Comments on SoCal CTO: Hiring a CTO for Your Startup

Thanks for the great comments.

2011-05-10T13:46:34.207-07:00

Thanks for the great comments.

Great article! As a technololgy recruiter for over...

2011-04-30T12:35:59.618-07:00

Great article! As a technololgy recruiter for over 25 years, I would add the following:
- Hire to your weaknesses. It's easy enough to fall in love with a candidate who mirrors us or is just like we were 15 years ago, but make sure that s/he has strengths where you are weak so that the company has a well-rounded senior team.
- Always ask for examples, eg, if someone says they are a collaborative manager, ask for a specific incident where that was exhibited; if the person talks about their architecture skills, ask them to describe a complex technical architecture problem that s/he had to solve recently.
- If you're interested in a candidate, pre-close them by asking how s/he feels about the company, job, etc, and what it would take to bring them on board. Don't make any commitments without doing your due diligence, but at least this way you know the candidate's parameters.
- The rest, as Tony says, is common courtesy - hire the one you want and be very nice to the ones that don't get it because we all know that what goes round comes round.

Great post. I don't do a lot of interviews fo...

2011-04-27T19:11:10.062-07:00

Great post. I don't do a lot of interviews for tech people but very often interview other types of candidates. I would guess near 150 per year. You talk about how long to go after it's clear they bombed the interview. My suggestion is 30 seconds. I usually phrase it, " Mike, I really appreciate the time you've devoted to coming today. If I'm honest with you I've already interviewed a couple of candidates that fit what we are looking for more closely than what I've seen so far. I think it's better to end now. I wish you luck in your search." My experience is it's sometimes tough, many times the candidate is relieved AND there's no need to to communicate later that the job isn't theirs. In the end, if your not hiring them, some ruffled feathers doesn't hurt and it might just make them work harder at the next interview! Love reading your posts.

Tony, I think this is really useful; I'll sugg...

2011-04-27T07:23:19.629-07:00

Tony, I think this is really useful; I'll suggest one small tweak from my own experience and discussions with startup vets.

It's a common problem for startups founded with a hacker- (in the old sense of get-it-done-programmer) -CTO to have an immense problem jumping tracks to a technology strategy able to sustain growth as they move through "stabilization."

I think that one criterion I'd look for is either a) an ability to think in both spheres at once (get it done by Weds/how does this fit into a future scalable architecture); or b) to balance a hacker-CTO with a strategic adviser whose advice really shapes the decisions you make as a founder (or, far less desirably, have the strategic CTO and hire in the hacker).

I've bookmarked this, and will share it around.

Marc