Hire the athlete, not the resume

Frank Slootman was the former CEO of Data Domain. His track record speaks for itself and he recently took on the same role at Service-now (Service-Now Names Software Industry Veteran Frank Slootman as CEO). During some down time between ventures, Frank wrote this excellent book recapping his experience taking Data Domain from $0 in revenue to a $2.2 billion acquisition by EMC. The book is called "TAPE SUCKS: Inside Data Domain, A Silicon Valley Growth Story" (available in Kindle here and paperback here). 

Although this entire book is solid, one chapter in particular jumped out at me and helped me with my recent career transition - "Chapter 9 - Hire Athletes, not resumes".

Hiring can be very challenging for early stage ventures because they are unproven and high risk. New hires often have to take pay cuts. Looking for the perfect resume is a bit like a man looking for the perfect woman - when he finds her, it turns out she is looking for the perfect man, and he ain't it! Moral of the story: it is hard to land a candidate who meets your resume criteria, as you are not that good a catch yet yourself.


After suffering through a few instances of this mismatch at Data Domain, we adjusted our search algorithm and began looking for candidates who did not have the resume yet but did have the potential and desire for a career break to get to the next level. We call them "athletes": candidates with the right aptitude and behavior for your profile but without the prerequisite experience.


Put differently, we started looking for people who we thought had their best work still in front of them, rather than behind them. How did we know? You can't just rely on the resume or references - you are making a bet that they can become what you need them to be. We looked for energy, pedigree, passion, ambition, intelligence, intensity, and desire for the job. We staffed many (if not most) of our executive and key managerial roles that way.


Our approach worked so well that we started to prefer this style of hiring even later on when could attract "resumes." In fact, it drove a vital ingredient of the Data Domain culture: everybody had something to prove. 


The thinking to "hire athletes, not resumes" has grown more accepted in recent years, and startups have adjusted to this style of hiring. But there was a time when it was hard to get past the "resume mentality," e.g. just looking for all the boxes to be checked. We stumbled upon our way of thinking by sheer necessity, yet it grew into a key component of the Data Domain success formula.

My thoughts...

The challenge is most companies do not think this way (no one ever gets fired for buying IBM, right?). You probably won't change their thinking either. What you can change is your positioning in the market place... try this instead (regardless of your age/experience).

"If you're looking for someone who can check the boxes; I'm not your guy. If you're looking for the best athlete. You found him."

Whether you're looking for a new job, career/industry, or promotion - Don't lead with experience (or lack there of)... lead with value, passion, intelligence, and excitement. The rest will fall into place.