Hiring on the mountain
As anyone with bad knees will tell you (🙋🏻♀️),
Downhill is not always easier.
The same applies to resumes.
When hiring, we often look for impressive titles, big brands, and upward career progressions.
We associate these with competence and with success.
But here's the thing:
That's not what those titles signify.
Those titles only tell us what other folks have thought about a candidate in the past.
Those titles show the opportunities this candidate has been given by others.
Those titles tell you that this candidate got to the top of a mountain,
But they don't tell you HOW they got there - or what they learned along the way.
If you’re hiring for a startup, this is especially important.
Because transitioning from a startup to a big business is infinitely easier than going the other way.
Why?
Because startups force you to understand the entire business.
Many of the top CFOs I interview say that working in startups was a critical step in their education.
Meanwhile, big business experience often teaches all the wrong instincts for a startup—
How to specialize, silo, politic, and optimize for stability instead of growth.
So when you’re evaluating a candidate, it doesn’t matter so much if they:
Worked for a great brand
Went to the best school
Managed a huge P&L
I’d rather hire someone who was the last one standing at a shuttering startup,
Than someone who happened to be along for the ride at a Fortune 100.
It’s not about whether they climbed up the mountain or stumbled down it.
What matters is that they struggled and survived,
And have lived to tell you the tale in this interview.
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