Hiring a “Doer”
“We need a doer” I hear this at least once a week, as founders bottom line their needs to me this (often) exasperated sentence.
There’s no silver bullet here, but 4.5 years into working as a team at Hustle Hunters, we’ve gotten good at really centering this core quality in our evaluation of potential candidates for the startup teams we work with.
Basic Plan to make sure we hire Doers:
Learn candidates’ career goals
Understand their current role, level of execution, and ownership
Bias decision towards soft skill alignment vs. hard skills
Onboard them with enough context that they can get to work
There are many different ways to gain signaling on this topic, and often it’s unique to each team culture. These are a couple of questions we like to ask that helps us better understand someone’s propensity to get sh*t done, and really use their time and energy to advance the business forwards.
“What is a project you worked on recently that you’re proud of your impact in?”
What we’re looking for:
What does “good” look like for them
How involved were they in the actual execution?
Their sense of urgency and pacing
What ownership they took of their work and the project in general?
“What’s a current KPI or goal that your team is tasked with?
What are some specific things you do this week to make progress on that specific goal?”
What we’re looking for:
How in tune are they with the high level goals they’re working towards?
How do they think about breaking down big goals into smaller actionable steps?
How do they blend strategy with execution?
What is their weekly personal expectation for impact?
How do they achieve balance between team and individual work?
We specialize in helping our partners hire doers that have a builders, owners and proactive mentality.
Reach out - we’d love to be a thought partner in your next high stakes hire!