Expecting a Generalist to Hire Your Next VP or Director of Engineering, Data, or Product? Here’s Why That’s Risky.

August 15, 2023

Technology

Expecting a Generalist to Hire Your Next VP or Director of Engineering, Data, or Product? Here’s Why That’s Risky.

Can anyone vet senior technical talent?

🚫 Short answer: No.
🤔 Long answer: Maybe — but only if you set them up for success.

When we recruit CTOs, CPOs, CIOs, CISOs, and other technical leaders, we look for their ability to streamline recruiting — whether they’re using us or an internal talent partner to hire their Directors and VPs. Whether recruiting is a core strength or a glaring weakness, we make it clear to our clients — because scaling a team (from 200 to 800 developers) requires a structured hiring plan. It’s often an overlooked KPI but can make or break a technical team’s success.

Even the most brilliant technical minds often need guidance in communicating their vision and hiring strategy — they end up with an alphabet soup of acronyms and words like “Rockstar.” Their time to fill roles, ROI on new hires, attrition rates, and overall success will depend on how well they structure their teams.

Here’s how technical leaders can set their hiring teams up for success:

Get Involved Early

Sit with your recruiter or external search partner during the early stages. Show them how you think and vet candidates. Teach them your process before sending them out on their own, expecting them to champion your vision for the team and assess experts.

Provide Target Profiles and Companies

Supply them with five realistic candidate profiles that fit the compensation you’re offering. Don’t show them candidates you can’t afford or attract. Give them a list of companies you’d like to poach current or former employees from and let them go to work. They’ll turn that into over 100 companies quickly.

Clarify Keywords and Tools

Don’t just hand them a generic list of keywords. Explain why your company uses certain tools and what alternatives are acceptable. They need to be able to answer when a candidate asks, “Why did you select this tool over that one for this initiative?”

Illustrate Exact Problems and Solutions

Share the specific problems your team is trying to solve. This is key to a proper position brief — but don’t post it publicly. You don’t need to reveal your Achilles’ heel to competitors.

Allow Time to Search

Properly vetting technical talent takes time. If you limit your recruiter to sifting through job postings in the ATS, you’ll get underwhelming results. Do you want the best candidate out of 10 interviewed, or the best out of 100? That requires bandwidth, but it’s worth it.

Provide Detailed Examples

Asking if a candidate has “built data architecture” isn’t enough. Teach your recruiter what a great answer looks like. What key metrics and outcomes should a top candidate highlight? What should they be able to explain in both technical and non-technical terms?

Go Deeper

Train them to listen beyond surface-level responses. Who can communicate complex ideas in simple terms? Who fits your executive team’s communication style? Finding the right person means looking beyond just the right skillset.

Teach Tool Familiarity

Don’t focus on whether someone knows a specific tool. Instead, give context about why that tool matters. For example: “Here are five analytics platforms. If a candidate can deliver results with one of them — fantastic. But what did they accomplish, and how does that translate to our resources?”

Pro tip

Running a technical search like a checklist against a job posting is amateur hour — and it’s how you’ll miss the best talent, every single time.

Don’t risk leaving senior hiring to a generalist. Get involved, guide the process, and make sure your talent pipeline is robust.

Vetting senior technical talent requires more than a checklist approach — it demands involvement, clarity, and a structured plan. Technical leaders must actively guide recruiters by defining clear profiles, tools, and goals while illustrating challenges and solutions. By investing time and providing detailed insights, companies can build robust hiring pipelines and ensure long-term success.