Talent42 2014 Presentation by Elaine Wherry

1. SUSTAINABILITY
Elaine Wherry
Talent42
June 2014
The Secret to Making Recruiting Surprisingly Easy

2. Elaine Wherry
Co-founder, CXO of Meebo
@elainewherry

3. 100 Mistakes
A Graphic Novel about Leadership

5. Your Problems
1. Engineers complain you’re wasting their time
2. Your process is randomly based upon whomever is hiring that day
3. Managers want you to use the same job description as two years ago
4. You’re saying no to 99%+ of candidates
5. Leadership doesn’t value how important recruiting really is
6. Every time you go to a recruiting conference, every presenter and
organization says their process is more awesome
7. But updating your company’s broken process is like asking people to
volunteer for trepanation

6. https://www.flickr.com/photos/acradenia/
What is Sustainability?
We’re in Seattle so it only seems appropriate to talk about sustainability.

7. Sustainability
1. Self-reinforcing
2. Scalable
> Makes your life easier!
But I’m thinking about sustainability from a different angle. As an entrepreneur, I love recruiting but I also want a process that is low maintenance, scalable,
and makes everyone’s lives easier so we can apply our efforts where it makes the most sense.

8. Dirty Little Secret:
The world’s best recruiting practices
aren’t enough…

9. Today:
Three Stories
1. The problem employee
2. Sad panda
3. Honeypot

10. Story #1:
The Problem Employee

11. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nazareth_college/
Hired Jonah

12. https://www.flickr.com/photos/aguerra/
Difficult in meetings. People started to complain.

13. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessiejacobson/
Became fixated with a style guideline.

14. https://www.flickr.com/photos/helga/
Started with a questioning approach. Didn’t work.

15. Then I tried a checklist.

16. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathansloan/
Started working on things at night instead.

17. https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnjoh/
And then falling asleep during the day! But didn’t put it together that if he slept more, he wouldn’t have problems staying awake in the afternoon.

18. https://www.flickr.com/photos/dougliz/
Forget coffees, walks, etc. We were doing office sit-down weeklies. The feedback I was giving him was so direct and so harsh, almost any other person on
my team would have cried. He’d nodd. But then in a week or two, “oh hey, yeah I heard that… but I thought this would make more sense.” I couldn’t win.

19. https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfbps/
About 9 months in, breakthrough.

20. https://www.flickr.com/photos/16210667@N02/
You’re a 2. A 2. And not a 2 with potential. A 2 that needs a lot of work urgently.

21. https://www.flickr.com/photos/adriensteamboy/
Ooooooooooooh.

22. https://www.flickr.com/photos/russelljsmith/
Oh no - she’ll tell you. I was a 2 last year!

23. What Just Happened?

24. “Meebo’s great hiring process only
selects the best…like me!”
Jonas’ Perspective…
At the end of this, Jonah loved Meebo’s hiring process. Obviously it selected him, so how could it be wrong?

25. “Hey, maybe I’m just a super
awesome manager!”
Manager’s Perspective…
But I know better — I was a mentally sharded, sleep-deprived founder who was stretched too thin. As much as I’d like to take credit, it wasn’t me.

26. Let’s Break it Down…
A problem employee:
1. Started interviewing
2. Became self-aware
3. Changed his behavior
4. Reversed his performance trajectory
5. Became a star employee
6. Became a recruiting advocate
Holy cow. That stuff does not happen!

28. 5 Parts of Culture
1. Hiring: who gets hired?
2. Ideas: Where do ideas and goals come from?
3. Decision-Making: How do decisions get made?
4. Accountability: How are people rewarded and held accountable?
5. Excommunication: When are people let go?
Let’s crack this open. In general, we usually think about it linearly. I’d argue that recruiting is first and therefore most important. When an employee starts,
how they help the business progress towards its goal, and how an employee leaves. But that’s not totally true.

29. Hiring
We hire based
upon the way
team members
will be
reviewed.
We are
evaluated based
upon the criteria
for which we
were hired.
Review
Making it Stick
We’re constantly hiring and we’re constantly being reviewed in an organization.

30. Hiring Review
Skills
Team
110%
Making it Stick
When those two are linked, everything goes easier. It becomes self-reinforcing.

31. Hiring Review
More Typical
Skills
Team
110%
Initiative
Respect
Strategy
!
When that connection isn’t linked, it’s a lot harder.

32. Making it stick
1. Hiring and reviews reflect organization’s core values
2. Job description outlines criteria for success and future review
3. Both the employee and the manager have practiced
discussing behavioral issues, making reviews easier
4. The metrics for hiring & reviews are more consistent across
organization
5. The hiring process and the review process are authentic,
meaningful, and celebrated
What happens when these are linked together?

33. You can have all of Meebo’s process. There you go — our questions. Take out your iPhones now. But unless it’s connected to the rest of the culture, it
won’t matter.

34. Story #2:
Sad Panda

35. This is our team circa 2008

36. Chat Conversation
“hi elaine. how’s it going.”
“good. good.”
“we need to hire 100x faster. can you own that?”
“ummm… okay”

44. What is Scalability?
1. One time set-up
2. Requires minimal effort, training, people, cost, or
machines to grow

45. Scalable or Not?
Asking your Co-founder and CEO to handle tech phone
screens when you’re busy with a deadline…

46. Scalable or Not?
Asking your Co-founder and CEO to handle tech phone
screens when you’re busy with a deadline…
Not Scalable

47. Meetups

48. Meetups
Not Scalable

49. Midterm Tees

50. Midterm Tees
Not Scalable

51. Secret Jobs in HTML

52. HTML Secretjobs
Scalable!

53. Google AdWords
In 2011, if you entered a technical JavaScript terms into Google, you’d see this Meebo ad. That would lead you to...

54. Google AdWords
Scalable!
In 2011, if you entered a technical JavaScript terms into Google, you’d see this Meebo ad. That would lead you to...

55. Hiring Recruiting-Savvy Managers
with Talented Networks

56. Hiring Recruiting-Savvy Managers
with Talented Networks
Mega Scalable!

57. The Most Sustainable
of All…

58. Story #3:
The Honeypot

59. 2010 Plan
goal !
2010 PLAN
hire
build
Story - most difficult times of my career
Become a self-sustaining business
Web & UX teams - competitive edge, frameworks
25 - Google
Tremendous pressure!

60. alll-out crisis
surprise!surprise!SURPRISE!

61. honeypot is born
2am - used a domain I owned and made the honeypot

62. honeypot

63. honeypot
Swapped out post-grad with my husband

64. honeypot

65. honeypot
1. Pete is based upon a real person
2. Pete is a static presence
3. I own it fully
4. No one should look bad
5. Share learnings
Rules

66. honeypot
Time passed - NADA
Failure
last resort - LinkedIn
finally - a few responses

67. Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...
Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...Hello my name is ...
and I am a recruiter...

68. HONEYPOT
BAM! door to the party

69. 2 1/2 years later...
Q1
2010
Q4*
2009
Q2
2010
Q3
2010
Q4
2010
Q1
2011
Q2
2011
Q3
2011
Q4
2011
Q2*
2012
Q1
2012
36
4
27
36 38
42
58*
70
88
6566
75
50
25

70. Honeypot Results
530 emails
382 recruiters
172 organizations
7 iPad incentives
1 Xbox incentive
1 MacBook Air incentive
5 $1k referral cash incentives
2 $10k referral cash incentive
8 coffees
7 phone calls
6 lunches

71. Recruiter Community
Recruiter Activity
2010-2012
ewherry.com
0
20
40
60
80
100
Q1
2010
Q2
2010
Q3
2010
Q4
2010
Q1
2011
Q2
2011
Q3
2011
Q4
2011
Q1
2012
Q2*
2012
Top Companies
Anonymous
Start-ups
VCs
75%
100%
50%
25%
15%
26%
56%
3%

72. Talent Geography
ewherry.com
0
10
20
30
40
50
Q1*
2010
Q2
2010
Q3
2010
Q4
2010
Q1
2011
Q2
2011
Q3
2011
Q4
2011
Q1
2012
Q2*
2012
San Francisco
San Mateo
Redwood City
Menlo Park
Palo Alto
Mountain View
Sunnyvale
Cupertino
San Jose
Los Gatos
16 16 26 2627 50 42 50 4552
Silicon Valley Recruiting Geography
2010-2012
50
10
30

73. Email Content
35%
“Hi, my
name is...”
36%
Other
22%
“I was impressed
with your profile...”
7%
“Sorry for
the email...”

74. Recruiters vs. Managers
= Top Company Recruiters
= Start-up Recruiters
= Managers
49% 42% 67%
20% 37% 37%
44% 67% 79%
Role
Description
Personalized Company
Description
Recruiters vs. Managers

75. Missed Followups
44%
First-time
outreach
44%
Missed
follow-up
opportunities
12%
Follow-up
rate

76. Still Going…

77. Scalable or Not?

78. Recruiting is Easier When It’s:
Self-reinforcing
• Simple is better: connect the hiring and review process together.
The rest will follow.
Scalable
• Record metrics: interview ranking systems, pipeline analytics
• Know your bottlenecks: work from start to end of process
• Prioritize home runs: target long-term, easily repeatable
techniques

79. Thank You!
Elaine Wherry
@elainewherry
elaine.wherry@gmail.com

80. But what if…
Q: We don’t have clear values?
A: Cheat sheet: talent, proactivity, results-focused, team,
adaptable
Q: Managers are too busy to switch
A: Don’t boil the ocean — start with one team that is
desperate that will set a great example for others to follow