May 29, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode of the Unicorn Leaders podcast, Fahd Alhattab sits down with Adam Gellert, founder of Linkus Group and Hypo, to talk all things hiring—from building high-performing teams to breaking outdated recruitment myths.
Adam shares what it really takes to find top-tier talent in startups, why the "hire slow, fire fast" mantra is broken, and how founders can avoid costly mis-hires by aligning on the real business problem behind every role. He opens up about the grit behind building two companies, what top candidates are actually looking for, and how to avoid culture-breaking overhiring.
Whether you're scaling a team, hiring your first exec, or wondering why your dream candidate said no—this one’s packed with practical insights for startup leaders who want to hire fast and hire well.
Episode Mentions
- Check out Adam Gellert: https://www.recruiteradam.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
The hire slow, fire fast mentality is broken.
(00:02):
It's wrong.
It's no longer the way we shouldbe thinking about it.
You've said that.
Walk me through that.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
Yeah, I think a lot of companies like to lean back
on that because it feels safe.
And, you know, if I make amistake, it's like, oh, you
know, hire slow, fire fast.
But it's the biggest lie that'sever been told.
You know, you need to be able tohire fast.
And if you hire fast, know whatyou're looking for, you don't
have to fire at all.
So you hire fast and hire well.
UNKNOWN (00:28):
So
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
Hello folks and welcome to our Unicorn
Leadership Podcast.
We've got Adam Gellert here withus.
This is where we interviewamazing leaders like himself to
really unpack this season'stheme, which is the David versus
Goliath of teams.
What makes these small yetmighty teams that are able to
overcome the competition toreally win?
This podcast is brought to youby Unicorn Labs.
(00:50):
My name is Fahad Al-Hattab, thefounder of Unicorn Labs and the
host of this podcast.
And today's guest is on amission to reshape, recruit, and
to change the candidateexperience.
So Adam, you are the founder andCEO of Hippo and Linkus Group.
Tell me a little bit about Hippoand Linkus Group just to get us
started.
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I've been in therecruitment space for over two
decades.
Two of the couple of projectsthat I've started.
Linkus Group is known withinCanada as a search and be search
firm where we help companies gofrom one to 250 people.
Really to fill hard niche, hardto fill roles in almost any
(01:32):
sector.
And so that's what we're knownfor.
I started Hippo.
We kind of just rebranded toHypo for high potential.
And that just came out of likesort of like the side hustle
idea.
You know, I read something fromGary Vee that said, if you don't
take yourself out of business,somebody else will.
So I said, screw it.
I'm going to take myself out ofbusiness.
So we created really a way forour clients who didn't want to
(01:56):
kind of go through working witha recruiter and they wanted to
do it themselves, gives them away to access our database with
high potential pre-vetted talentin a very fast, cost-effective
way with high quality results.
SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
That's quite bullish.
Literally went and said, I'mgoing to cannibalize part of my
own market, right?
Like, you know, Hypo, sorry forcalling it Hippo, Hypo, I
actually knew this, Hypotest,because we talked about this,
but yeah, Hypo literally is acompetitor to Linkus.
Now, maybe a subsect competitor,right?
Because you're capturing alittle bit of But that's so
interesting.
How did that feel at first whenwhen it felt like you're almost
(02:32):
competing against yourself here?
SPEAKER_01 (02:34):
Yeah, look, some of my clients thought I was crazy.
Probably still to this day.
You know, definitely a lot ofpeople think, you know, why
would you do that?
But like, look, I'm obsessedwith changing the way the
companies hire and the candidateexperience.
And I'm all about making hiringand recruiting better.
So why wouldn't I createsomething that I think is very
(02:56):
disruptive and I will set thetone and set the trends for the
industry.
I want to be a part of that.
And, you know, I've just kind ofput my hands on a lot of things
within the recruiting space.
So to me, it was just quiteobvious at the time that there
was just like no way to quicklymatch the right talent based on
interests and passion and skillsand experience with what
(03:18):
companies were looking for in avery like private, exclusive
way.
And so we said, like, let's doit.
SPEAKER_00 (03:23):
Honestly, that's the better intro than I could have
given you, Adam.
That was good.
I mean, In this episode, wereally want to unpack that.
I mentioned that whole Davidversus Goliath, what makes these
small, powerful teams.
And I think, as you'vementioned, it's talent.
It's the team.
It's did you get the rightpeople on the right seats in the
bus?
Did you get the best people?
And that's sort of what we wantto explore in this episode.
(03:44):
Maybe the hiring process, butmaybe challenging.
You know, you challenge the hireslow, fire fast mentality and
how that falls short.
So we're going to unpack that.
Stuff that CEOs and founders canlearn about what what it looks
like to build their executiveteams, to build their leadership
teams, how they hire for those,how they recruit for those.
(04:05):
Those are the different piecesthat we're going to want to
unpack during this episode, andwe're going to have a lot of fun
with it.
But Adam, you weren't alwaysthis brilliant entrepreneur
building these companies.
Give me a little backstory.
Where are you from?
Where did you get started?
What was the first gig, firstentrepreneurial journey, or
first job out of university?
Give me a little background.
Who is Adam?
SPEAKER_01 (04:23):
Yeah, definitely.
I'm a first-generation Canadian.
I grew up in...
Midtown, Toronto, Canada, andalways just had to make my own
way.
I've been working since I was 13years old, just multiple
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
jobs.
What was the first job?
What was the first 13-year-oldjob?
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
Well, there was a lot of babysitting and selling
carts and stuff like that, butthe real actual job was, before
I was even legally eligible towork, I was paid cash under the
table at a record store inMidtown Toronto.
It was called Edwards RecordWorld.
I worked for a company calledThe Food Dudes for a while, a
great catering company inToronto.
(05:01):
And yeah, just...
you know kind of fell intorecruiting honestly didn't know
what i wanted to do um after mydream of becoming a veterinarian
fell through and that was ididn't i didn't know that did
you did you go to school for iti mean it just took me through
from birth the high the you knowthrough high school i worked at
a veterinarian clinic for sevenyears several adults um and you
(05:24):
know now we were getting toactually recruit for some vets
too which is awesome full circleum Yeah, just working in the vet
clinic, just realizing that, youknow, something more, you know,
business, creatively related.
It was more up my alley andjust, you know, kind of
different stamp on the world.
You know, I really believeyou've got to find your
superpower.
And, you know, I just opened upa bunch of doors to find that.
(05:46):
So, yeah, that's when I started.
We've been building it up foryears.
almost two decades now.
I
SPEAKER_00 (05:52):
love that.
I love the grit, man.
That's two decades.
I mean, you know what?
That's how long it takes tobuild a really good, healthy
business.
It takes time.
I think that's part of it,right?
So Adam, let's go through, thinkabout some of the founders and
tech companies that you'veworked with or that you continue
to work with.
When it comes to hiring keyleadership roles, what are some
(06:13):
of the mistakes you see peoplemake there?
Most founders fire their firstVP of sales because it's a
mishire, right?
They hire the wrong person.
It's the wrong It's the wrong.
They don't have a sales teamactually built out and they
bring in someone senior tooearly or whatever it is.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
Yeah.
It's honestly always comes downto the business problem that the
company needs to solve.
So that's all jobs are as abusiness problem that the
company needs to solve.
Like, like, you know, oftentimesan executive leadership.
I mean, sometimes you wantsomebody who's done the movie
before, like, you know, comes inalready with that experience
because that's kind of required.
You know, you need to have adifferent set of budget for
(06:46):
that.
So, you know, founders need tobe kind of realistic.
If you want a.
you know, needle in thehaystack, the like spear of the
perfect candidate, which is whatwe focus on.
We only headhunt talent, right?
Is just like, yeah, identifying,you know, what are the needs and
where that person should comefrom?
And is it potential or is itexperience that that person's
(07:06):
going to have?
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Now you said in this kind oftech space that we're working
in, the higher slow fire fastmentality is broken.
It's wrong.
It's no longer the way we shouldbe thinking about it.
You said that, walk me throughthat.
Help me understand, you know,What's the myth busting here?
What's the way we have to lookat it differently if that was
more traditional?
SPEAKER_01 (07:26):
Yeah, I think a lot of companies like to lean back
on that because it feels safe.
And, you know, if I make amistake, it's like, oh, you
know, hire slow, fire fast.
But it's the biggest lie that'sever been told.
You know, you need to be able tohire fast and you need to be
able to.
And if you hire fast, know whatyou're looking for, you don't
have to fire at all.
So you hire fast and hire well.
(07:48):
I mean, a lot of companies justtake too much time because they
feel like they'll you know maybeland on that perfect unicorn or
they didn't start early enough imean nine out of ten calls i get
is i need to hire someone as ofyesterday so it's just
SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
but they are looking for this unicorn right they are
looking for this top talentyou're totally you're often told
hire people better than you andso you're sort of looking for
this venn diagram of skillswhat's what's what's your
thoughts on that are people areYou know, are they are they over
coupling job descriptions?
Are they are they looking fortoo much of the, you know, a
Venn diagram of four or fivedifferent competencies that
(08:23):
don't typically come together?
So it makes it difficult.
They are afraid of making amistake, but they also have this
really high, maybe standard isthe wrong high bar, but also
this sort of I want them to beable to do this and that, right?
Like they need to be able to dosales and marketing and they
want them to be a designer and aproduct person.
Or I want them to be a frontend, you know, full stack
engineers that are the best,right?
(08:44):
They've got a lot of coupledneeds.
SPEAKER_01 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think there's likesome truth to that.
And then there's just like a lotof fluff, in my opinion.
I mean, you know, you don'talways need to hire someone that
can do everything and be betterthan you.
I mean, they need to maybe bebetter in certain ways, but
nobody's going to essentially beable to replicate the founder.
(09:08):
You have to really understandthat, like, if you could do X
amount of sales, like the personyou're bringing in probably do
50% of those sales, maybe 70%.
I mean, you just need to bereally realistic.
And, you know, a lot of the topadvisors like Jason Lumpkin,
like they all say this isn't,you know, just coming from me.
Even Harley from Shopify saysthat, like, you need to get
pointy people that can, youknow, solve a really, you know,
(09:30):
critical critiqued problem.
These like Jack and Jill of alltrades.
It's not like, you know,wouldn't be great to have if the
company is just still trying tofigure out product market fit or
we don't know what tomorrow isgoing to look like.
You know, those are the peoplethat kind of built like the
PayPal mafia, right?
Like, sure.
I mean, I always tell myclients, like, look, we're
always looking for that unicorn.
(09:50):
Unicorns are possible.
I mean, it's just like knowingthe market, what's realistic,
having like a really good,whether it's, you know, whatever
recruiter you use, you know,just having somebody who like
knows what they're doing, what'savailable on market and how to
attract those people.
But yeah, I mean, we go afterthe unicorn, but if that's not
possible and what's needed, Imean, it's like, I love the
(10:12):
unicorn name because we'retalking about Unicorn Labs here.
it's
SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
a plug it's a plug
SPEAKER_01 (10:17):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, yeah, look at it likehiring a dartboard.
So there's this bullseye ofexactly what you're looking for
when you need to hire.
But essentially, if you make amistake in terms of who that
person is, that's when yourcards start to fall.
And then if you can't find thatwithin your budget, you start
kind of moving out what'savailable.
(10:38):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
yeah.
But you just hit a nail on thehead.
I think a lot of founders areafraid of making the mistake of
the wrong hire because the wronghire in a small team...
feels catastrophic, right?
It feels very painful.
You feel it.
The wrong hire in a 300-personteam, different than in a
30-person team, especially ifit's in a leadership role, the
damage that can happen.
(11:00):
So that's always a risk, whichis why people do the whole hire
slow thing.
But I hear what you're saying.
So I guess the fix here, whenyou say, I always look for top
talent, I'm only talking to thetop 10% talent.
How do you do that?
How are you only talking to thetop percent of the talent?
What's that?
What, I guess, markers are youlooking for what indicators are
you looking for or how do yousift through some of it and then
(11:21):
how do you qualify some of itmaybe that's getting more into
the interviewing pieces so firstlike how do you sift through it
how do you talk to the toptalent
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
yeah definitely so yeah i'll just i'll just touch
on there like you know hiringslow isn't an advantage right
it's just like you need to hireslow if you don't know what
you're doing um but to get tothe top 10 i mean look like
startups can't hire the top onepercent because i
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
can't afford
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
them And they can't afford them and they're at the,
you know, unicorn companies,right?
They can't afford to hire belowthe top 10% because those people
just won't have the grit andunderstanding.
So you need to kind of fitbetween that top one and top 10%
of talent typically, whichstartups can do because there's
a lot of other advantages thanjust monetary gains, right?
(12:04):
And so, and you need to find thepeople that are kind of like
aligned to be an environmentthat can be, you know, maybe
unknown, you know, building aplane while you're flying it.
And so how do we get that top10% of talent?
I mean, there's a number of waysyou could do that pretty easily.
One, you want to be known as theperson to contact when you're
looking to hire or get hired.
(12:26):
So we have, you know, most ofthe people that contact us are
confidentially looking and theyknow us as leaders in the space.
So they call us and say, hey,you know, if you hear of
anything.
They also call us for advicebecause we, you know, try to set
the bar in terms of what's ontrend and and how people should
be looking at career trajectory.
SPEAKER_00 (12:45):
Just to jump in on Adam for a second, I think
that's actually an unstatedsuperpower.
The unstated superpower here isWhen I, as a business, go
searching for talent, I have tosearch for the talent that's
available.
But you get the talent a stepbefore when they're starting to
look, but they don't want anyoneto know.
(13:05):
Like that's actually, right?
Because a lot of the highestperformers still have jobs.
They're not actively like, youknow, applying and do that.
And so we always say like, howdo you find the top performers
who already have jobs?
And so you're like the secretpower of Linkist Group or Hypo
is like, it's that you'regetting them before.
That's a really interestingthought.
It just came across my mind thatI wanted to highlight.
(13:27):
Sorry, keep going.
SPEAKER_01 (13:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's exactly why we built Hypoand the product so that
companies could access thattalent that will kind of put up
their hand when they're lookinganonymously, like candidates
sign up anonymously.
It's not just the role we'reworking on.
We're looking at the wholecompany holistically.
And if there's a candidate, eventwo years later, we'll be able
to put that in.
(13:48):
I mean, we just hired a CRO fora company I've been working with
for 15 years.
They didn't have a role posted.
And that's just like one of like1000 examples of jobs that we
get filled.
But I knew that this thiscandidate had, you know, the
ability to connect with thisfounder and a vice versa.
And so we're creatingopportunities.
It's not just opportunities thatare available.
(14:10):
I always find that like a lot ofrecruiting agencies kind of like
lean on this, like, very oldschool thing of like, we have a
database, we have somebody inour back pocket.
I hate that.
Because it, you know, people arearen't, you know, just waiting
in the sidelines.
You just have to have a pulse onthe industry.
I need to know that you'reserious about hiring.
We need to figure out whatyou're looking for because what
(14:31):
you think you want is probablynot what you need.
And there's a lid for every pot.
I mean, you know, it, it likewhat somebody who's great at
Shopify, like might not be greatfor you for, you know, one or a
thousand reasons.
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that definitely happens,right?
That sort of bias towards, oh,you worked at Apple.
Oh, you worked at Google.
You worked at Shopify.
Therefore you must be great.
Right.
Right.
Like they're when when, youknow, these larger companies,
Shopify, Apple, all of them whoare more corporate at this
point, they have people who areextremely specialized.
They are extremely pointy.
And sometimes in that case,maybe would you say they're too
(15:05):
specialized for when they shiftover to startups?
I just find that interesting.
Like some people make the shiftover to startup and do well.
Some people make a shift over tostartup from a more corporate
and don't do well.
They want more definedprocesses, more defined roles,
the chaos of a startup.
of a 20, 50 person startup isstill too much uncertainty and
(15:27):
ambiguity for some of them.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, you hit on so many goodpoints there.
And this is like what a lot ofcompanies, startups struggle
with.
Every day is going to bedifferent, that there are going
to be certain stresses that, youknow, you might not know what
you're doing tomorrow, that theprocesses or the resources that
you had, you know, in a companylike Google and the other you
know minds and talent that youhad previously aren't the same
(15:51):
you know it's kind of like thethe mighty ducks right like when
they like have like not a greatteam and it's like everyone
needs to come together that'slike the startup whereas like
you have like a stack team rightwhere everyone's like a top
performer I mean I'm not sayingthat they're not top talent but
they have other players on theirteam that elevate them you know
like we got Gretzky elevatedMessier you know and so would he
(16:13):
have done the same on anotherteam maybe but you know probably
not to that a Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
I actually really like that example, like the
Mighty Ducks versus like the NewYork Yankees who like literally
purchased the best talent andjust put them in different
environments.
Right.
We got to be the Mighty Ducks.
We got to be the team that comestogether that actually.
make each other better through,you know, through the work
together to make each otherbetter.
I really like that.
(16:38):
You know, one of the thingsthat's standing out to me, Adam,
is like just how much rigor goesinto the process of finding and
bringing on this talent, right?
I think a lot of people go, oh,I got to hire, I got to find
someone.
And what you're saying here islike, wait, I got to start with
a business problem.
I got to search.
You got to be on the pulse.
There's just so much to do,which is why there's value in
(17:00):
Hypo and in Linkers Group.
It's because most startupsStartup founders underestimate,
myself included, underestimatejust how...
much work goes into finding thattop 10% and getting the right
person.
Yeah, it's quite interesting.
Adam, you've got another thoughthere.
You mentioned to us in some ofthe pre-interview, you said,
(17:21):
well, some companies, they dothe hire slow, fire fast.
It was some companies overhire.
And where are you seeing that?
Where some people areoverhiring, maybe mediocre
talent, and that's sort of whatcreates this bloatness?
Or what are you seeing there?
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
Yeah, I mean, recruiting, you said so much
great stuff there.
I best person for the job Sohigh quality in the fastest way
possible for the lowest cost.
And if you can do that on yourown and you've got that covered,
then you don't need recruitinghelp, right?
If you don't have like hiring isexpensive.
(17:55):
So, you know, there is a tonthat goes into it.
LinkedIn is not cheap.
Like all these tools, things arenot cheap.
Having, you know, a lot ofexperience is not cheap.
So like if you don't have thebudget, then yeah, you might
have to hire slow, fire, fast.
Like I love that you said that.
But in terms of like how to getpeople into the right seats it's
(18:15):
like understanding the entirescope of the market right
SPEAKER_00 (18:19):
so then do you have any tips and tricks for the like
for the people who are doingrecruitment in-house you know
like how do you do you guys docertain interview tips and
tricks is there i would sayinterviews are bullshit like you
can you know you can walkthrough and you can talk through
it but how does that convinceyou that this talent is the
right talent
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
yeah i mean like first of all you want to know
the business problem you want tosolve it i've said that before
for but like you just know whatyou're looking for what's good
like what good looks like whenyou see it when and why and
where you need to hire what'sthe market going to look like
based on you know your budgetand requirements and then you
know focus in on you know threeinterviews I mean Google says
(18:57):
that like beyond four you knowyou're not really making any
changes so I see all thesecompanies because you know
people are scared about makingbad hire or wrong hire and they
they try and you know make thatseem better by having more
interviews, which doesn't reallyhelp them.
There's no data behind it.
And so, yeah, just streamliningthat interview process, you
(19:17):
know, how to make thosedecisions in terms of, I think
one of your other questions waslike interview questions or
tests.
I mean, you want to cram allthose things in there that are
related to the job.
Like, you know, don't try andtrick candidates into questions
like how many golf balls fit inthe bus if that's not part of
their job.
And then I see that sometimescandidates take jobs and it was
(19:38):
kind of sold to them differentlythan during the interview.
So You need to make sure thatyou're transparent.
You tell all the good, bad,ugly, you know, hey, we might
not hit our runway in six monthsfrom now.
You know, hey, like you have tobe in the office.
If you sign off at five o'clock,you know, it's going to piss
this person off.
You know, just everything, evenif it, you know, might get that
person not take the job, tellthem because trust me, trying to
(20:01):
trying to replace someone ismuch more painful.
So giving people like insightinto what the job is.
So if like they're going to beon the phone doing a cold call,
like I just thought it wascrazy.
crazy at how many companies thatI saw that hired somebody
without showing them a demo ofthe product right and I don't
know why that candidate wouldhave taken the job or you're
selling events and they've neverbeen to an event before like
bring them to one of your eventsshow them a you know video get
(20:24):
like walk them through the doorwho are other people in the
company I mean people alwaysleave jobs because it wasn't the
way it was sold to them notbecause of money you know
sometimes because the leaderlike they didn't have enough
face time with the leader sojust in those three interviews
just make sure that you'regiving people kind of like like
you're putting on a VR headsetand you know exactly what it's
(20:45):
going to be like to walk throughthe door.
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
I mean, that's a really good point.
Adam, have you seen, what do yousee top talent evaluating for?
SPEAKER_01 (20:53):
Yeah, you know, candidates that are high quality
are looking for the same thingsthe companies are looking for.
Like, it's funny that, you know,both people, both companies and
candidates want the exact samething, but they just have
different ideas how to getthere.
And so, you know, they wanttransparent, like, information.
Like, you know, is the companydoing well?
Is it not?
If it's not, I'll at least knowwhat I'm getting into.
(21:15):
It's like dating, right?
Just tell me what I'm gettinginto so that I know that I'm
making the right decision.
SPEAKER_00 (21:20):
We
SPEAKER_01 (21:21):
don't have to get married tomorrow, but I at least
want to know if I want tocontinue this conversation,
right?
So we found when we created ourproduct that the number one
thing that made somebody kind ofraise their hand that they were
looking for a new job waslocation.
So, you know, how close it is tomy house, obviously like
pre-remote, a ton of remoteoptions.
And now people are kind of stilllooking for the same thing.
(21:42):
So transparently, goodcandidates ask those questions.
What is it like?
Then they want to know likegrowth potential.
So who works there?
How long have they been workingthere?
Am I going to learn from them?
Do you think they might leave inthe next six months and I'm
going to lose that personbecause I'm jumping on board
because that person's available,right?
Same with the sports team.
Maybe they're joining becauseLeBron's there, right?
It's just all these factors.
(22:03):
And then, you know, alignment interms of like what they want to
be doing.
So like if I'm, you know, maybea developer, maybe it's like,
you know, I can work on anystack or I want to work on a
specific stack or I want tosolve this problem for
Alzheimer's, whatever thechallenges and the passion is,
it's like, am I going to be ableto wake up tomorrow even if it's
hard to be able to do thoseroles?
(22:26):
And then, like, obviously,compensation...
plays a big part.
But quite honestly, like mostpeople are somewhat aligned on
compensation already.
It's the other things that theytypically get wrong.
SPEAKER_00 (22:37):
That's really interesting.
Any other hiring trends orindustry shifts you're seeing?
That was really good, Adam.
I enjoyed that, that even givingme some insights, right?
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
Yeah.
I mean, I would say people justtend to overcomplicate hiring.
Like it's not that hard, right?
Like sourcing and findingcandidates is probably the
easiest part about recruiting.
It's about the alignment, thetrust.
Like did people say what theysaid they were going to say?
Did the candidate do the work tofigure out if that was actually
the right job for them?
Had they gone on enough dates tofigure it out?
(23:08):
In terms of hiring trends rightnow, the hiring space has
changed so much since I got intoit.
It's just technology, a bit ofAI, people faking applications,
fast apply, doing two jobs atthe same time, lying about what
they can do, companiesoverselling something.
(23:28):
There's just like so much haschanged that's just like the tip
of the iceberg what i find isthat the the separation between
top talent and not so greattalent is has has expanded um
It's just harder to find reallygood talent for what companies
are looking for right now.
I guess this goes back to yourother point of like, and what I
(23:49):
like to talk about is like, stophiring too many people.
You know, it's kind ofcounterintuitive to what a
recruiter would say, but, youknow, I don't need you to hire
10 people when you only need,you know, eight or one.
Yeah.
And you need to identify likewhat do you actually need?
Like what's going to be greatfor the business?
And not often, not always islike adding some person going to
(24:11):
magically change the business,right?
And I think that that'ssometimes what people think.
Like remove all your bias andjust come to the table and have
a candid conversation about howyou want to start dating.
Like that should be it.
SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
You know, I think it's interesting because, yeah,
I reflect on this and you golike, you know, you end up on
LinkedIn and every secondLinkedIn influence are saying
like the only way to get moneyis to you know not be loyal to
the company but jump you knowhop like and I think it's
literally become as youmentioned it's a trend to like
company hop because they thinkthat if I move laterally it's
(24:45):
the only way I'm going to get araise but the grass isn't always
greener on the other side thegrass is greener where you water
it right like have you actuallyyou know within your own company
asked for a raise asked forgrowth had those discussions
looked at those pieces I reallyI really like that but I like
that the first point there,which is, even though you
mentioned it, we see this sooften with the startups we work
with.
(25:06):
They get venture capitalfunding, and then, okay, I've
got all this investment, so nowI've got to grow, grow, grow.
I've got to hire all theseroles.
And they hire far too quickly,trying to hit numbers on
employee count versus solve aspecific problem, which is what
you're getting at, right?
Versus actually solve a problemwith each candidate.
And often my biggest advice topeople is in those cases, like
(25:27):
hire one at a time.
Don't hire 10, hire one, getthem in, see how it's going.
Hire the second one, then hirethe third one.
Like, let's just build thisiteratively because imagine
being on the Mighty Ducks andgetting 10 new team players.
You're going to lose your teammojo.
You're going to lose theteamwork.
You're going to lose theculture, right?
Like all of those pieces.
But if you add one at a time,you still have the density of
the team that was there beforethat can help grow, help teach,
(25:50):
help really mitigate thosepieces.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
Yeah, I will just jump in for a second.
I think hiring in twos is reallygreat.
Depends on the role.
I mean, yeah, sometimes youdon't need two people for one
role.
Like, you know, obviously you'renot going to hire two, you know,
CROs, right?
Like, you know, so there isdefinitely, but I just want to,
you know, talk about how two isreally good because both people
can, you know, it's kind of liketaking a pair to swim, right?
(26:16):
If somebody's drowning, you canhelp them out.
It's going to challenge that.
People thrive on challenge, too.
If somebody's doing really wellin sales, they're going to try
and beat that person.
If that person, unfortunately,something happens to them, you
still have that other personwith that knowledge.
So if you can afford it, Ialways recommend to hire in
twos.
And then I don't recommendhiring teams probably above
(26:39):
seven.
And so, yeah, I think thateveryone has been just throwing
money at a problem.
And in some cases, cases likeyou just don't want to
necessarily let that money sitand stale and do nothing but it
needs to be very methodical Imean you talk about like time
heals all wounds right like justlike you said just see what
happens right like be verymethodical hire the right people
(27:01):
higher quality and if that meansyou need to change your
requirements to hire higherquality or change your salary
you know maybe hire somebody for100k instead of two people at
90k you know less managementheadache you know less drama
less issues like there's justall these things that you know
come with hiring a team and ifyou're not set up for it if you
just go speed then it'll be oneof the things is fresh books in
(27:26):
Canada for people that knowfresh books there's a wonderful
beautiful product I love theproduct so much but they came to
the point where they like theygot over like kind of like a
hundred and they kind of likelost their culture and mojo
because they were just growingso fast they made a couple
changes I don't know if that waslike I don't want spreading
rumors that was the totalproblem of where the company
went but they had a massiveamazing talent on that team, you
(27:47):
know, amazing product.
I think, you know, believe itstill exists, but I think they
could have crushed QuickBooks ifthey had just methodically more
thought about, like, you know, Ithink, and I know a lot of
people on the HR team, samepeople, doing all the right
things.
But I think it was just like alittle bit of, you know, I think
we should do this, or I think weshould do this.
(28:07):
And, you know, that kind ofthing.
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
That's good to share.
I got one more kind of groupingof questions here for you, Adam,
a little bit around the foundersand yourself kind of personally,
too like so founder burnout isvery real right when we talk a
lot of to a lot of founders alot of startup founders you know
they're hustling they're workinghard they're up or they're up
early they're they're staying uplate they're working and
oftentimes it has a lot to dowith the fact that they haven't
(28:31):
built the right sort ofleadership around them they
scaled the talent around themand you and I met at the dinner
we were talking about scalingleadership talent this is kind
of part of it but as a founderstrying to scale and trying to
grow they come to a lot ofburnout issues also mind mindset
issues around how to approachscaling from a talent
perspective.
So first, personally, likeyou're running multiple
(28:52):
businesses.
You've had to grow your team.
You had to give up, you know,give away control to certain
people on the team so that theycould grow without you and so
that you're not the bottleneck.
How have you maybe avoidedburnout?
How have you thought aboutscaling your talent and your
team?
Give me just some personalthoughts on it.
SPEAKER_01 (29:10):
Yeah, I mean, I love this question, especially now
because I am feeling like, youknow, we are like, yeah, I've
been working like crazy.
since I was, you know, 13 yearsold.
Like I said, like I just, Idefinitely burned the candle at
both ends and I'm just, youknow, constantly, I've got six
things, you know, six to seventhings in my head at once, even
during this podcast.
But I will say that, you know,personally from experience in
(29:31):
terms of like how I'm managingall these companies over the
years, what I've realized isthat focus is the biggest hack.
It's like being able to say, no,I think I just, you know, maybe
I felt bad or I was trying to betoo nice or like, you know,
just, you know, just thinkingthat I had to open all these
doors.
But the more and more I say no,the more weight I feel is lifted
(29:52):
off my shoulder.
And then I set my calendar byprioritizing and color coding
really just based on two things,which is health and wealth.
Health is like anything likefamily related, you know,
hitting the Peloton or, youknow, I have a boxing coach.
Like that was the best thingthat I ever did was get a boxing
(30:12):
coach to pay, to pay somebody tomake sure that I
SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
show up.
SPEAKER_01 (30:17):
Yeah.
And honestly, like
SPEAKER_00 (30:19):
push myself too.
Right.
Like, cause you know, if you didit, you do it on your own, maybe
you go 80% with a coach, you get110%.
Right.
Like there's that extra bit.
SPEAKER_01 (30:28):
Yeah.
Fortunately you do it.
And, and, and in boxing is like,basically like a workout for
your brain as well, because ifyou have six things going on in
my head at once, I'm going toget hit.
So, you know, it's just I thinkI really chose the right sport.
But anyway,
SPEAKER_00 (30:43):
I'll just end it.
No, I like that.
I like that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
Yeah, I'll just end it saying that, like, you know,
I think what people need to dofor burnout is just like set
those priorities, like, youknow, color code their calendar,
get tools like superhuman orwhatever is going to kind of
ease some of the burden andpain.
And make sure you're doingsomething that you like.
I mean, yeah, I wouldn't havemade it this far if I wasn't
(31:06):
super passionate about breakingdown doors in this space.
SPEAKER_00 (31:09):
It's fantastic.
Well, Adam, I'm glad you put uson your priority list and that
you made time for us on thispodcast.
This has been a really funconversation.
Before we wrap it up, Adam, anyfinal hot takes, any final
thoughts for some of ourfounders who are listening to
this, for some of the VPs oftalent that listen to this, any
kind of last thoughts that you'dwant to share, anything that
you've been chewing on?
SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
Yeah, I would say that don't be afraid to make
mistakes.
I mean, like, you know, hiringisn't perfect.
Like you have to, you know, doput yourself out there and take
those risks.
But, you know, I woulddefinitely find somebody that's
in your corner that all they dois think about recruiting,
whether that's in-house orotherwise.
I'm always happy to be asounding board.
I love talking about the stuff,you know, traction, talent,
(31:52):
retention.
Yeah, I think I think the lastthing is like, yeah, just try to
focus on the current team thatyou have.
Like, I really like Netflix'sphilosophy on that's like the
quotes escaping me but thekeeper test just to kind of
figure out like who you know inthe organization you still want
to go to war with and like justconstantly do that like every
week
SPEAKER_00 (32:11):
Remind the folks for the keeper test.
Who would you be upset if theyleft tomorrow?
Or who would you try andcounteroffer if they left
tomorrow?
They had a specific one, Iremember.
Is that the keeper test you'rereferring to?
SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
Yeah, you got it.
That's exactly it.
Who would you pay more to keep?
Who would you not be happylosing?
And
SPEAKER_00 (32:36):
who would you be happy if they left?
Where you'd be like, wait, youknow, it's a relief.
Maybe I should have gone for tothis person?
SPEAKER_01 (32:42):
Yeah, attrition isn't always bad.
Like, look, there are certainpeople that can take you from A
to B or zero to one.
And there are certain peoplethat have to take you to the
next step.
I know some companies reallystruggle with like, well, I
started the company with thisperson or...
You know, we did that.
But honestly, attrition can be agood thing.
And it's a, you know, restart,refresh.
Sports teams do it all the time.
(33:02):
There are a lot of correlationsbetween sporting and building a
team and dating and building ateam.
Like, there's just a lot ofcorrelations that, like, you
know, rally back.
SPEAKER_00 (33:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I really like that.
I think that's key for us tosort of, like, we've talked
about this before.
It's like, is the turnover in astartup a bug or a feature?
And the reality is that it's afeature.
Like, startups need naturalturnover because if they don't
turnover they don't update theirtalent right and who you needed
at the start you know the thesort of generalists that are
(33:31):
just hacking away at thingsaren't the pointy people you
need as you start to grow and asyou scale right the leaders that
got you here are not the onesthat get you there but we've
given out all our vp titles andall our c-suite titles already
because we wanted everyone tofeel good that's that right
that's the other piece of it theother challenge there adam this
was wonderful this was awesomeadam where can people find you
(33:52):
online on linkedin where is thatwhere's the best place to find
you to connect with you to learnmore about your companies and
all the amazing work you do forrecruitment
SPEAKER_01 (34:01):
yeah uh you can go to recruiteradam.com um that's
where you find like all of myportfolio and links to all my
site on linkedin um adam gellerthere's there's a couple but you
know if you see lakers groupthat's me and uh and yeah those
are the two best places i livein both both those areas.
SPEAKER_00 (34:18):
Awesome.
Fantastic.
Well, folks, thank you so muchfor joining us.
If you made it all the way tothe end of the episode, we love
that we've had you here.
If you have any questions forAdam, you have any questions for
me, you can always send in yourquestions.
You can find me atunicornlabs.ca.
You can find me on LinkedIn orany of our socials.
Ask us our questions.
Let us get your questions overto Adam.
We'll talk to you at our nextepisode.
(34:39):
Thank you.
And that's it.
That's all for now.
The hire slow, fire fast mentality is broken.
(00:02):
It's wrong.
It's no longer the way we shouldbe thinking about it.
You've said that.
Walk me through that.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
Yeah, I think a lot of companies like to lean back
on that because it feels safe.
And, you know, if I make amistake, it's like, oh, you
know, hire slow, fire fast.
But it's the biggest lie that'sever been told.
You know, you need to be able tohire fast.
And if you hire fast, know whatyou're looking for, you don't
have to fire at all.
So you hire fast and hire well.
UNKNOWN (00:28):
So
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
Hello folks and welcome to our Unicorn
Leadership Podcast.
We've got Adam Gellert here withus.
This is where we interviewamazing leaders like himself to
really unpack this season'stheme, which is the David versus
Goliath of teams.
What makes these small yetmighty teams that are able to
overcome the competition toreally win?
This podcast is brought to youby Unicorn Labs.
(00:50):
My name is Fahad Al-Hattab, thefounder of Unicorn Labs and the
host of this podcast.
And today's guest is on amission to reshape, recruit, and
to change the candidateexperience.
So Adam, you are the founder andCEO of Hippo and Linkus Group.
Tell me a little bit about Hippoand Linkus Group just to get us
started.
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I've been in therecruitment space for over two
decades.
Two of the couple of projectsthat I've started.
Linkus Group is known withinCanada as a search and be search
firm where we help companies gofrom one to 250 people.
Really to fill hard niche, hardto fill roles in almost any
(01:32):
sector.
And so that's what we're knownfor.
I started Hippo.
We kind of just rebranded toHypo for high potential.
And that just came out of likesort of like the side hustle
idea.
You know, I read something fromGary Vee that said, if you don't
take yourself out of business,somebody else will.
So I said, screw it.
I'm going to take myself out ofbusiness.
So we created really a way forour clients who didn't want to
(01:56):
kind of go through working witha recruiter and they wanted to
do it themselves, gives them away to access our database with
high potential pre-vetted talentin a very fast, cost-effective
way with high quality results.
SPEAKER_00 (02:11):
That's quite bullish.
Literally went and said, I'mgoing to cannibalize part of my
own market, right?
Like, you know, Hypo, sorry forcalling it Hippo, Hypo, I
actually knew this, Hypotest,because we talked about this,
but yeah, Hypo literally is acompetitor to Linkus.
Now, maybe a subsect competitor,right?
Because you're capturing alittle bit of But that's so
interesting.
How did that feel at first whenwhen it felt like you're almost
(02:32):
competing against yourself here?
SPEAKER_01 (02:34):
Yeah, look, some of my clients thought I was crazy.
Probably still to this day.
You know, definitely a lot ofpeople think, you know, why
would you do that?
But like, look, I'm obsessedwith changing the way the
companies hire and the candidateexperience.
And I'm all about making hiringand recruiting better.
So why wouldn't I createsomething that I think is very
(02:56):
disruptive and I will set thetone and set the trends for the
industry.
I want to be a part of that.
And, you know, I've just kind ofput my hands on a lot of things
within the recruiting space.
So to me, it was just quiteobvious at the time that there
was just like no way to quicklymatch the right talent based on
interests and passion and skillsand experience with what
(03:18):
companies were looking for in avery like private, exclusive
way.
And so we said, like, let's doit.
SPEAKER_00 (03:23):
Honestly, that's the better intro than I could have
given you, Adam.
That was good.
I mean, In this episode, wereally want to unpack that.
I mentioned that whole Davidversus Goliath, what makes these
small, powerful teams.
And I think, as you'vementioned, it's talent.
It's the team.
It's did you get the rightpeople on the right seats in the
bus?
Did you get the best people?
And that's sort of what we wantto explore in this episode.
(03:44):
Maybe the hiring process, butmaybe challenging.
You know, you challenge the hireslow, fire fast mentality and
how that falls short.
So we're going to unpack that.
Stuff that CEOs and founders canlearn about what what it looks
like to build their executiveteams, to build their leadership
teams, how they hire for those,how they recruit for those.
(04:05):
Those are the different piecesthat we're going to want to
unpack during this episode, andwe're going to have a lot of fun
with it.
But Adam, you weren't alwaysthis brilliant entrepreneur
building these companies.
Give me a little backstory.
Where are you from?
Where did you get started?
What was the first gig, firstentrepreneurial journey, or
first job out of university?
Give me a little background.
Who is Adam?
SPEAKER_01 (04:23):
Yeah, definitely.
I'm a first-generation Canadian.
I grew up in...
Midtown, Toronto, Canada, andalways just had to make my own
way.
I've been working since I was 13years old, just multiple
SPEAKER_00 (04:36):
jobs.
What was the first job?
What was the first 13-year-oldjob?
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
Well, there was a lot of babysitting and selling
carts and stuff like that, butthe real actual job was, before
I was even legally eligible towork, I was paid cash under the
table at a record store inMidtown Toronto.
It was called Edwards RecordWorld.
I worked for a company calledThe Food Dudes for a while, a
great catering company inToronto.
(05:01):
And yeah, just...
you know kind of fell intorecruiting honestly didn't know
what i wanted to do um after mydream of becoming a veterinarian
fell through and that was ididn't i didn't know that did
you did you go to school for iti mean it just took me through
from birth the high the you knowthrough high school i worked at
a veterinarian clinic for sevenyears several adults um and you
(05:24):
know now we were getting toactually recruit for some vets
too which is awesome full circleum Yeah, just working in the vet
clinic, just realizing that, youknow, something more, you know,
business, creatively related.
It was more up my alley andjust, you know, kind of
different stamp on the world.
You know, I really believeyou've got to find your
superpower.
And, you know, I just opened upa bunch of doors to find that.
(05:46):
So, yeah, that's when I started.
We've been building it up foryears.
almost two decades now.
I
SPEAKER_00 (05:52):
love that.
I love the grit, man.
That's two decades.
I mean, you know what?
That's how long it takes tobuild a really good, healthy
business.
It takes time.
I think that's part of it,right?
So Adam, let's go through, thinkabout some of the founders and
tech companies that you'veworked with or that you continue
to work with.
When it comes to hiring keyleadership roles, what are some
(06:13):
of the mistakes you see peoplemake there?
Most founders fire their firstVP of sales because it's a
mishire, right?
They hire the wrong person.
It's the wrong It's the wrong.
They don't have a sales teamactually built out and they
bring in someone senior tooearly or whatever it is.
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (06:26):
Yeah.
It's honestly always comes downto the business problem that the
company needs to solve.
So that's all jobs are as abusiness problem that the
company needs to solve.
Like, like, you know, oftentimesan executive leadership.
I mean, sometimes you wantsomebody who's done the movie
before, like, you know, comes inalready with that experience
because that's kind of required.
You know, you need to have adifferent set of budget for
(06:46):
that.
So, you know, founders need tobe kind of realistic.
If you want a.
you know, needle in thehaystack, the like spear of the
perfect candidate, which is whatwe focus on.
We only headhunt talent, right?
Is just like, yeah, identifying,you know, what are the needs and
where that person should comefrom?
And is it potential or is itexperience that that person's
(07:06):
going to have?
SPEAKER_00 (07:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Now you said in this kind oftech space that we're working
in, the higher slow fire fastmentality is broken.
It's wrong.
It's no longer the way we shouldbe thinking about it.
You said that, walk me throughthat.
Help me understand, you know,What's the myth busting here?
What's the way we have to lookat it differently if that was
more traditional?
SPEAKER_01 (07:26):
Yeah, I think a lot of companies like to lean back
on that because it feels safe.
And, you know, if I make amistake, it's like, oh, you
know, hire slow, fire fast.
But it's the biggest lie that'sever been told.
You know, you need to be able tohire fast and you need to be
able to.
And if you hire fast, know whatyou're looking for, you don't
have to fire at all.
So you hire fast and hire well.
(07:48):
I mean, a lot of companies justtake too much time because they
feel like they'll you know maybeland on that perfect unicorn or
they didn't start early enough imean nine out of ten calls i get
is i need to hire someone as ofyesterday so it's just
SPEAKER_00 (08:01):
but they are looking for this unicorn right they are
looking for this top talentyou're totally you're often told
hire people better than you andso you're sort of looking for
this venn diagram of skillswhat's what's what's your
thoughts on that are people areYou know, are they are they over
coupling job descriptions?
Are they are they looking fortoo much of the, you know, a
Venn diagram of four or fivedifferent competencies that
(08:23):
don't typically come together?
So it makes it difficult.
They are afraid of making amistake, but they also have this
really high, maybe standard isthe wrong high bar, but also
this sort of I want them to beable to do this and that, right?
Like they need to be able to dosales and marketing and they
want them to be a designer and aproduct person.
Or I want them to be a frontend, you know, full stack
engineers that are the best,right?
(08:44):
They've got a lot of coupledneeds.
SPEAKER_01 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think there's likesome truth to that.
And then there's just like a lotof fluff, in my opinion.
I mean, you know, you don'talways need to hire someone that
can do everything and be betterthan you.
I mean, they need to maybe bebetter in certain ways, but
nobody's going to essentially beable to replicate the founder.
(09:08):
You have to really understandthat, like, if you could do X
amount of sales, like the personyou're bringing in probably do
50% of those sales, maybe 70%.
I mean, you just need to bereally realistic.
And, you know, a lot of the topadvisors like Jason Lumpkin,
like they all say this isn't,you know, just coming from me.
Even Harley from Shopify saysthat, like, you need to get
pointy people that can, youknow, solve a really, you know,
(09:30):
critical critiqued problem.
These like Jack and Jill of alltrades.
It's not like, you know,wouldn't be great to have if the
company is just still trying tofigure out product market fit or
we don't know what tomorrow isgoing to look like.
You know, those are the peoplethat kind of built like the
PayPal mafia, right?
Like, sure.
I mean, I always tell myclients, like, look, we're
always looking for that unicorn.
(09:50):
Unicorns are possible.
I mean, it's just like knowingthe market, what's realistic,
having like a really good,whether it's, you know, whatever
recruiter you use, you know,just having somebody who like
knows what they're doing, what'savailable on market and how to
attract those people.
But yeah, I mean, we go afterthe unicorn, but if that's not
possible and what's needed, Imean, it's like, I love the
(10:12):
unicorn name because we'retalking about Unicorn Labs here.
it's
SPEAKER_00 (10:16):
a plug it's a plug
SPEAKER_01 (10:17):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, yeah, look at it likehiring a dartboard.
So there's this bullseye ofexactly what you're looking for
when you need to hire.
But essentially, if you make amistake in terms of who that
person is, that's when yourcards start to fall.
And then if you can't find thatwithin your budget, you start
kind of moving out what'savailable.
(10:38):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (10:39):
yeah.
But you just hit a nail on thehead.
I think a lot of founders areafraid of making the mistake of
the wrong hire because the wronghire in a small team...
feels catastrophic, right?
It feels very painful.
You feel it.
The wrong hire in a 300-personteam, different than in a
30-person team, especially ifit's in a leadership role, the
damage that can happen.
(11:00):
So that's always a risk, whichis why people do the whole hire
slow thing.
But I hear what you're saying.
So I guess the fix here, whenyou say, I always look for top
talent, I'm only talking to thetop 10% talent.
How do you do that?
How are you only talking to thetop percent of the talent?
What's that?
What, I guess, markers are youlooking for what indicators are
you looking for or how do yousift through some of it and then
(11:21):
how do you qualify some of itmaybe that's getting more into
the interviewing pieces so firstlike how do you sift through it
how do you talk to the toptalent
SPEAKER_01 (11:28):
yeah definitely so yeah i'll just i'll just touch
on there like you know hiringslow isn't an advantage right
it's just like you need to hireslow if you don't know what
you're doing um but to get tothe top 10 i mean look like
startups can't hire the top onepercent because i
SPEAKER_00 (11:42):
can't afford
SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
them And they can't afford them and they're at the,
you know, unicorn companies,right?
They can't afford to hire belowthe top 10% because those people
just won't have the grit andunderstanding.
So you need to kind of fitbetween that top one and top 10%
of talent typically, whichstartups can do because there's
a lot of other advantages thanjust monetary gains, right?
(12:04):
And so, and you need to find thepeople that are kind of like
aligned to be an environmentthat can be, you know, maybe
unknown, you know, building aplane while you're flying it.
And so how do we get that top10% of talent?
I mean, there's a number of waysyou could do that pretty easily.
One, you want to be known as theperson to contact when you're
looking to hire or get hired.
(12:26):
So we have, you know, most ofthe people that contact us are
confidentially looking and theyknow us as leaders in the space.
So they call us and say, hey,you know, if you hear of
anything.
They also call us for advicebecause we, you know, try to set
the bar in terms of what's ontrend and and how people should
be looking at career trajectory.
SPEAKER_00 (12:45):
Just to jump in on Adam for a second, I think
that's actually an unstatedsuperpower.
The unstated superpower here isWhen I, as a business, go
searching for talent, I have tosearch for the talent that's
available.
But you get the talent a stepbefore when they're starting to
look, but they don't want anyoneto know.
(13:05):
Like that's actually, right?
Because a lot of the highestperformers still have jobs.
They're not actively like, youknow, applying and do that.
And so we always say like, howdo you find the top performers
who already have jobs?
And so you're like the secretpower of Linkist Group or Hypo
is like, it's that you'regetting them before.
That's a really interestingthought.
It just came across my mind thatI wanted to highlight.
(13:27):
Sorry, keep going.
SPEAKER_01 (13:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
That's exactly why we built Hypoand the product so that
companies could access thattalent that will kind of put up
their hand when they're lookinganonymously, like candidates
sign up anonymously.
It's not just the role we'reworking on.
We're looking at the wholecompany holistically.
And if there's a candidate, eventwo years later, we'll be able
to put that in.
(13:48):
I mean, we just hired a CRO fora company I've been working with
for 15 years.
They didn't have a role posted.
And that's just like one of like1000 examples of jobs that we
get filled.
But I knew that this thiscandidate had, you know, the
ability to connect with thisfounder and a vice versa.
And so we're creatingopportunities.
It's not just opportunities thatare available.
(14:10):
I always find that like a lot ofrecruiting agencies kind of like
lean on this, like, very oldschool thing of like, we have a
database, we have somebody inour back pocket.
I hate that.
Because it, you know, people arearen't, you know, just waiting
in the sidelines.
You just have to have a pulse onthe industry.
I need to know that you'reserious about hiring.
We need to figure out whatyou're looking for because what
(14:31):
you think you want is probablynot what you need.
And there's a lid for every pot.
I mean, you know, it, it likewhat somebody who's great at
Shopify, like might not be greatfor you for, you know, one or a
thousand reasons.
SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that definitely happens,right?
That sort of bias towards, oh,you worked at Apple.
Oh, you worked at Google.
You worked at Shopify.
Therefore you must be great.
Right.
Right.
Like they're when when, youknow, these larger companies,
Shopify, Apple, all of them whoare more corporate at this
point, they have people who areextremely specialized.
They are extremely pointy.
And sometimes in that case,maybe would you say they're too
(15:05):
specialized for when they shiftover to startups?
I just find that interesting.
Like some people make the shiftover to startup and do well.
Some people make a shift over tostartup from a more corporate
and don't do well.
They want more definedprocesses, more defined roles,
the chaos of a startup.
of a 20, 50 person startup isstill too much uncertainty and
(15:27):
ambiguity for some of them.
SPEAKER_01 (15:28):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, you hit on so many goodpoints there.
And this is like what a lot ofcompanies, startups struggle
with.
Every day is going to bedifferent, that there are going
to be certain stresses that, youknow, you might not know what
you're doing tomorrow, that theprocesses or the resources that
you had, you know, in a companylike Google and the other you
know minds and talent that youhad previously aren't the same
(15:51):
you know it's kind of like thethe mighty ducks right like when
they like have like not a greatteam and it's like everyone
needs to come together that'slike the startup whereas like
you have like a stack team rightwhere everyone's like a top
performer I mean I'm not sayingthat they're not top talent but
they have other players on theirteam that elevate them you know
like we got Gretzky elevatedMessier you know and so would he
(16:13):
have done the same on anotherteam maybe but you know probably
not to that a Yeah,
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
I actually really like that example, like the
Mighty Ducks versus like the NewYork Yankees who like literally
purchased the best talent andjust put them in different
environments.
Right.
We got to be the Mighty Ducks.
We got to be the team that comestogether that actually.
make each other better through,you know, through the work
together to make each otherbetter.
I really like that.
(16:38):
You know, one of the thingsthat's standing out to me, Adam,
is like just how much rigor goesinto the process of finding and
bringing on this talent, right?
I think a lot of people go, oh,I got to hire, I got to find
someone.
And what you're saying here islike, wait, I got to start with
a business problem.
I got to search.
You got to be on the pulse.
There's just so much to do,which is why there's value in
(17:00):
Hypo and in Linkers Group.
It's because most startupsStartup founders underestimate,
myself included, underestimatejust how...
much work goes into finding thattop 10% and getting the right
person.
Yeah, it's quite interesting.
Adam, you've got another thoughthere.
You mentioned to us in some ofthe pre-interview, you said,
(17:21):
well, some companies, they dothe hire slow, fire fast.
It was some companies overhire.
And where are you seeing that?
Where some people areoverhiring, maybe mediocre
talent, and that's sort of whatcreates this bloatness?
Or what are you seeing there?
SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
Yeah, I mean, recruiting, you said so much
great stuff there.
I best person for the job Sohigh quality in the fastest way
possible for the lowest cost.
And if you can do that on yourown and you've got that covered,
then you don't need recruitinghelp, right?
If you don't have like hiring isexpensive.
(17:55):
So, you know, there is a tonthat goes into it.
LinkedIn is not cheap.
Like all these tools, things arenot cheap.
Having, you know, a lot ofexperience is not cheap.
So like if you don't have thebudget, then yeah, you might
have to hire slow, fire, fast.
Like I love that you said that.
But in terms of like how to getpeople into the right seats it's
(18:15):
like understanding the entirescope of the market right
SPEAKER_00 (18:19):
so then do you have any tips and tricks for the like
for the people who are doingrecruitment in-house you know
like how do you do you guys docertain interview tips and
tricks is there i would sayinterviews are bullshit like you
can you know you can walkthrough and you can talk through
it but how does that convinceyou that this talent is the
right talent
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
yeah i mean like first of all you want to know
the business problem you want tosolve it i've said that before
for but like you just know whatyou're looking for what's good
like what good looks like whenyou see it when and why and
where you need to hire what'sthe market going to look like
based on you know your budgetand requirements and then you
know focus in on you know threeinterviews I mean Google says
(18:57):
that like beyond four you knowyou're not really making any
changes so I see all thesecompanies because you know
people are scared about makingbad hire or wrong hire and they
they try and you know make thatseem better by having more
interviews, which doesn't reallyhelp them.
There's no data behind it.
And so, yeah, just streamliningthat interview process, you
(19:17):
know, how to make thosedecisions in terms of, I think
one of your other questions waslike interview questions or
tests.
I mean, you want to cram allthose things in there that are
related to the job.
Like, you know, don't try andtrick candidates into questions
like how many golf balls fit inthe bus if that's not part of
their job.
And then I see that sometimescandidates take jobs and it was
(19:38):
kind of sold to them differentlythan during the interview.
So You need to make sure thatyou're transparent.
You tell all the good, bad,ugly, you know, hey, we might
not hit our runway in six monthsfrom now.
You know, hey, like you have tobe in the office.
If you sign off at five o'clock,you know, it's going to piss
this person off.
You know, just everything, evenif it, you know, might get that
person not take the job, tellthem because trust me, trying to
(20:01):
trying to replace someone ismuch more painful.
So giving people like insightinto what the job is.
So if like they're going to beon the phone doing a cold call,
like I just thought it wascrazy.
crazy at how many companies thatI saw that hired somebody
without showing them a demo ofthe product right and I don't
know why that candidate wouldhave taken the job or you're
selling events and they've neverbeen to an event before like
bring them to one of your eventsshow them a you know video get
(20:24):
like walk them through the doorwho are other people in the
company I mean people alwaysleave jobs because it wasn't the
way it was sold to them notbecause of money you know
sometimes because the leaderlike they didn't have enough
face time with the leader sojust in those three interviews
just make sure that you'regiving people kind of like like
you're putting on a VR headsetand you know exactly what it's
(20:45):
going to be like to walk throughthe door.
SPEAKER_00 (20:47):
I mean, that's a really good point.
Adam, have you seen, what do yousee top talent evaluating for?
SPEAKER_01 (20:53):
Yeah, you know, candidates that are high quality
are looking for the same thingsthe companies are looking for.
Like, it's funny that, you know,both people, both companies and
candidates want the exact samething, but they just have
different ideas how to getthere.
And so, you know, they wanttransparent, like, information.
Like, you know, is the companydoing well?
Is it not?
If it's not, I'll at least knowwhat I'm getting into.
(21:15):
It's like dating, right?
Just tell me what I'm gettinginto so that I know that I'm
making the right decision.
SPEAKER_00 (21:20):
We
SPEAKER_01 (21:21):
don't have to get married tomorrow, but I at least
want to know if I want tocontinue this conversation,
right?
So we found when we created ourproduct that the number one
thing that made somebody kind ofraise their hand that they were
looking for a new job waslocation.
So, you know, how close it is tomy house, obviously like
pre-remote, a ton of remoteoptions.
And now people are kind of stilllooking for the same thing.
(21:42):
So transparently, goodcandidates ask those questions.
What is it like?
Then they want to know likegrowth potential.
So who works there?
How long have they been workingthere?
Am I going to learn from them?
Do you think they might leave inthe next six months and I'm
going to lose that personbecause I'm jumping on board
because that person's available,right?
Same with the sports team.
Maybe they're joining becauseLeBron's there, right?
It's just all these factors.
(22:03):
And then, you know, alignment interms of like what they want to
be doing.
So like if I'm, you know, maybea developer, maybe it's like,
you know, I can work on anystack or I want to work on a
specific stack or I want tosolve this problem for
Alzheimer's, whatever thechallenges and the passion is,
it's like, am I going to be ableto wake up tomorrow even if it's
hard to be able to do thoseroles?
(22:26):
And then, like, obviously,compensation...
plays a big part.
But quite honestly, like mostpeople are somewhat aligned on
compensation already.
It's the other things that theytypically get wrong.
SPEAKER_00 (22:37):
That's really interesting.
Any other hiring trends orindustry shifts you're seeing?
That was really good, Adam.
I enjoyed that, that even givingme some insights, right?
SPEAKER_01 (22:46):
Yeah.
I mean, I would say people justtend to overcomplicate hiring.
Like it's not that hard, right?
Like sourcing and findingcandidates is probably the
easiest part about recruiting.
It's about the alignment, thetrust.
Like did people say what theysaid they were going to say?
Did the candidate do the work tofigure out if that was actually
the right job for them?
Had they gone on enough dates tofigure it out?
(23:08):
In terms of hiring trends rightnow, the hiring space has
changed so much since I got intoit.
It's just technology, a bit ofAI, people faking applications,
fast apply, doing two jobs atthe same time, lying about what
they can do, companiesoverselling something.
(23:28):
There's just like so much haschanged that's just like the tip
of the iceberg what i find isthat the the separation between
top talent and not so greattalent is has has expanded um
It's just harder to find reallygood talent for what companies
are looking for right now.
I guess this goes back to yourother point of like, and what I
(23:49):
like to talk about is like, stophiring too many people.
You know, it's kind ofcounterintuitive to what a
recruiter would say, but, youknow, I don't need you to hire
10 people when you only need,you know, eight or one.
Yeah.
And you need to identify likewhat do you actually need?
Like what's going to be greatfor the business?
And not often, not always islike adding some person going to
(24:11):
magically change the business,right?
And I think that that'ssometimes what people think.
Like remove all your bias andjust come to the table and have
a candid conversation about howyou want to start dating.
Like that should be it.
SPEAKER_00 (24:24):
You know, I think it's interesting because, yeah,
I reflect on this and you golike, you know, you end up on
LinkedIn and every secondLinkedIn influence are saying
like the only way to get moneyis to you know not be loyal to
the company but jump you knowhop like and I think it's
literally become as youmentioned it's a trend to like
company hop because they thinkthat if I move laterally it's
(24:45):
the only way I'm going to get araise but the grass isn't always
greener on the other side thegrass is greener where you water
it right like have you actuallyyou know within your own company
asked for a raise asked forgrowth had those discussions
looked at those pieces I reallyI really like that but I like
that the first point there,which is, even though you
mentioned it, we see this sooften with the startups we work
with.
(25:06):
They get venture capitalfunding, and then, okay, I've
got all this investment, so nowI've got to grow, grow, grow.
I've got to hire all theseroles.
And they hire far too quickly,trying to hit numbers on
employee count versus solve aspecific problem, which is what
you're getting at, right?
Versus actually solve a problemwith each candidate.
And often my biggest advice topeople is in those cases, like
(25:27):
hire one at a time.
Don't hire 10, hire one, getthem in, see how it's going.
Hire the second one, then hirethe third one.
Like, let's just build thisiteratively because imagine
being on the Mighty Ducks andgetting 10 new team players.
You're going to lose your teammojo.
You're going to lose theteamwork.
You're going to lose theculture, right?
Like all of those pieces.
But if you add one at a time,you still have the density of
the team that was there beforethat can help grow, help teach,
(25:50):
help really mitigate thosepieces.
SPEAKER_01 (25:53):
Yeah, I will just jump in for a second.
I think hiring in twos is reallygreat.
Depends on the role.
I mean, yeah, sometimes youdon't need two people for one
role.
Like, you know, obviously you'renot going to hire two, you know,
CROs, right?
Like, you know, so there isdefinitely, but I just want to,
you know, talk about how two isreally good because both people
can, you know, it's kind of liketaking a pair to swim, right?
(26:16):
If somebody's drowning, you canhelp them out.
It's going to challenge that.
People thrive on challenge, too.
If somebody's doing really wellin sales, they're going to try
and beat that person.
If that person, unfortunately,something happens to them, you
still have that other personwith that knowledge.
So if you can afford it, Ialways recommend to hire in
twos.
And then I don't recommendhiring teams probably above
(26:39):
seven.
And so, yeah, I think thateveryone has been just throwing
money at a problem.
And in some cases, cases likeyou just don't want to
necessarily let that money sitand stale and do nothing but it
needs to be very methodical Imean you talk about like time
heals all wounds right like justlike you said just see what
happens right like be verymethodical hire the right people
(27:01):
higher quality and if that meansyou need to change your
requirements to hire higherquality or change your salary
you know maybe hire somebody for100k instead of two people at
90k you know less managementheadache you know less drama
less issues like there's justall these things that you know
come with hiring a team and ifyou're not set up for it if you
just go speed then it'll be oneof the things is fresh books in
(27:26):
Canada for people that knowfresh books there's a wonderful
beautiful product I love theproduct so much but they came to
the point where they like theygot over like kind of like a
hundred and they kind of likelost their culture and mojo
because they were just growingso fast they made a couple
changes I don't know if that waslike I don't want spreading
rumors that was the totalproblem of where the company
went but they had a massiveamazing talent on that team, you
(27:47):
know, amazing product.
I think, you know, believe itstill exists, but I think they
could have crushed QuickBooks ifthey had just methodically more
thought about, like, you know, Ithink, and I know a lot of
people on the HR team, samepeople, doing all the right
things.
But I think it was just like alittle bit of, you know, I think
we should do this, or I think weshould do this.
(28:07):
And, you know, that kind ofthing.
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
That's good to share.
I got one more kind of groupingof questions here for you, Adam,
a little bit around the foundersand yourself kind of personally,
too like so founder burnout isvery real right when we talk a
lot of to a lot of founders alot of startup founders you know
they're hustling they're workinghard they're up or they're up
early they're they're staying uplate they're working and
oftentimes it has a lot to dowith the fact that they haven't
(28:31):
built the right sort ofleadership around them they
scaled the talent around themand you and I met at the dinner
we were talking about scalingleadership talent this is kind
of part of it but as a founderstrying to scale and trying to
grow they come to a lot ofburnout issues also mind mindset
issues around how to approachscaling from a talent
perspective.
So first, personally, likeyou're running multiple
(28:52):
businesses.
You've had to grow your team.
You had to give up, you know,give away control to certain
people on the team so that theycould grow without you and so
that you're not the bottleneck.
How have you maybe avoidedburnout?
How have you thought aboutscaling your talent and your
team?
Give me just some personalthoughts on it.
SPEAKER_01 (29:10):
Yeah, I mean, I love this question, especially now
because I am feeling like, youknow, we are like, yeah, I've
been working like crazy.
since I was, you know, 13 yearsold.
Like I said, like I just, Idefinitely burned the candle at
both ends and I'm just, youknow, constantly, I've got six
things, you know, six to seventhings in my head at once, even
during this podcast.
But I will say that, you know,personally from experience in
(29:31):
terms of like how I'm managingall these companies over the
years, what I've realized isthat focus is the biggest hack.
It's like being able to say, no,I think I just, you know, maybe
I felt bad or I was trying to betoo nice or like, you know,
just, you know, just thinkingthat I had to open all these
doors.
But the more and more I say no,the more weight I feel is lifted
(29:52):
off my shoulder.
And then I set my calendar byprioritizing and color coding
really just based on two things,which is health and wealth.
Health is like anything likefamily related, you know,
hitting the Peloton or, youknow, I have a boxing coach.
Like that was the best thingthat I ever did was get a boxing
(30:12):
coach to pay, to pay somebody tomake sure that I
SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
show up.
SPEAKER_01 (30:17):
Yeah.
And honestly, like
SPEAKER_00 (30:19):
push myself too.
Right.
Like, cause you know, if you didit, you do it on your own, maybe
you go 80% with a coach, you get110%.
Right.
Like there's that extra bit.
SPEAKER_01 (30:28):
Yeah.
Fortunately you do it.
And, and, and in boxing is like,basically like a workout for
your brain as well, because ifyou have six things going on in
my head at once, I'm going toget hit.
So, you know, it's just I thinkI really chose the right sport.
But anyway,
SPEAKER_00 (30:43):
I'll just end it.
No, I like that.
I like that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:45):
Yeah, I'll just end it saying that, like, you know,
I think what people need to dofor burnout is just like set
those priorities, like, youknow, color code their calendar,
get tools like superhuman orwhatever is going to kind of
ease some of the burden andpain.
And make sure you're doingsomething that you like.
I mean, yeah, I wouldn't havemade it this far if I wasn't
(31:06):
super passionate about breakingdown doors in this space.
SPEAKER_00 (31:09):
It's fantastic.
Well, Adam, I'm glad you put uson your priority list and that
you made time for us on thispodcast.
This has been a really funconversation.
Before we wrap it up, Adam, anyfinal hot takes, any final
thoughts for some of ourfounders who are listening to
this, for some of the VPs oftalent that listen to this, any
kind of last thoughts that you'dwant to share, anything that
you've been chewing on?
SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
Yeah, I would say that don't be afraid to make
mistakes.
I mean, like, you know, hiringisn't perfect.
Like you have to, you know, doput yourself out there and take
those risks.
But, you know, I woulddefinitely find somebody that's
in your corner that all they dois think about recruiting,
whether that's in-house orotherwise.
I'm always happy to be asounding board.
I love talking about the stuff,you know, traction, talent,
(31:52):
retention.
Yeah, I think I think the lastthing is like, yeah, just try to
focus on the current team thatyou have.
Like, I really like Netflix'sphilosophy on that's like the
quotes escaping me but thekeeper test just to kind of
figure out like who you know inthe organization you still want
to go to war with and like justconstantly do that like every
week
SPEAKER_00 (32:11):
Remind the folks for the keeper test.
Who would you be upset if theyleft tomorrow?
Or who would you try andcounteroffer if they left
tomorrow?
They had a specific one, Iremember.
Is that the keeper test you'rereferring to?
SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
Yeah, you got it.
That's exactly it.
Who would you pay more to keep?
Who would you not be happylosing?
And
SPEAKER_00 (32:36):
who would you be happy if they left?
Where you'd be like, wait, youknow, it's a relief.
Maybe I should have gone for tothis person?
SPEAKER_01 (32:42):
Yeah, attrition isn't always bad.
Like, look, there are certainpeople that can take you from A
to B or zero to one.
And there are certain peoplethat have to take you to the
next step.
I know some companies reallystruggle with like, well, I
started the company with thisperson or...
You know, we did that.
But honestly, attrition can be agood thing.
And it's a, you know, restart,refresh.
Sports teams do it all the time.
(33:02):
There are a lot of correlationsbetween sporting and building a
team and dating and building ateam.
Like, there's just a lot ofcorrelations that, like, you
know, rally back.
SPEAKER_00 (33:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I really like that.
I think that's key for us tosort of, like, we've talked
about this before.
It's like, is the turnover in astartup a bug or a feature?
And the reality is that it's afeature.
Like, startups need naturalturnover because if they don't
turnover they don't update theirtalent right and who you needed
at the start you know the thesort of generalists that are
(33:31):
just hacking away at thingsaren't the pointy people you
need as you start to grow and asyou scale right the leaders that
got you here are not the onesthat get you there but we've
given out all our vp titles andall our c-suite titles already
because we wanted everyone tofeel good that's that right
that's the other piece of it theother challenge there adam this
was wonderful this was awesomeadam where can people find you
(33:52):
online on linkedin where is thatwhere's the best place to find
you to connect with you to learnmore about your companies and
all the amazing work you do forrecruitment
SPEAKER_01 (34:01):
yeah uh you can go to recruiteradam.com um that's
where you find like all of myportfolio and links to all my
site on linkedin um adam gellerthere's there's a couple but you
know if you see lakers groupthat's me and uh and yeah those
are the two best places i livein both both those areas.
SPEAKER_00 (34:18):
Awesome.
Fantastic.
Well, folks, thank you so muchfor joining us.
If you made it all the way tothe end of the episode, we love
that we've had you here.
If you have any questions forAdam, you have any questions for
me, you can always send in yourquestions.
You can find me atunicornlabs.ca.
You can find me on LinkedIn orany of our socials.
Ask us our questions.
Let us get your questions overto Adam.
We'll talk to you at our nextepisode.
(34:39):
Thank you.
And that's it.
That's all for now.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.