Episode Summary:

Travis and Kevin talk with the Founder and current Principal at CAPTIVATE TALENT, Christopher Gannon, about how to hire the right people, what makes a bad employee, building a repeatable hiring process, and more.

Christopher Gannon Short Bio:

Christopher is the Founder and Current Principal at CAPTIVATE TALENT, a talent solutions consultancy that focuses on placing top revenue professionals at growth stage technology organizations. They help their clients not only attract and hire, but also retain top talent. Christopher has been in recruiting for fifteen years and has worked for big firms, as well as internally in head talent acquisition positions for a few startups. Some of Christopher’s skills include talent attraction, candidate experience, global recruitment strategy, salary negotiations, pinpoint recruitment, and scaling revenue teams.

Episode Highlights:

1. Tenure of SDR- 18 months
2. Cost of new hires
3. Training/onboarding 
4. Learning and development team
5. Comparing the hiring process to dating
6. To revamp playbook of bad process
7. Stop, reevaluate, and find out where your relationships are
8. “If I know a client is relying on me and I’m exclusive with them, I will go stand in the highway and stop traffic for them.”
9. “People fail to stop and ask why things didn’t work out.”
10. “Do we just try to hit quotas, or do we find people we would go to war with?”
11. HR tech companies taking advantage of accessibility of hiring
12. Sales has the highest voluntary turnover rate
13. How to level set reality for candidates
14. Being transparent is rare
15. Candidates have to dig into culture
16. “I’ve probably lost candidates from being overly transparent.”
17. “You could have the best product in the world, but if you have bad leadership, it falls apart.”
18. “It doesn’t matter how good your product is if you can’t grow your company.”
19. “I think growing and scaling from a personnel standpoint is the number one overlooked thing in the startup world, and it’s the Achilles heel for most companies.”
20. Most people don’t have a product good enough to just sell itself
21. “You have to hire people you can go to war with, even when things are good.”
22. Are you willing to bet your career on this person?
23. Reference checks
24. Defining a bad employee:
25. Someone who burns resources
26. Not making revenue
27. Kills culture
28. Hiring for culture, “without culture you’re done.”
29. “Turnover is inevitable, but if you’re hiring against turnover, you’re playing the wrong game.”
30. Building a repeatable hiring process
31. “We need to find the best person to work next to us, not just any person.”
32. Navy SEAL example
33. Every instructor has a role in every aspect
34. Screening: people don’t get formally trained in interviewing
35. What to look for when hiring
36. Coachability
37. Curiosity
38. Uncommon skills- design
39. Advice
40. Find out what happened to your last few hires and why they didn’t work out
41. Find out how to build a strong repeatable process everyone agrees on
42. For candidates: ask good questions, get the answers you want, make sure things are transparent, don’t be fooled by money or short-term opportunity

Favorite Points:

1. Hiring the right people
2. “You have to hire people you can go to war with, even when things are good.”
3. Are you willing to bet your career on this person?
4. What makes a bad employee/the importance of hiring for culture
5. Building a repeatable hiring process
6. Navy SEAL example
7. Investment in individuals
8. Who do you want next to you?
9. What to look for when hiring
10. Coachability
11. Curiosity
12. Uncommon skills

Tweetable Quotes:

1. “If I know a client is relying on me and I’m exclusive with them, I will go stand in the highway and stop traffic for them.”
2. “People often fail to stop and ask why things didn’t work out.”
3. “Do we just try to hit quotas, or do we find people we would go to war with?”
4. “You could have the best product in the world, but if you have bad leadership, it falls apart.”
5. “It doesn’t matter how good your product is if you can’t grow your company.”
6. “We need to find the best person to work next to us, not just any person.”
7. “I think growing and scaling from a personnel standpoint is the number one overlooked thing in the startup world, and it’s the Achilles heel for most companies.”
8. “You have to hire people you can go to war with, even when things are good.”
9. “Turnover is inevitable, but if you’re hiring against turnover, you’re playing the wrong game.”

Links:

Travis King: LinkedIn

Kevin Mulrane: LinkedIn

Christopher Gannon LinkedIn

CAPTIVATE TALENT website