The Collective Search

I’ve gotta confess- I’d always resisted the idea of doing a podcast. With a fiery passion. Of all the things the world needs, it really didn’t feel like a regular broadcast of my face was up there near the top of the list. What do I know that’s so triple-platinum special, anyway? But eventually, I started noticing a pattern: the smartest founders, the most innovative companies - when they get in big trouble, it tends to be for one core reason. Hiring mistakes. Overhiring. Misaligned hires for positions of leadership. Inability to screen for problematic characters. Defunct onboarding processes. And it dawned on me that for the cornucopia of books on nailing product market fit or inspirational leadership, there’s very little shared knowledge base out there on how to avoid these disastrous pitfalls while scaling your team. So that’s how Between Two Hires (or the Subtle Art of not F*&%#ing Up Your Team) came to be. Several incredible (and inevitably hilarious) battle-scars conversations later and I know this one is worth doing. Thank you so much for being a part of it, Tushar Makhija Ted Blosser Nick Ferdon Matt Cameron Kevin Gaither Nellie Aube Todd Busler Liam H. Mulcahy. Much more to come next year. Happy Holidays everyone! May we all hire *right* in 2024.

Interview Nightmares: Grown Men Cry Edition Listen, job interviews are inherently emotionally vulnerable situations. You never know what’s going on behind the scenes for a candidate. As interviewers, we’ve gotta keep that in mind and tread sensitively. But also… It’s obviously on the candidate to do some emotional management. We always try to coach our candidates to have a dating mindset and never lose sight of the fact that if the fit isn’t mutual, nobody will be happy. But uh, life is life sometimes, eh? Here’s hoping the candidate in question found their opportunity.

This is the dark side of sales hiring… I tell our clients all the time: You can teach a decent person any number of skills. It’s much harder to teach a skilled person how to be decent. People first, resumes second. Every time. Thanks Kevin Gaither for the reminder! What’s the worst hire you’ve ever made?

The Introverted Salesperson. Do they exist? On our latest Between Two Hires, Kevin Gaither says the best sales hire he ever made looked nothing like your stereotypical salesy salesperson. And frankly, the more time I spend in sales recruiting, the more I think over-indexing for personality characteristics like outgoing or charming often hurts more than helps. We live in a world where a lot of the initial “salesy” stuff happens before the prospect even interacts with a rep - informational videos on your website, online reviews of your product etc etc. So what you will often need these days is someone who is very consultative, empathetic, an excellent listener, a methodical thinker. Which can often correlate with a more introverted disposition. What are your thoughts? Do you look for typical salesy personalities? Has the bell tolled for the gong-banging sales bro?

What’s the most important skillset of a sales leader? Go. Kevin Gaither has been scaling high-growth sales teams since the last millennium. After 25 years of lessons learned, he’s come to believe it’s being an effective recruiter. I mean, that’s an easy agree for me. Businesses are an aggregation of people. Great people can turn around a bad product, weather a crisis. But a couple bad apples can pee even in the prettiest of pools. Would you agree?

Do you consider yourself lucky? And here I thought I’d heard them all! Quite brilliant. I always like to ask about people’s favorite interview questions and while many of them are really smart, they all still kind of tend to be stuff that a candidate might more or less expect. This one though, I imagine is quite disarming. And really get at personal insights that may have otherwise stayed far off from the topic of conversation. I actually can’t wait to try this one. Nick Ferdon SVP Revenue at Candidly bringing the goods. You guys have any out-there interview questions that you like to ask?

Red Flag Alert This has always been a massive no no for me with all our candidates. Never. Badmouth. Your. Former. Employer. I think it’s just always the wrong way to try and gain credit with a prospective employer. What do you guys reckon? Is there ever a place in an interview for the candidate to complain about a past boss?

The Clockwork Orange group interview experience. I'm glad we decided to ask this question on Between Two Hires. “Have you had any weird interview experiences?” It never disappoints. 4 hour interviews - just maybe its not the way to go.. The smart ones draw from past experiences to design better ones. Nick Ferdon, SVP of Revenue at Candidly brought it on this episode of Between Two Hires.

Dreams do come true. Ten years ago I was weighing the decision to leave the relative security of working for a major international recruiting firm and strike out on my own in the US. I knew it would be hard. But I also knew it was the only way to materialize the visions I had for my life. To be surrounded by leaders and pioneers, inspired by the caliber of the people I get to spend time with. To be able to offer them unique value, be a catalyst in the success of world-changing companies. Fast forward to today - it all played out and then some. To celebrate Hirewell’s acquisition of The Collective Search, we hosted a Charitable Casino Cruise in support of City of Dreams. Victorious uproar at the craps table, incredible conversation everywhere - and as a special stroke of good luck, fireworks over the city, courtesy of APEC. And I realized I was in exactly the company I’d always hoped to be in one day. Thankful for the relationships, thankful for the brilliant people I have around me. Lots to be thankful for. Tushar Makhija Cassady Churchill Luigi Congedo 💻We are hiringShawn Repulles Greg Costigan (he / him)Ashwin MudaliarSuresh Khanna David Aviles Jacquelynne Suguitan Sarah Rebello Marcus Knight Alex Netsch Dan Lynch Trey Valbuena Eric Jaso Dakota McKenzie Curtis Ropp Elizabeth Niemczyk Katie Harkins Steve Peck Josie Maltbie Riley Hutchinson Josh MayJordan CrawfordAbid Hussain James Costantini Julian Sheinbaum Claire Xie Nick C. Vern DavisMatt MassucciJames HornickJennifer SalernoMichael TheronEmily Goor Alex Zalewski

Careful who you get in bed with. Remember when Nellie Aube talked about those professional sales-interviewee con-artists? Then last week, Matt Cameron shared his raging misogynist cautionary tale. The takeaway’s clear: Who people list as references is never going to be where you find the boo-boos. Gotta. Do. Your. Backchannel. The big question is, how much sleuthing is the right amount of sleuthing. Don’t wanna miss anything important… …don’t wanna track down every high school report / ex-girlfriend. Do you backchannel your hires? What’s the right amount? And for bonus points: what’s the most shocking thing you’ve discovered through a backchannel? Liam H. Mulcahy shares his play