Ask HN: How do you hire top talent in 2019?

https://freemanagermentors.com

With that being said, let me take a crack at it here!

My number one response for hiring top talent is always tapping internal referrals. Asking your current employees for the name of the best person they've ever worked. Repeat that process for every new hire you make (with proper consideration for non-solicits).

My second thought, not knowing anything about you or your company, would be to spend less time thinking about whether or not you can attract/hire top talent, and focus more on finding high-growth talent and strong internal coaches. Exceptional talent (true top 5%'ers), in my experience, are more likely to land somewhere by referral or are poached, rather than just "out on the market". "Strong" talent, which I would define as high performers, can be built internally, so long as you put in the right infrastructure to help them succeed.

That means you need to focus on finding managers that know how to create opportunities for their people, and leads who know how to coach technical skills in day to day work. Don't confuse these skills with your "top individual contributor" on staff. Someone who is a great coder, excellent customer rep, or your top salesperson, does not immediately make them a good mentor (think technical lead) or manager (project management skills, cross-functional skills, energizing personality, etc.). So, as you begin to search your organization for these people, make sure to not confuse highly skilled individuals with great leaders.

Once you have this type of infrastructure in place, your hiring process can re-orient towards a wider pool of candidates that aren't necessarily pre-made A+ stars, but rather someone with a C or B level talent, with high-growth potential. Your hiring process should reflect this. Things you begin to look for are:

1. Individuals who grew rapidly inside of a company (often rapid title growth), but are leaving due to compensation issues, the company going under, displeasure with the business, etc. The risk with these types of individuals is often that they can have a mercenary mentality, so look to see if you can either screen that out or if you can coach that out of them after they are hired. 2. Individuals who seem to have worn a "bunch of hats" across a couple of jobs, and maybe haven't had time to build depth. Sometimes breadth of experience can be misinterpreted as a lack of skill set, but really just means that they bounced between responsibilities because they are a rapid learner. The risk with these types of individuals is that they constantly are switching roles because they're consistently low performers in that work,

My third and final suggestion would be to find a recruiting firm that you feel like delivers you high-quality talent and work with that firm to continue to hone the types of individuals they send your way. It can be exceptionally expensive, but great firms can make a world of difference. I can't give you a specific recommendation, as it seems each city has a "best in class" for different roles and functions, so you may need to ask your local network who they use. Remember to provide feedback to the recruiters so that they understand why you pass on candidate A, or why candidate B ended up being a great hire. They'll use that information to look for higher-quality matches in the future.

Now, what that means in academia is pretty straightforward since academia is one big scoreboard.

However, what that means at work, I’ve no idea...