8 tips for hiring CTOs
Hiring advice from a CTO, Chief People Officer & Search Firm.
Geared towards companies with betwwen 20 and 200 headcount, and typically VC-backed Series A & B size firms.
We sat down with Gareth Thomas, CTO at PeakData and Geraldine Butler-Wright, a veteran Chief People and Culture Officer at scaleups, to dig into the key things you need to know when hiring a VP Engineering/CTO/CIO.
1. The Job Description - What to include?
Gareth Thomas
A great job description should fit onto one page and answer four things:
What is the job and how much does it pay?
Who is the company and what do they do?
What will the day-to-day look like i.e. what am I expected to do?
Requirements - No more than 10 bullet points
The key thing to consider is that if you put garbage in, you’ll get garbage out. So make sure your description hits all the crucial points you want to get across without confusion.
2. Evaluate Candidates
Geraldine Butler-Wright
Be mindful of what is essential versus desirable. Female candidates are often less likely to apply for roles that include 'stretch' requirements. As with Gareth’s job description suggestions - keep the wish list realistic.
Avoid specifying a required number of years of experience. And if the position involves significant cultural transformation, be transparent about it so that all parties approach the role with a clear understanding of the challenges involved.
Ellis Seder
Create a scorecard, so everyone on the interview panel can benchmark consistently and review the data post interview.
3. Search Strategy - In-house vs Agency
Ellis
Does the company have internal capability to run a full search campaign?
Consider the People/Talent team’s bandwidth - do they realistically have the time to drive a thorough search on top of their already stretched day job? If not, you’re likely going to need to outsource to an agency - though you still might want to do this anyway to tap into wider networks and broader knowledge of your competitors.
When choosing an agency to partner with, a previous working relationship or referral is preferred as it comes with trust that stems from previous successful work.
Make sure the agency is geared towards your niche. For example, Series A size should work with agencies well connected in this space, versus more corporate networks that typically work with large international companies. It's a different profile, so parachuting the Silicon Valley CTO into a 50 person company might not be the best fit.
N.B Job Boards - is it still worth it?
We are witnessing the ATS bot wars of 2024 - candidates are getting lost in the ATS process, with the chances of hiring a VP Engineer/CTO/CIO extremely low and time consuming.
4. The interview process
Gareth
Measure it and set targets. For example, an end-to-end process for one candidate should be done in one month to 6 weeks, although I can understand wanting to take your time.
Remember this reflects how candidates see your company. Word spreads not just through Glassdoor - the process should reflect your values and be empathetic.
Pick your interview team. Who will be conducting the interviews? Is it HR, the agency, your CEO, the software team, board advisors, or a combination of them?
Tech people are hired to solve problems - one of the main skills you should be checking is how they approach problem solving and how they present that process outcome to others.
Geraldine
Have a clear interview plan and agree in advance who is asking what to ensure a positive candidate experience, with no overlapping of questions asked.
Keep candidates informed about steps in the process, stay on schedule and please aim to respond to candidates post interview.
Have candidate debriefs with panelists so meaningful feedback can be provided.
5. Conducting the Interviews + Culture Fit
Gareth
It is important you demonstrate your culture both in and outside the process. Is your process aligned? If not, your hires won't be either.
The right culture fit can learn a new domain, so don't over focus on previous sector experience; most CTOs can pick up new business domains quickly.
Ideally, your culture is published somewhere on your website and adhering to it in the interview process is straightforward. Think about the following:
Do you prioritise customer satisfaction? Ask questions around how the candidate has approached dealing with customers and their problems.
Do you prioritise innovation? Ask about examples where they have built innovative solutions. Ask how they might foster innovation at your company?
Also, ensure good time keeping, don't be late and if the interview looks like it might overrun give the candidate the option to finish on time. Remember their time is just as important as yours.
And really consider how many rounds of interviews are necessary, I would argue four is enough in many cases
Geraldine
Is it clear “what is the culture fit” Get agreement on this between the hiring panel pre interviews.
Ellis
Ask the candidate to attend a lunch, with C Suite and Investors. This gives everyone a good idea on what they are like outside of the office to better gauge their social and cultural fit.
6. Technical test + Presentation
Gareth
For the VP Eng interviews, be very careful if you decide to do a technical challenge. Many are seen as too onerous and good candidates will drop out if they see this.
If they have multiple interviews they aren’t going to want to do multiple “at home” coding challenges taking hours. Consider if you feel this is necessary that a better option might be doing a live discussion where they walk you through an example of their own code they have already written especially if they maintain an open source project.
Ellis
For the Presentation, This should happen at the final interview stage, and face-to-face. Videos can only show so much!
7. Try not to look for the CTO unicorn
Gareth
Hiring for the right stage of the business is key. A founding CTO at a pre-seed stage tech company is a very different person to someone dropping in at Series B, C..
Often you will see requirements at Series B for “hands on” which shows a lack of understanding of not only the complexity and scale of a modern tech stack and how to work efficiently within it, but also of the other demands placed on a CTO at this stage.
Geraldine
Recognise that while someone may have been a "unicorn" in one company, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee they will be a unicorn elsewhere. Many factors, such as the market conditions, product market fit and their previous surrounding team, should be considered - Keep expectations in check.
8. Salary
Ellis
Benchmark the salary to current competitors, do your research, and collate salaries from the search campaign. Don't use old salary numbers.
Be realistic for your stage, funding and budget. A typical CTO budget in London for a Series A would be £180K to £225K base, with blue chip roles paying closer to £350K+ so that would immediately tell the marketplace what type of person this would be suitable for.
If budget is an issue until the next round of funding, consider a Part Time or Fractional CTO to fill the gap and gain their expertise and knowledge going forward.
Let’s talk!
If you’re interested in discussing hiring for executives, feel free to drop me a line:
Call: 07584 022852
Email: ell@santamonica.digital