How to hire startup execs without losing your mind

The market for talent at all levels is still wildly competitive, even in a downturn. Strong C-level and VP-level talent is particularly hard to find, and even harder to close.

“The pool of highly capable execs to take a startup from one inflection point or another is scarce,” Vivek Ravisankar, the co-founder and CEO of HackerRank, told Protocol. Ravisankar’s sourcing process takes inspiration from Vinod Khosla’s “gene pool engineering” recruiting advice:

• Identify the specific risks that your company faces and determine the skills needed to face those risks.
• Find the companies that have dealt with those risks — think of these as “must-have” abilities.
• Research the contributions of key players within those companies.

Ravisankar still uses recruiters, though he said he cringes at the six-figure bill.

• The highly specialized recruiters who focus on a particular discipline, like marketing or finance, tend to hear back from more candidates more frequently than Ravisankar does himself, he said.
• “Based on their previous relationships or past relationships, they’re able to tap their network to get intros to other candidates,” Ravisankar said. “Which is hard for me to do independently.”
• Ravisankar said he’s still not sure that capability is worth $100,000, “but that’s the going market, so I don’t have an option, I guess.”

Be the candidate’s personal concierge: Ravisankar said he’s found success giving candidates “VIP service.”

• He has his own executive assistant schedule up the candidate’s interviews, typically a job that outside recruiters take on.
• He also introduces the candidate to other interviewers, personally prepares the candidate for each interview stage — “Who they are meeting; if they’re meeting a CRO, what’s his or her personality, what do they look for?” — and checks in with how the candidate is doing throughout the process.
• “All I’m doing is sending an email and having my EA set it up,” Ravisankar said. “All these little things will certainly play in the minds when the candidate is faced with a choice of ‘Should I pick A or B?’ at the end.”

Ravisankar asks candidates to weigh in on real situations he’s dealing with at HackerRank. “It makes it feel like you’re actually working together,” Ravisankar said. “I’m less interested if they come up with the correct solution or not, but more around thought process.”