and interview approach, we hired some people who were dead wrong for our organization. My Room to Read co-founder Erin and I had been advised that, given our corporate backgrounds, we needed to make sure our next hire was a veteran non-profit professional. This went against our beliefs—we wanted to hire a superstar corporate salesperson to spearhead our fundraising efforts. But board members and others advised us to look in the non-profit world, and we eventually found someone I’ll call Kate. She had great credentials, but on her first day, second hour on the job, she loudly announced to the “bullpen” where all five members of our proud little staff were working cheek-to-jowl: “I have a question.”
“What’s the company’s sick leave policy?”
WTF? was the first thing that came to mind. She’s been here for two hours, and this is what’s top of her mind? I tried to avoid smiling at the eye rolls of my co-worker Emily, and instead tersely replied: “If you’re sick, don’t come to work. Otherwise, be here.”
I was furious, not just with Kate but with myself. There’s nothing wrong with asking about company sick leave at some point. But to make it the first question asked of the boss on the first day of work was a red flag. It demonstrated that she had other things on her mind besides helping our fledging not-for-profit to grow and help as many kids as possible.
I had made this mistake because I hadn’t done what Dave advocates: Communicate the company mission and values in a way that provokes an insightful response from job candidates.
From that moment on, I followed Dave’s advice.
I didn’t mince words during interviews, insisting that we only wanted employees who possessed a Get Shit Done attitude. We told candidates early in the process: “This is not a 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday kind of place. We’re going big, so we’ll be delegating a lot to you. If you don’t have a strong work ethic, this is not the right company for you.”
And most important of all, I described our highly ambitious vision and mission. As I had learned from Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, bold goals attract bold people. The corollary is also true: wimpy goals attract wimpy people. I sold the big vision—that we’d reach 10 million children with the lifelong gift of education by 2020, and anything less than that was unacceptable. Similarly, I was clear that we were pursuing meteoric growth for the sake of those kids—ultimately, you report to them!
Once I learned how to recruit the right way, we began hiring people who fit with Room to Read and helped our organization to soar. As a result, we reached our 10 millionth student five years early—by 2015, and have raised our 2020 goal to 15 million.
If you want your entrepreneurial enterprise to soar, I highly recommend that you and your entire team read this book. No entrepreneurial journey is ever easy, but if you take Dave’s advice to heart, and then implement it, you’re a giant step closer to building the world’s next great organization. I wish you luck!
—John Wood
Founder of Room to Read
JOHN WOOD is the author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, which was chosen by Amazon as one of the Top Ten Business Narratives of 2006 and featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show. His next book is The Purpose Migration.