Offer Accepted

The Five Cs of Closing Candidates with Harriet Walker, Head of Talent @ SuperSeed VC

• Ashby

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Hiring is one of the biggest responsibilities founders face in the early stages, and closing the right candidates can make or break your company’s trajectory.

Harriet Walker, Head of Talent at SuperSeed VC, joins Shannon to share her Five Cs of Closing framework: Clarity, Credibility, Connection, Continuity, and Commitment. She highlights why closing is a discipline that begins from the first candidate interaction, offering tips on setting expectations, building trust, and making offers an easy “yes.” Harriet also covers the importance of reference calls, compensation check-ins, and how AI amplifies, rather than replaces, recruiters.


Key takeaways:

  1. Closing starts early: The best hiring outcomes come from embedding candidate closing strategies throughout the entire process, not just at the offer stage.
  2. Five Cs of Closing: Clearly defining the role, showing authentic connection and consistency sets the foundation for attracting the right candidates.
  3. Partnership approach: Treating hiring as a collaborative effort between candidate and company creates buy-in and smoother offer acceptances.

Timestamps: 

(00:00) Introduction

(00:47) Meet Harriet Walker

(02:10) Why early-stage founders must learn to close candidates

(04:45) The Five Cs of Closing framework

(05:16) #1 Clarity: Defining the role and setting expectations

(08:26) #2 Credibility: Building a compelling and honest pitch

(10:55) #3 Connection: Creating rapport and mission alignment

(14:37) #4 Continuity: Delivering a consistent candidate experience

(21:17) #5 Commitment: Partnering with candidates on the process

(25:52) The importance of reference calls to close candidates

(30:20) Why speed and conviction close top candidates

Harriet Walker (00:00):

I believe that AI will never replace good recruiters. It will only amplify those who harness it correctly. And the human element of recruiting can never and will never be replaced by AI. But using AI will allow you to 10 x the admin of recruiting and to be able to allow you to 10 x the human side of recruiting.


Shannon Ogborn (00:22):

Welcome to Offer Accepted, the podcast that elevates your recruiting game. I'm your host, Shannon Ogborn. Join us for conversations with talent leaders, executives, and more to uncover the secrets to building and leading successful talent acquisition teams. Gain valuable insights and actionable advice from analyzing cutting-edge metrics to confidently claiming your seat at the table. Let's get started.


(00:47):

Hello and welcome to another episode of Offer Accepted. I'm Shannon Ogborn, your host, and this episode is brought to you by Ashby, the all-in-one recruiting platform, empowering ambitious teams from seed to IPO and beyond. I am stoked to be here today with Harriet Walker. She is the Head of Talent at Superseed VC. She works with early stage technical founders to help them scale, which of course that starts with the people that they hire. Her job is to help founders de-risk their hiring decisions by providing really good hands-on support across everything from job descriptions and compensation to interview process design and onboarding. Over the last 12 years, Harriet's worked across hypergrowth startups, global orgs, and obviously now as in Venture. And she loves to combine these, the strategic advisory search and a powerful network to help founders land their earliest and most critical hire. So Harriet, thank you so much for joining us.


Harriet Walker (01:40):

Well, thank you for having me. I'm a massive fan of the podcast, so I'm very happy to be here today.


Shannon Ogborn (01:46):

Love it. Well, we will get into the five Cs of closing shortly, but with all of your experience working with founders and early hiring managers in this VC setting, I would love to hear more about why founders and early hiring managers really need to learn how to close candidates because it feels like it's kind of a missing skillset for some.


Harriet Walker (02:10):

If you look at any kind of standard startup and any kind of early stage founder, they're spending upwards, in fact 50%, potentially even higher in super early stage businesses on their time on recruiting or people work. A lot of the times, people are leaving far more established businesses to take a risk somewhat to join an early stage startup and closing them throughout the process is critical here. It goes just beyond the mission, vision and value alignment, but it's also when people are considering new opportunities, the process and the entire interviewing experience, that really also adds to their final decision.


(02:48):

For example, in 2022, a study came out to suggest that 49% of candidates said that they had declined an offer due to having a negative hiring experience. And if you look at your pipeline as an early stage founder, if you lose 50% of your pipeline just not having a great candidate experience, then that can massively impact your ability to hire. But conversely, a great candidate experience can also boost your offer acceptance rates by 38%. And if I speak from my previous experiences working in bigger brands, I can firsthand say the number of people who have accepted offers and then gone back immediately and complimented a great recruitment process, a great candidate experience, a great interviewing experience as being a major contributor to actually eventually accepting that offer.


(03:33):

It's no small feat and it is obviously a full-time job. That's why we all have our jobs at recruiters in running a great process. But the early stage founders is absolutely mission critical to know how to close and not just leaving that conversation to the very last point where you actually end up talking about offers, but doing so throughout the entire recruitment process and setting up the way that you approach hiring to make sure that you are able to close great candidates in the end. So it's incredibly important and it's a topic that I love talking about. I'm really excited to dive into the five Cs today and bring it to life a little bit more.


Shannon Ogborn (04:07):

Yeah, I love that. And if I just think about applying a leaky pipeline like that 50% drop off to other parts of the business, no one would be like, that's great, we should keep doing what we're doing on that. But I'm excited because it sounds like you have a nice framework. We love alliterations because they're easier to remember. The five Cs of closing: clarity, credibility, connection, continuity and commitment. I would love to hear more about each of those and how you would talk about this to a founder.


Harriet Walker (04:45):

So just to set us up before we dive into them. So when you're closing candidates, it is different to convincing a business to trying to buy your product. And so you must kind of take a slightly different approach. So the five Cs of closing is essentially my kind of framework of how I position to founders to think about ensuring that they're able to close candidates throughout a recruitment process. And also some of these can be used in a different setting to allow you to really assess whether this person is going to be the right fit for you and for you to assess that as well.


(05:16):

So first one is clarity. So this even goes before the job description and I've lost count of how many times I have experienced hiring managers who have kind of an idea around what they want to hire, but they're not completely clear on what that looks like. So it's beyond just thinking about what a job description looks like, but it's the base thoughtfulness structure and understanding into exactly what it is that you're hiring for, the desired outputs that this person will bring, their core KPIs, what you're expecting them to achieve, et cetera, et cetera. And then ensuring that that is well communicated across the business and that is well populated and everybody else is clear on exactly what it is that you are looking to hire for and importantly why that person's important. What is the key problem that you are looking for this person to solve to justify bringing somebody on board? Especially obviously at early stage budgets. Budgets are relatively lean.


(06:11):

So once you know that is then translating that onto a job description. I see so many times the most generic job descriptions that I've ever seen and found are confused or a little maybe hurt potentially as to why they're not being inundated with masses of perfect applications of people wanting to work for their business. But if you're trying to speak to everybody, then you end up speaking to nobody. So I think being able to clearly translate into a job description, your vision, your mission, and the values of that you are looking to bring on board and being honest about who you are and being honest about what you're building and what you're hiring for. We all know early stages for everyone can be quite long hours and quite an intense working environment. And if your business is going to be like that, then be clear and be consistent around what it is that it's going to be like when they join your business.


(07:00):

So having complete clarity not only for the job description but throughout the entire interviewing process, creating clarity is completely critical as having this clarity in the earliest stages will really help you close candidates later on because they will know exactly what it is that they're walking into and they will have decided by this point that is exactly what they're looking for or it is not what they're looking for. So.


Shannon Ogborn (07:22):

With clarity, being clear is actually, in my opinion, a skill. And the quicker a founder or even a first recruiter or early hiring managers can build that skill, the more successful they're going to be in hiring down the line. Because I think sometimes startups might get lucky with the first couple of people they hire or they hire people they know that they've worked at other companies with, and so they skip this clarity part and then it's a huge problem two, three years down the road when they haven't gone through the practice makes progress of clarity.


Harriet Walker (07:58):

Or even just knowing, bringing people on board that you already know, but even them not being clear on what it is that they want to work towards and what the overall mission is of this role and making it quite tangible and just having a very clear vision and goal as to what this person will achieve. And then you can also look back on that after six months, 12 months and be like, is this exactly the right person that we intended to hire? Were we clear enough and take those learnings into the next recruitment cycle that you start.


(08:26):

And let's move on to credibility. So there are obviously a number of ways to build this, but of course, again, going back to the original challenges, you are convincing somebody to join you, your mission, your vision, your values, and so having a really credible pitch to help you kind of bring these people on board to your mission and really get them to see the problem that you're solving is incredibly important. But by having a refined pitch and owning your winnings and your losses and being completely open is a really solid way to introduce yourself and then also really solid way to introduce your company. It's also in the way that you build the story about the role and how and why and where it fits into your overall strategy and the clarity you bring into this to build credibility of candidates.


(09:10):

So when you're introducing yourself, explaining your whole story, why you became obsessed with this mission and this vision and why you want to solve this problem and why you are uniquely positioned to be able to solve this problem. So why is it your team? Why is it your business and why is it your approach that's really going to change the game? And being able to build that credibility and really translate that across to candidates will also really help them get them super excited about getting involved in your business.


Shannon Ogborn (09:39):

And just everything that I see anecdotally, I guess, on LinkedIn and otherwise, and just talking to people one-on-one, credibility I think is one of the most important things to candidates and employees right now because people have been burned in the last few years to say the least. And so they are looking for a credible company that they have high conviction that the people who are hiring them are credible people.


Harriet Walker (10:08):

And also building a great recruitment process can also improve the way that they're seen as how credible you are as an employer and how seriously you take interviewing and how seriously you assess them. No one loves a long recruitment process, but A players particularly they like recruitment processes where they feel like they've been challenged and they feel like they're people who are assessing them have done their due diligence and have done the work to ensure that the candidate is credible. But equally it will make them feel like, okay, this is a really credible business. They're taking this very seriously and they have a really strong approach to talent because if you haven't been clear and you have not expressed or shown how you are credible enough to be the person that they should leave their maybe more comfortable job to join that you are not going to attract A player candidates. So yeah, building credibility is incredibly important.


(10:55):

So connection I think is one potentially maybe overlooked somewhat, especially when things are busy. But really taking the time to give space for some informal conversation and showing an interest in and getting to know your candidates and showing that you remember them and building connection and rapport as well as building value alignment and discussing these things and making them central to your talent strategy and your hiring approach. So you feel as a candidate, if someone's taking the time to get to know you, you immediately feel a connection to that person and immediately feel a connection to that opportunity. So even if it's just like five casual minutes at the start just to getting to know that person and finding out a little bit more about them and finding a mutual common ground around something that you can connect over will immediately make them more interested in you as a person rather than feeling like you are rushing through this first call.


(11:47):

And I think even if you know when you get on a call with somebody and you already know that maybe it's not going to be the right fit after a couple of minutes, then leaving a positive influence because that person will go and share with other people about their experience interviewing with you even if it was positive and especially if it was negative. So just taking a minute to treat people as people is such a busy world I still think is incredibly important, but also seeing for you as an interviewer to understand how is this person connected to the mission, vision and value that you are trying to build? Because again, of course we all know this by now, but the first few highs that you make at your startup are completely incremental to the type of business that you ultimately end up building. So finding that connection between all of those different elements for a candidate, what is really driving this for them is critically important to do and something you should do throughout your recruitment process to continue building this really positive view of your opportunity in this candidate's mind.


Shannon Ogborn (12:42):

I know that you've said before that five minutes of questions at the end, that's not enough. This is someone's life. And like you said, I do think especially today, there are more candidates than ever that are leaving big tech companies with very cushy, comfortable salaries and benefits to go to a startup because they're excited about the mission of some of these companies, what they're doing, what they're hoping to achieve, and just being a bigger piece of the puzzle instead of being a cog in wheel. But it's a big life shift in allowing someone five minutes to ask questions about one of the most important decisions that you can make at a point in your life. It's just not enough.


Harriet Walker (13:22):

Like you said, I think a lot of people have been burnt really bad in the last couple of years, especially those from bigger businesses and they see obviously going to a startup is something a bit more exciting, an opportunity to really have a big impact not only in the trajectory of that startup but also in their own career. So by making that leap is quite impactful. And I've seen it often where candidates have got to the final stage and they don't feel like they've had the opportunity to ask enough questions, but they've just been grilled nonstop by the interviewing panel. And that also can be off-putting. It's marriage. It's a two-way thing. You've got to be totally sure as much as they've got to be totally sure because you want to start the working relationship off on the strongest foot and giving plenty of time to ask questions throughout the interviewing process. And I think it shows a sign that they are truly invested if they have lots of questions and they should have plenty of time to be able to ask you the questions that they have to.


Shannon Ogborn (14:18):

I personally love a good grilling for the candidate. I think it shows that they're excited, they're passionate, they want to make full sure that they know the opportunity that they're getting into and that you know exactly what you're getting with them. So I personally love it, but I'm excited to hear about the next one. Continuity.


Harriet Walker (14:37):

Yeah, so continuity for me is giving a consistent experience across the interview loop, and it's quite basic to be honest, but this is about the foundations that you build upon. But for me, I find that the way that you set up what the recruitment process will look like when you'll hear back from the recruiter, what format that will be in, what timelines things should run out, should be consistent with what you've told them. And of course, we're all busy and I'm sure that I've made mistakes before by not being consistent and showing up on time. But for an early stage founder to try and close A players, it's incredibly important to be consistent and shape doing what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it and doing it in the way that you tell someone that you're going to do it. Because again, this builds trust, this builds credibility, and this makes candidates really get excited and really get deep into, okay, this person is really taking my application seriously. So this is a consistency across the interview loop.


(15:35):

So if there's two co-founders, for example, you need to define who is owning what elements of the recruiting process from who is owning the candidate comms, who is writing the job description, who is writing the interview questions, who's going to be feeding back to the candidate, who's going to be working with the recruitment agencies, who is owning what and keeping that consistent. And then also keeping it consistent with the candidate comms like I've touched on. So who's going to call the candidate, who's going to be emailing them, who's going to be reviewing the job applications and knowing who's owning what and keeping it consistent and having consistent cadence of communication and following up on time really makes a huge difference to how a candidate perceives not only you as a potential boss in the future because you would be their potential boss, a potential colleague, and also how you're approaching talent strategy.


(16:24):

If you are trying to approach an A player from an A-player business and you're not taking this seriously and you're not following up when you say you're going to follow up, then you may get that person across the line because they love the vision and mission so much, but it may impact your abilities to hire other A players and an A-player who has a bad experience but forgives it for the mission and vision won't forget how they were treated in their recruitment process. And it can be a concern for them thinking, okay, but what kind of people are they going to be able to attract if this is the way that they approach their hiring process? So I think it's an overlooked element of recruiting, but for me it's one of the easiest lift ways that you can have one of the biggest net positive impacts on somebody's recruitment experience.


Shannon Ogborn (17:05):

A hundred percent. And you want people to join excited. You don't want people to join with hesitation and come to their first day being like, I really don't know if this was the right choice for me. You want people to walk in the door and say, I feel confident that I made the right choice, that this is the right place. But part of this too, I think you had mentioned was checking in with comp, which is kind of like a secret sixth C.


Harriet Walker (17:34):

Yes, yes it is. Checking in with comp is yes, it's very important, and that's your continuity of when you first talk about compensation and what you end up delivering on in the end, which also goes in with the next C'S kind of commitment. So being consistent as to, okay, here's what we've said that the compensation range will be. And then checking in with candidates throughout the interviewing process because sometimes things do change. So when you're speaking and getting feedback from candidates, when you are having people run through your interviewing process, taking the time to call them and get their feedback not only on how they find the opportunity, but how they find interviewing with you to help you build a better recruitment process in the end, but also to checking them with them about important things that candidates really care about and what are those obviously is compensation and then following through the process and not getting to the end of the process and be like, oh, you know what? Actually we can't offer that. And giving somebody a significantly less compensation package than you had originally talked about throughout the recruitment process.


(18:36):

It keeps things open and it keeps things, again, builds trust throughout the process. If it's not something that you'll just avoiding having a conversation about, let's be honest, it can be a bit awkward talking about money with candidates and people can find it a bit awkward, especially us Brits. You Americans, maybe it is a bit different, but we find it a little bit difficult. So having open conversations about it and making sure that you're working together as a team to find something that works with both you as the startup but then also as the candidate and keeping that check in throughout the interviewing process. Say, Hey, look, we spoke about this at the beginning of the process, you said your number or what you'd be expecting was X, has anything changed since we started that process?


(19:17):

And then I also like to check in with people right before we enter into the final round of interviewing processes and say, Hey, look, throughout this process, this is what we've been talking about from our side, this still stands. And then by this point as the interviewer, you've seen enough of the candidate to be able to know, okay, roughly where this person should land on your compensation range. And you can have another conversation with the candidate and say, look, we are still in line with this being what it could look like for an offer. Would this still be an acceptable number to you?


(19:46):

Because you want to get to a point where you crescendo so beautifully together, candidate and company alignment by the end of the process that you know what their number is, you are confident that you want to offer that. And then when you extend the offer, it is an easy yes and there's no back and forth because that back and forth, while sometimes yes people can negotiate and I'm all for a bit of negotiation, but I think having it as an open conversation throughout the process can make that offer process so much more magical and again, can close the candidates way more easily. They feel like you're working together as a team and I'm not in the business of trying to catch people out and catch out candidates and make them accept lower offers. And I don't think you should be either. I think it should be a team effort that you are working through together to find something that really works for both of you.


Shannon Ogborn (20:32):

I couldn't agree more. One thing that has always frustrated me is that when at a company you give them an initial number and then they leverage that against you later. Even if you're now interviewing, you're like, actually, now that I've seen what the market is and the value that I bring to the market, this is actually the range that I'm looking at now. And I don't think people are trying to pull a fast one. And I think they genuinely have more information available to them when they're towards the end of an interview process or they see what they truly see what the scope of the job is. And so I like the partnership concept, but I think that plays kind of well into commitment, which is the fifth and final C.


Harriet Walker (21:17):

Yes, commitment is nothing worse than going through a recruitment process and the founder or whoever it is, your hiring manager doesn't know what the next step is or doesn't know where they go from here because they haven't spent enough time building clarity. This is showing the candidate at the very beginning, the very first conversation, okay, this is the process we're going to be following. There may be some changes there hopefully will not be, but we've built this process because we think that this is the best process for us to run in order to be able to get the information that we do to be able to have a conviction on how we make a decision or not, and also and great opportunity for you to spend as much time as we can with us so that they can also build conviction.


(21:56):

So together you have this commitment around this process and a great little takeaway hack that you maybe want to do if you are building a typical interview process for your startup. Of course, I think tech roles and non-technical roles do differ in the way that you should interview, so you should consider this, but one thing that we recommended a couple of my portfolio companies do now is they've created candidate briefing packs. I've actually made the first ones that we ever had at Uber, and they were hugely influential in how candidates perceived, again, opportunities. They got to see like, okay, they have a printout version, I guess now probably Looms and podcasts and stuff that you can create. But back in the day it was a PDF and it was revolutionary, but on the PDF, it had the individual steps of your recruitment process so that they knew where they were in the process, they knew what was coming next, and they knew that, okay, I've got enough steam in me to be able to get through the next interview process.


(22:52):

And I think if you do have to add something in, that's fine. Again, A players will forgive a couple of extra steps being put in providing it makes sense and providing that they understand why they're investing their time into this extra step and whether or not to confirm there's one extra person we need to meet because they're a really influential stakeholder in this process, or if it's something that they want to double down on because they didn't see enough evidence of it in another interview. Just having the confidence to be clear with candidates around what it is and what the next steps look like, and then sharing that commitment with them. I think we talk a lot in recruiting about, it's a partnership between the recruiter and the hiring manager, but for me it's also a partnership between whoever is interviewing and running the process and the candidates and it's committing together that you are going to work your best to have the best recruitment process possible and hopefully get the easiest yes that they'll ever give you for their incorrect.


Shannon Ogborn (23:47):

Definitely. There's a lot on the commitment side that I think is important with the communication. And one thing that I've loved recently that we've added to Ashby is our AI feedback tokens. And a couple of people have told me that they're actually using AI feedback tokens for people who are moving forward. So they're like, here, you're moving on to the next interview. Here's maybe the gaps we saw. Here's what people thought was really positive. Keep these things in mind as you go throughout your interview. And they're like, oh, great, because the alternative would've been you're rejected. And so I think if people understand that, great, but also don't get too crazy with it.


Harriet Walker (24:31):

Yeah, don't get too crazy. And like he said, that makes sense. And I think in my experience, nine out of 10 times whenever I give candidates feedback, they are grateful for the feedback rather than being disappointed that they're getting potentially constructive feedback. Interviewing is not the most natural thing that you do and some people don't perform the best in interviews. And again, going back to all of the other points, like creating a great environment for somebody to want to and enjoy being interviewed by you, to want to open up and to want to share is also critically important and doesn't really fall under another C that I have off the top of my head. But yeah, I think to be honest, my main takeaway from here for people looking through to join is it's a partnership approach. It's a team effort to find people who want to be a part of this journey and be a part of the business that you are building and change their career and change the trajectory of their career by working with you and finding ways to have that really nice partnership approach to interviewing is particularly important. And yes, having commitment from both sides.


Shannon Ogborn (25:38):

You had previously mentioned references and trying to pick up on those important factors of what motivates a candidate and how can that help in closing? I think this is our last bit here, can you tell me a little bit more about that?


Harriet Walker (25:52):

So referencing is as much an opportunity for you to understand about the references experiences of working with this candidate as it is for you to sell the opportunity to this reference. So I had a really great session with one of my counterparts and another VC to kind of really go deep on referencing and how best to approach that. And like everybody knows in VC, love a good reference in VC, really important that you approach this very strategically and structured. And again, create clarity going into those reference calls. They're not just a HR administrative process, but they actually can be super impactful into not only your opportunity to hear from somebody else who knows your candidate better than you do, has worked with them, knows their strengths, knows their weaknesses, know where they've delivered and where they haven't delivered as much as it is an opportunity for you to sell the opportunity back to them.


(26:44):

So of course if everything checks out and the reference goes very well, then this person is clearly influential in this candidate's life and they clearly obviously trusted by this candidate and it's an opportunity for you to sell back. So I always suggest to founders like context setting, another C, context setting at the beginning of any reference call as to the opportunity that this person's been hired into. No one can share the opportunity probably better than the hiring manager back to the reference. Of course, the candidate by this point, if we followed all the steps, the candidate will know the role inside and out and everything about it. But for you to be able to relay in context that to anyone that you're taking a reference from and to be able to sell it back to them so that they get excited and they are then excited for the candidate to reinforce that, oh yes, this is a great opportunity for you because candidates remember, even if they accept the offer, they have resigned, et cetera, whatever they can always pull out to at any point in the process, especially if you maybe treat their references really badly.


(27:43):

And again, I have another friend who had a difficult experience when they were collecting their references, and it's really off-putting. And it can really again show that you're not taking it seriously and it really puts off A players. So my taking references is a great opportunity to obviously ask the questions you need to ask about the candidate, but it's a really great opportunity for them, for you to actually sell it even further and really, really ensure that you've closed the deal.


Shannon Ogborn (28:10):

Completely agree, because if someone is asking you to be a reference, it means that they trust you to give an accurate depiction in a positive way, of course, to how they operate. One of the best questions I feel like I've been asked in a reference call is how can I set X person up for success? In your experience working with them, how can I set this person up for success? And to me that says, you care at the jump of how they come into this company, how successful they'll be, what you can do to make that more possible. And yeah, it says they're serious about it. And so I go back to the person who asked me to do a reference call and I'm like, yes, I think this hiring manager sounds great for you. Or sometimes this is just the recruiter in me. I'm like, ask them about their management style. And they're like, oh, I didn't know I was going to get a grilling today. But then I'm like, ah, I don't know if this person really, their management style really matches what you thrive in. And so this call is very important and it's not just a check in the box at all.


Harriet Walker (29:19):

And it shows that you're truly invested in them, especially if you're asking that question. I love that question too. How do we set 'em up for success? Maybe things that they're not so skilled at or they have development areas in that we should be more aware of so that we can help nourish those and nurture those to bring them up and ensure that the person feels super excited by their onboarding plan and super excited to join based on the fact that you've basically tailored it for them because you've heard from somebody who knows them better than you know them. So references are not just a HR tick in the box process. They're actually a really influential way to set up your success, really deeply understand your candidates and also sell it back to them. So yeah, like I said, that they make sure that you get the yes at the end of the day.


Shannon Ogborn (30:01):

We'll get to your hot take in a second, but my hot take is that reference checks should always be done by the hiring manager, but that's a can of worms. Throughout this episode, we've gotten a very good picture of this, but would love to hear, I guess kind of all in one, what does hiring excellence mean to you?


Harriet Walker (30:20):

So hiring excellence means to me, clarity, conviction and consistency and doing this all at speed. So speed is your currency in early stage, hiring and moving with conviction and speed is the way that you close A player candidates, but not passing any critical steps and not overlooking things that you think are maybe not so significantly as everything matters in recruiting. And every touchpoint that you have with a candidate will shape overall their experience in interviewing with you and their perception of who you are as an employer and what this is as an opportunity. But doing all of that with speed conviction is absolutely key. So that is what hiring excellence to means to me.


Shannon Ogborn (31:03):

Speed, early stage, especially competitive advantage.


Harriet Walker (31:07):

But again, if you have a connection with the candidate and they have completely bought in on your mission, then that really goes a long way in them allowing things to take a little bit longer because you've invested time in ensuring that they are bought in on this mission. So yeah, definitely. Yes, I've lost candidates to it in the past and there's nothing that you can do, but having a bit of humanity about recruiting. So many times, especially now in the rise of AI, there's so many easy ways to automate some of the most boring elements of recruiting, but there are parts where you can have an opportunity to have a human impact and a human touch in your recruiting processes will set you apart. And again, if you can do that at speed, then you're onto whatever.


Shannon Ogborn (31:48):

A hundred percent. Remembering the humanity of it. Definitely super important. But we are at our last question, always my favorite question. I would love to hear, what is your recruiting hot take?


Harriet Walker (31:59):

Yeah, so I've just touched on this a little bit, but I believe that AI will never replace good recruiters. It will only amplify those who harness it correctly. And the human element of recruiting can never and will never be replaced by AI. But using AI will allow you to 10 x the admin of recruiting to allow you to 10 x the human side of recruiting. So humans need humans to help them make decisions on their careers, and human connections can never be replaced by that. And just being able to connect with a candidate and let them know that you have their best interests at heart. Of course you have to do your job, but just feeling like a human to a human will really ensure that they're really bought in on you and will make you an even better recruiter. You can just focus on doing what you love. Lean into AI, don't be scared, try everything. And even if you work in a bigger business where things are a lot slower and your procurement process is super slow, then at least use it on your personal accounts and find hacks and ways to use AI to speed up all of the admission side of your own life so that when you do finally have more AI into your TA tech stack, then you'll already know what to do with it, and you already know how to harness its potential.


Shannon Ogborn (33:07):

Absolutely. I love it. I agree. I think AI is an amplifier for great recruiters. It's not going to cancel recruiters. And some companies might go that direction. They might go in the direction where it's like AI can do all of this A to Z, and I think that they'll find that's a mistake. So I guess we'll see what comes up there, but we are coming up on our time, so where should people go to learn more about you and your work?


Harriet Walker (33:33):

Well, you can find me on LinkedIn under Harriet Walker. Please come find me on LinkedIn. Let's be friends.


Shannon Ogborn (33:39):

Well, Harriet, can't thank you enough. I think this is going to be really helpful for both founders themselves and VC partners or recruiters who work really closely with founders for recruiters on how to get founders to understand the importance and how to close throughout the process. So yeah, really appreciate you being here. Thank you. Thank you so much. 


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