Leadership team

Even the best get it wrong

“The Michael Jordan of exec recruiting only gets it right 2 out of 3 times.”

Tony XuDoordash

First principles of executive hiring

1. The CEO should lead the hiring process. No one knows the company better than you do and no one will sell the company better.
2. Conduct no more than 2 exec searches at a time. Exec searches take 3–4 months and are incredibly time-consuming. You can’t do a good job if you take on more searches.
3. Hire for the next 12–18 months. Avoid hiring a great exec at the wrong stage. Look at the current team and 12–18 months ahead, then identify critical gaps.
4. Org structure and exec hiring go hand in hand. You might need to adjust the structure to set execs up to solve key problems.

Hire for the right stage

Make damn sure you hire executives for the right stage.

The executive hiring process

Stage	Time
Speak to subject matter experts	1–2 weeks
Choose the hiring team	No set time
Draft the job scorecard	1–2 weeks
Source candidates	2 weeks
Build the relationship	1 month
Evaluate candidates	1 month
Close them	1 month

See also Brian Armstrong’s guide to hiring executives.