Time Kills Hires with Andrew Bartlow of Series B Consulting

Time and People are the most precious asset your company has on the road to success or failure. 

As leaders, It is our responsibility to protect the time of our team to ensure that projects are delivered on time. It is also our responsibility to put processes in place that ensure that the strongest people are in the right seat!

Shouldn't each step of the interview process have a purpose and save time for everyone involved?  

Yet Interviewing is the single point of failure in almost every company. 

Too long. 

Too short. 

No clear direction.

Or riddled with boobytraps that repel strong people from even engaging with your company! 

Our guest today:  Andrew Bartlow, Founder & Managing Partner of Series B Consulting.

Which helps businesses to articulate their people strategy and accelerate their growth while navigating rapid change. He also founded the People Leader Accelerator, which is the foremost development program for HR leaders at startups.

Andrew Bartlow has 25 years of Human Resources and Talent Management experience at organizations across a wide spectrum of sizes, maturity stages, and industries. He is the co-author of “Scaling for Success: People Priorities for High Growth Organizations,” 

Andrew has worked with clients like MasterClass and many others to help them overcome obstacles in a hyper-growth phase. 

Today we discuss:

Why your timing kills hires

How to Time out your process in the most effective manner

Challenge today?

Filling roles with good people with less of an internal organization tax

Too many interviews, too much time - I’m out

Over emphasis on consensus, 10-12 people over multiple rounds

Giant time drag on a company  

People fall out 

Offer to close rate 60% is not good!

Why is this important to the company?

Time - interview time takes away from productivity

Rapid growth is usually essential. Time burns cash runway, employee time and goodwill, and competitors keep coming. 

Efficiency matters - particularly at the early growth stages

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Should be able to make rapid hire / no-hire decisions, and fair/reasonable separation decisions without months of agony. 

“Hire slow and fire fast?” I’d suggest looking for a goldilocks zone on both. Take the time necessary, but not one minute more than what is net value-adding to do both. 

Rick’s Nuggets

All that is needed is:

Discovery Call

Value Alignment Interviews 

Working Session (skills)

10 business days max

How do we solve the problem? 

Start by clearly defining the roles that you want to fill

Source candidates in a scalable way

Expand the pool

Employer branding

@ Series A should get beyond friends & family network

Hire a dedicated recruiter

Need a screen / filter before the manager sees the candidate

Passive candidate magnet

Check for compensation expectations & role interest; initial assessment of required skills, knowledge, and experiences

Goal is that ZERO candidates make it to the hiring manager who have out-of-bounds pay or role expectations, and all of those candidates moving forward have experiences that reasonably match the role  

Manager vetting before meeting the team

One and done interview process ~30 minutes 1on1 via video

Confirm that the candidate is interested in the role and the comp budgeted - preclose the candidate

Ask for references here!

A candidate shouldn’t come meet with a team until / unless the hiring manager is a strong advocate to hire them. Don’t waste the broader team’s time.

Work Product Sample (optional - often good for technical roles, but rarely for G&A)

Give a real problem - don’t spend a lot of time coming up with hypotheticals, too many variations which will change

Faster / easier / more accurate to work on a real problem. Just get an NDA.

Related alternatives - Can review Github rather than request a project. Can conduct a live shared-screen working session. Can ask for examples of prior work that demonstrates a good fit for the role.

LOTS of candidates drop out at the projec