Many product leaders start looking for talent only when they need to hire. But here’s a better approach that pays off big time in the long run: 📞 Talk to product folks regularly in 1:1s —even when you’re not hiring. This doesn’t have to be a massive time commitment. Just 1–2 casual
Interview fatigue is real. Even a seasoned hiring manager gets a little discomposed when a calendar alert shows up with the subject “Interview with ….”. This is because interviews get repetitive after a point. Managers in high-growth companies easily do 100+ interviews in a year. Interviews become mechanical, more of a ritual.
Vivek, the interviewer walked out of the interview room with high shoulders and veiled pride. He stared at the recruiter who was anxiously hoping that at least this candidate would be OKed by the interview panel. Vivek said – ‘Not good’ and walked away. A couple of weeks later, he met a
In the last few years, employers engage prospective employees during the timeframe between offer acceptance and joining. The engagement happens in the form of – 1. Sending flowers, chocolates, and gifts to candidates along with a lovely welcome letter 2. Invite the candidate for team dinner/lunch to get to know their colleagues
Dhruv, the VP of products was reviewing hiring funnel data. One glaring point he noticed was – two of the panelists were saying ‘yes’ to all the candidates they interviewed. This doesn’t make sense. He started creating a mental model of interview decisions and this is what he got to – Nailing
One startup founder asked me – “Can you help me hire a rock star PM in the next 10 days?” In another time, a Product Director from an MNC was telling me – “I feel that we end up rejecting good candidates too often for flimsy reasons. Any idea how to reduce
Around 8 years ago, I faced the dilemma of hiring a peer/friend into my team. This friend was working in a different team in the company and had the same smartness and years of experience as mine. I asked my mentor how to think about hiring someone who is your peer in
A few weeks after joining my team – one of the senior PMs casually told me “Venkat, before joining here, I spoke to your previous team members and got very positive feedback. Only after that, I decided to join your team” Surprisingly, PM after PM who joined my team shared with me
The human element of your hiring process is best captured by collecting feedback from the candidates about their experience. A candidate judges your company’s culture largely based on the professionalism of people involved in the whole process. So it is important to get candidate experiences right. Once you get the candidate experiences
The recruitment funnel is your most important tool in the whole hiring process. It is a simple tracking of a) the number of candidates from – Profiles considered → Profiles shortlisted → Initial screening/selling → Interview rounds → Offer discussion → Offer → Accepted → Joining over a period of time. b)Turn
