HOW WE HIRE
Ever wonder how top private equity firms actually make their hiring decisions?
Well, we wrote the playbook. Literally.
This is the step-by-step hiring process we teach our portfolio companies - and the tactics we use ourselves to hire our CEOs and management teams.
Inside the playbook, we lay out our entire approach to attracting and assessing talent, including:
How small companies can win the war for talent by answering the two questions top performers usually ask
Why most job descriptions suck (and how to write a better one)
How we train our portfolio executives on data-driven interviewing
If you’re a founder, operator, or investor trying to hire better and faster (or just someone curious how we approach talent management) this is the real, behind-the-scenes guide you’ve been looking for.
WRITE A JOB DESCRIPTION THAT ATTRACTS A-PLAYERS
A good hiring process starts with getting clear on what you’re actually hiring for:
The Mission: What’s exciting about this company, and how does this role fit into its strategy and plan?
Outcomes: What do we need you to accomplish in your first year on the job?
Competencies: What do you need to be uniquely great at?
We unpack our process for writing a clear performance profile, including the reflective questions you can use to get clearer about the next role you add to your team.
RUN AN INTERVIEW THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO CHEAT
When we invite candidates in for a final-round interview, we follow the same process every time:
Interview in a group so everyone hears the same stories
Focus on “tell me about a time” behavioral questions
Ask for lots of detail and data
Keep score, calibrate, and compare notes afterwards
Interviewing this way is extra work - but it’s worth it. We’ll show you how we create a panel interview guide, how we choreograph the interview, and how we make it both rigorous and energizing for the candidates - so they leave wanting the job, and you leave clear on if you want to give it to them.
BUILD A TALENT MACHINE
Every hire is a data point. But most teams don’t stop to reflect on what actually worked — or didn’t. We’ll show you how to build simple feedback loops into your hiring process, so you can:
Track how your hires are performing 3, 6, and 12 months in
Compare expectations vs. reality on role fit
Capture what you got right (and what you missed) in the interview
Use those insights to sharpen future job descriptions and interviews
In this episode of the PE Funcast, we discuss the ParkerGale approach to hiring, why hiring is essential to get right, not just at the C-suite level, but how we work with our portfolio companies to develop the capability to hire well throughout the organization. They also cover what a certain 90’s shampoo commercial can teach us about what not to do during an interview.