Amy Adler's "How I Hire"

John Gates is a former head ot talent acquisition and recruiting for Fortune 500 companies, overseeing global talent teams. He runs two businesses. Recruiting Transformations (recruitingtransformations.com) focuses on elevating and uplifting recruiting strategies and processes. Salary.coach is home to John's compensation negotation consulting businss. Please visit his LinkedIn profile and connect here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngates2/.

What happens to an executive’s hiring process when they go from a Fortune 500 to a smaller corporation to founding a business? Tom Gardner, CEO and founder of CircleOp, tells This Is How I Hire that not much changes—all the foundational principles remain the same. By way of background, Tom founded CircleOp, an app that guides meeting leaders and participants to maximize the effectiveness of work meetings. Prior to founding this company, he served as COO and General Manager of Trailhead Engineering, capitalizing on a long executive career that began in design engineering. Tom and I discuss, how he came to rely on his well-developed set of best practices for learning about and selecting candidates—and when he broke those rules to hire quickly and fire thoughtfully.

I’m honored to be speaking today with James E. Kelly, currently the US Business Development Lead for Sulzer, which delivers syringe-based mixing and administration of ortho biologics and pharmaceuticals. Jim Kelly is this incredible mix of startup, global corporate, sales, marketing, and even military. He’s worked at some of the biggest names in medical device manufacturing—Merit Medical, Biosphere, and Johnson & Johnson, just to name a few. He’s also spearheaded the development and commercialization of some pretty cool biodevice startups, working with the University of Utah Technology and Venture Commercialization organization as an advisor and growth catalyst. I always enjoy speaking with Jim about his background and leadership style, because he’s super insightful about his expertise and always ready to invite an answer to a question—or to describe an experience from his deep and broad background. As you listen in on our chat, I hope you will see, as I did, the way Jim’s depth of personal research throughout the hiring process impacts his decision-making process, especially as he chooses to hire individuals with different types of knowledge from his own.

Today I’m having a conversation with Rebecca Van Doren, Senior Director of Commercial Development, Renal Pharmaceuticals at Fresenius Medical Care North America, which provides comprehensive programs of specialty pharmacy, laboratory, and medical device services to patients living with chronic illness. Prior to serving in this role, Rebecca held a number of global positions with Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, IKARIA, DaVita Kidney Care, and Nabi Pharmaceuticals. Throughout her career, Rebecca’s strategic leadership has encompassed marketing, sales, operations, and, of course, the commercial excellence strategy that unifies these and business partners across the organization.Rebecca is a powerhouse—her resume is a series of wins that most professionals can only hope for, and she owns it. It was unsurprising to me that she once mentioned she was a committed athlete, and is as committed to professional success—both of her organization and her team. So when we started to talk about what it means to hire that team, I was struck by her offhand comment that leaders simply do not discuss the process and strategy of hiring enough. To her mind, this is a conversation that we have to have as leaders to build the right organizations. And for the people she’s hiring? It’s about finding common ground and knowing that your heart and your gut are aligned.

Today’s interview is with Victor Ingalls, who is a senior vice president and general manager of operations at the recently established Lehi, UT, site of LendingClub. LendingClub is America’s largest lending marketplace and operates in the fintech space and is headquartered in San Francisco. Victor joined LendingClub a few years ago, after a stellar global career with American Express. He has been instrumental in expanding LendingClub’s geographic footprint and in leading the selection of hundreds of employees for the Lehi site, from line staff to management to the executive team. I met Victor during his time with American Express, when he invited me to present at the site’s Career Week event, and he also invited me out to San Francisco to teach job search strategies to several hundred of his LendingClub team during a major transition within the company. I mention this because I have experienced firsthand Victor’s dedication to his employees’ career development, and I firmly believe in his commitment to the process of hiring, developing, and promoting superior talent. So keep listening—you also will hear firsthand about what Victor Ingalls, SVP and General Manager, considers “table stakes”—the tangible must-haves to be hired—and how he envisions the process of recruiting candidates that demonstrate the above-and-beyond talent and characteristics that inevitably will support an incredible work culture.