Hiring Evaluation Process

Interview Tip

Stage 2 Capital is a VC firm that invests in B2B software companies and celebrates that it's the first VC firm run & backed by 500+ GTM leaders.

Mark Roberge took Hubspot from $0-$100M (among many other successes) is the Managing Director at Stage 2. Mandy Cole (VP, Sales at LivingSocial/Zenefits/etc.) is one of their Partners (investor).

They know how critical hiring is and took the time to write a playbook on hiring your first Sales leader. This playbook is also applicable for Sales and Customer Success hires. Today, I'm going to take one of the candidate characteristics they evaluate in their playbook and show you how to use it in your playbook when hiring a Sales/CS rep.

Breakdown

There are 3 main parts to this playbook.
 
1. Role definition (what tasks does the org need this person to do)
2. Hiring scorecard (what skills/experiences should we evaluate candidates on)
3. Evaluation process (steps in the process and how do we execute each step)

Step 1 - Role definition

 
It's critical to write out what you want the hire to accomplish to ensure everyone is aligned on what to evaluate for, how to evaluate and to be consistent while removing any bias. Stage 2 Capital emphasizes in their Sales leader example that these tasks are specific so that you don't overweigh on industry experience and that you're hiring for someone to complete tasks in the next two years specifically.

The task we'll use in today's newsletter is:

Teamwork - the ability to work with Marketing, Customer Success, Product, and Finance to properly align sales execution with the broader company goals.

There are 9 other tasks in Stage 2 Capital's example (Leadership, Analytics, etc.).

Now that we're clear on what we're evaluating, let's go to step 2, defining how we'll evaluate it.

Step 2 - Hiring scorecard

 
With a clear definition of the task this person needs to do, we need to create criteria to evaluate it. This is where so many people miss.

If you don't agree on the definition of the criteria, what you're looking for and how to score it, you'll get skewed results which can lead to a mis-hire.

Ensure you're aligned on:
1. What is the definition of what we're looking for
2. What strong, mediocre and poor looks like

For Teamwork, Stage 2 Capital defined it as:

"Respected inside and outside the org. Problem solves with colleagues/clients and handles conflict appropriately."

Next, they've created 3 different ranges of answers with a numerical score attached so that the interviewer can listen to the candidate and attach a score to what they hear. This allows for a tangible way to evaluate the candidate that is connected to what was said during the interview.

Here's the range they provided:

[8-10, Strong] =
- Consistently works well with colleagues to solve key business problems
- Fair minded, calm and respectful when handling conflict w/peers or clients
- Creates strong sense of teamwork/camaraderie with team/colleagues

[4-7, Mediocre] =
- Sees key decisions primarily through Sales lens vs. broader company
- Debates/argues with peer leaders when faced with cross-functional decision and process design

[1-3, Poor] =
- Sales is the only thing that matters and everyone else should follow suit
- Personally insults colleagues when in conflict

Step 3 - Evaluation process

 
We have the tasks we need this hire to do and we have the criteria to evaluate the tasks. The next part of the process is to come up with three things:
1. What are the questions we'll use to evaluate
2. What stage do we ask these
3. Who will ask these

It isn't just the question, it's important to consider who is asking and at what part of the process.

A CEO/Founder asking a question is different than a peer because the candidate may give a different answer to a different person (or wonder why that person is asking them).

Also, at what stage of the process. If we're asking about teamwork at the end vs. beginning to middle and we get a poor answer... now we've wasted all this time internally (and the candidate's time).

Two examples:

Here are questions a Marketer asks a candidate in the 3rd stage of a 6 stage process, to evaluate the Teamwork task:
1. How was the Marketing team at your last company?
2. What is one improvement you wish they took on?
3. How did you communicate that?
4. What strategies do you recommend to align Sales and Marketing?

Remember, we outlined what strong, mediocre and poor answers are in step 2 and assigned a numerical score to it.

Here are questions that a Sales rep asks a candidate in the 4th stage of a 6 stage process to evaluate the Teamwork task:
1. Can you explain our cadence of working together?
2. How often will we meet 1:1 vs. a team?
3. What will we cover in both cases?

Advice

 
The 3 takeaways are:

1. Write out a list of 8-10 tasks this hire must complete with the understanding that you need to stay true to evaluating for these tasks (don't let industry experience bias you).

2. For each of these tasks, write out what strong, mediocre and poor looks/sounds like in answers from candidates then attach a score to them so that there's an analytical element to remove any bias.

3. Consider who you want to evaluate, at what stage and dial in the questions you use. There's a major difference between a Founder asking a question about teamwork vs. a peer.