The 20 Minute Test in VP Hiring. Maybe All Hiring

So much has changed in recruiting in the past few years:

• You can apply to 1,000+ jobs with AI (literally) that you know nothing about
• Folks do far more Zoom interviews than they ever did IRL, often with zero research
• Reference checks aren’t taken as seriously as before, or even done at all
• Many don’t even plan to stay for a year
• Many are working multiple side hustles
• Layoffs are up, even as AI hiring is having a mini-boom
• Mature B2B / software companies have to be far more efficient than before, and even hyper-growth AI startups are 2x as efficient in headcount per $ of revenue than nefore
• Everyone is excepted to be AI fluent

And with that, I think across my portfolio of 30+ investments, I think we’ve all gotten a bit worse at hiring. Hiring is always tough. It never gets easier. But in general, I’ve seen folks lower the bar, hire faster, and do less diligence on hiring than we used to.

Here’s the one test that cuts through it all: You have to truly believe they can do it within 20 minutes of the first interview.

You’ll hear a lot of excuses, from the team and even in your head, especially when someone wants to hire someone that looks decent on paper but doesn’t impress IRL:

• They’ll do better — once they know the product
• They are great at “process”, which is what we need
• Not sure anyone will come with them, but they might
• Everyone likes him. He’s a “good guy”
• They worked somewhere great

But did you truly believe within 20 minutes they could do the job, CRO, VP of Sales, Marketing, Product, Eng, etc.? Really, truly?

95% of the time when a VP doesn’t work out, I ask the CEO this question. They admit they were never truly sure that VP could do it.

Take risks. But not there.