The Best Candidates Always Have Options—Make Sure They Choose Yours

The Talent Revolution

Toms Notes:

Before startup culture (and then COVID) came on the scene and turned traditional recruitment upside-down, most organizations considered candidates lucky to interview with them.

Brad Clark, Director of Talent Acquisition at Article, a direct-to-consumer furniture company, realized early on that the best people always have options. The best way to ensure they pick yours is to make recruitment all about the candidates, not the company.

Article currently employs nearly 1,400 people—but the team wasn’t always so large. Last year was a period of hypergrowth; the 15-person talent acquisition team hired 1,000 “Particles” (people at Article) in a single year. When I asked Brad how his team supported such explosive headcount growth, his answer was all about customer obsession. Article is a customer-focused brand.

And while they're customer-focused, they also strive to have a broad and diverse team split across North America, Europe, and Asia. As an example of this commitment to diversity, it’s notoriously difficult to find female engineers, so Article supports efforts that bring women into engineering. “We’re not just widening the funnel; we’re bringing people into the funnel,” Brad said.

Before Brad joined the company, recruitment at Article was decentralized. Hiring managers did their own recruitment without central coordination or direct engagement with larger company goals. When he came on board, he said, it was all about building trust. The hiring managers were getting some sorely-needed help, but they were losing a bit of control, too. Anxious to maintain that partnership, Brad kept the hiring managers closely involved whenever possible.

“Last year was about getting the right people on the bus. This year, it’s about who sits where.”

Sometimes there simply isn’t time to slow down and take stock. Most startups hope for the day when they desperately need to hire at scale. But this year, Brad’s focus is on putting more intention around the hiring process.

“We’re slowing down and being really clear about why we’re hiring and what that person is going to do,” Brad explained.

More clarity around your decision-making criteria admittedly means more pre-work, but it pays off.

Next, they take an MVP approach to the challenges they opt to tackle. What does a v1 solution look like, and how can it evolve?

Rather than sweeping, revolutionary change, work for one-percent gains. The former is always a day late and a dime short. The latter delivers solutions when they’re needed: today.