HIRE
Recruiting Is Like an Oil Change.
Technically anyone can do it. But it can be a mess, expensive, likely to break something bigger and just a time suck.
Most find this out the hard way. They post a job, burn a few thousand on Indeed and LinkedIn, end up with a weak pipeline, and wonder what went wrong.
The basics aren't complicated. Most people just skip them.
The Problem:
- Throwing money at job boards: Posting and praying isn't a strategy (its a donation to soulless SaaS companies).
- Slow process: Quality candidates are interviewing elsewhere. If you're not moving fast, you're losing.
- No process: Every hire feels like starting from scratch because it is.
- Ignoring the candidate experience: Ghosting, slow follow-up, and disorganized interviews tell candidates exactly what working there will feel like.
The Bare Minimum That Actually Works:
- Real job posts: Clear role, real expectations, honest about the hard parts. No one wants the buzzwords or BS.
- Source, don't just post: The best candidates aren't applying. Go find them.
- Move fast: If someone is good, treat it like an emergency.
- Have a process: Same questions, same scorecard, same experience.
Do it yourself if you can handle all of that. If you can't, hand it off. Just don't pay 30% to a headhunter.
LEAD
Titles Are Free. Pay for Impact, Not Ego.
Calm down LinkedIn fans. A dose of reality is healthy.
Your title at your last company doesn't determine what you get paid at the next one. Neither does what your friend makes at a Fortune 500. Comp should be tied to what the role requires and what you actually deliver. Everything else is ego.
How Bad Comp Decisions Happen:
- Title inflation: Someone was a "Director" somewhere else so they expect Director pay. The title was free. Prove the impact.
- Market rate without context: Market rate at a 10,000 person company and market rate at a 20 person company are likely not the same convo.
- Ego over value: Comp becomes about winning a negotiation instead of considering actual impact.
- No clarity on the role: If you can't define what success looks like, you can't price it right.
How to Get It Right:
- Start with the role: What does this person actually own and what does winning look like?
- Tie it to company health: What can the business actually sustain right now?
- Price the impact: What is it worth to have this problem solved well?
- Be straight: Tell candidates what the range is and why. No games.
Titles are free. Responsibilities and results are not. Pay accordingly.
GROW
Meetings ≠ Value
Meeting math: hourly rate of everyone in the room times the length of the meeting. Did you get that back?
Busy looks productive until you're responsible for the P&L.
Meetings that need to die:
- Reporting the news: Send an email.
- The therapy session: Venting with no intention of solving anything.
- The status update: A shared doc does this for free.
- The recurring nobody questioned: Useful once in 2022. Still on the calendar.
- The meeting about the meeting: You could have just done it right now.
- The check-in about the check-in: You know who you are.
The only three worth keeping:
- Real problem solving: Things that can't be resolved over Slack or email
- Accountability: Did you do what you said? Yes or no.
- Actual collaboration: Working toward an outcome. Not talking about one.
Before you send that invite: Does this need to be a meeting? Who actually needs to be there? What are we leaving with? If you can't answer all three, cancel it.