In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Robin Daniels, Chief Business Officer at Zensai, about his framework for building high-performing go-to-market teams. Drawing from his tenure as CMO at Matterport, WeWork, and leading Talent Solutions marketing at LinkedIn, plus his formative years at Salesforce and Box, Robin shares his three non-negotiable hiring attributes, why CMO hiring fails without archetype clarity, and how open-ended storytelling questions reveal candidate potential better than structured interviews. His insights reveal how elite talent networks compound across companies and why communication mastery separates effective leaders from domain experts. Topics discussed: - The three non-negotiable attributes Robin tests at all levels: grit (proven resilience through market crashes or setbacks), aptitude (curiosity to solve ambiguous problems without clear answers), and passion (energy that transfers to teams as a force multiplier), and why these override credentials in scale-up environments. - Why most CMO hires fail within nine months due to role clarity gaps between the two distinct archetypes: product marketing background (for competitive positioning and story problems) versus demand gen/revenue marketing background (for conversion and pipeline issues). - Robin’s signature interview question ”Tell me about the most epic thing you ever did” and how 10-15 minute responses reveal level of thinking, team attribution (”we” versus ”me”), self-awareness about failures, and ambition calibration. How one HP candidate’s white paper story immediately signaled misaligned performance bars. - The career compounding effect of high talent density nodes like Salesforce and Box. How Robin has hired the same core team members (Indy Send four times, Nicole Rogers three times) across multiple companies, and why every role adds a handful of inner circle relationships that become your long-term network. - Why Robin invested in Stanford acting courses to master attention-holding through body language, voice modulation, and presence rather than following rigid presentation frameworks. How top communicators like Aaron Levie and Marc Benioff succeed by leaning into authentic quirks versus corporate polish. - The ”input plus output equals outcome” success formula and why the only controllable variable is how you show up to every interaction, regardless of external circumstances like flight delays or difficult conversations. How this mindset helped Robin navigate being laid off in April 2006 right before his son was born. - How to modulate communication style across stakeholder functions because finance, engineering, sales, and customer-facing teams have fundamentally different worldviews. Why treating cross-functional partners identically guarantees friction in matrix environments and limits executive effectiveness. - Why checklist-style interviews fail at executive levels by treating senior hires like junior candidates. How executive interviews should be bidirectional conversations focused on vision alignment and cultural fit after technical validation happens earlier in the funnel with direct reports.

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Sylvia LePoidevin, CMO at Kandji and early marketing leader at Flowcast and Datafox, about her approach to building marketing teams that prioritize customer proximity over conventional playbooks. Drawing from 500+ interviews conducted over five years, Sylvia shares specific frameworks for structuring teams at different scales, evaluating senior talent through storytelling, and creating organizations where internal narrative matters as much as external messaging. Topics Discussed - Why writing a company manifesto should precede all marketing activity. It defines why you exist and what will be different in 10 years because of your company. This isn’t positioning, it’s the existential story about what you’re trying to change. The critical distinction: she’ll join a company without a manifesto, but never one unwilling to write one. - The ”tastemakers vs. operators” framework for structuring lean marketing teams under five people. Tastemakers have film or journalism backgrounds and care about quality and storytelling with zero ego. Operators can take 17 disconnected tools and build them into a functioning engine. Pairing these profiles prevents AI commoditization by combining automation that scales with soul that differentiates. - How the squad model solves the velocity problem in 30+ person marketing organizations by eliminating assembly-line handoffs. Cross-functional squads organized by domain (ABM, SEO, website conversion) include embedded designers and copywriters. Squad leaders own end-to-end execution including goal setting, quarterly planning in Asana, and resource allocation. The model is orthogonal to org structure. - ”Proximity over playbooks” as the defensible moat when AI commoditizes helpful content. When you understand your buyer’s pain, daily problems, and context at a deep level, marketing strategy becomes obvious rather than theoretical. This customer intimacy fuels authentic storytelling that cuts through AI-generated, interchangeable content. - Why internal storytelling matters more than data for getting budget and organizational support. Sylvia teaches her team that conviction and narrative about impact often move initiatives forward better than perfect data sets. Data becomes supporting evidence rather than the primary argument for executive buy-in. - Why ”What’s your story?” separates self-aware leaders from professional personas in first interviews. She doesn’t want job history, she wants life story, pivotal moments, and mistakes that shaped who candidates are today. This question immediately reveals whether someone can lead with the vulnerability required to create psychological safety for teams. - The product marketer who reverse-engineered competitive positioning before the second interview by visiting Kandji’s booth and every competitor booth at a conference, then synthesizing the positioning gap in an email. This delivered immediate value before hire, instant credibility with sales, and organizational buy-in before day one. - The five interview mistakes from 500+ conversations: asking basic questions about her role easily found on LinkedIn, speaking in broad jargon without specifics about tools or workflows used, zero personal sharing that prevents feeling passion, resume and LinkedIn mismatches on dates or roles, and no clear articulated reason for leaving current or past roles. - The ”hire to the next level” strategy where her highest success comes from hiring senior managers into director roles rather than lateral moves. These candidates have something to prove and bring urgency to perform. When explaining departures, articulate what you’re looking for in your next role to implicitly communicate what was missing without badmouthing previous employers.

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Guy Yalif, Chief Evangelist at Webflow and former co-founder of Intellimize (acquired by Webflow), about his precision-engineered approach to executive hiring in marketing. Drawing from leadership roles at Twitter, Yahoo, and BrightRoll, plus an unconventional career path from aerospace engineer to CMO, Guy shares specific frameworks for evaluating senior marketing talent across product marketing, demand gen, brand, and comms. His insights reveal how to assess whether candidates genuinely understand AI tooling versus surface-level ChatGPT usage, why traditional case studies fail in 2025, and how to implement ”SIM” interviews that actually predict on-the-job performance. Topics discussed: - The four core marketing specialties framework for executive hiring: product marketing (messaging, positioning, value prop), demand gen (paid, organic, SEO), comms, and brand. Why clarifying a candidate’s ”wheelhouse” matters more than checking boxes, and ensuring they’ll hire people better than themselves in weaker areas to round out the team. - Why product marketing is the hardest marketing discipline to hire for: the feedback loop takes 6+ months to see if messaging shifts drive business impact, ”great” looks deceptively similar to ”good” during interviews, and the role splits into two distinct types (inbound/strategic versus outbound/launch execution) that use identical terminology. - The ”altitude assessment” interview technique: listen for whether candidates answer at market dynamics and business impact level versus spreadsheet mechanics level, then deliberately ask follow-up questions to force altitude changes and identify where they have genuine depth versus rehearsed talking points. - How the ”SIM” (simulated meeting) approach fixes broken case studies: give candidates ~1 week on a real scenario, explicitly tell them to use you as a resource (”ping me off hours, ask anything”), and judge the prep conversations as heavily as the final presentation to see how they synthesize, ask questions, and handle ambiguity rather than how well they prompt ChatGPT. - The framework for assessing stage-readiness: look for experience at both large companies (”seen it done really well”) and startups (”scrappiness and grit”), then test if their muscle memory matches your stage by listening for whether they describe slicing roles into multiple people (big company reflex) or being hands-on with zero direct reports (startup reality). - The blind reference process that works: tell candidates upfront you’ll contact people they didn’t introduce, ask what’s off-limits to protect their current job, then do 3-5+ references. When one reference is surprisingly negative, do 4-5 more to determine if it reveals a pattern or says more about that specific reference-giver. - Why tracking consistency and variety of storylines separates real performers from interview performers: watch for candidates who tell the same story with different data to different interviewers (red flag), and assess whether they have multiple strong examples across situations or just one or two polished go-to stories indicating limited depth. - The ”magic wand” question that cuts through performance: ”If you could craft the perfect next gig that had you happy to go to work every day, irrespective of this discussion, what’s that job look like?” This surfaces genuine alignment, reveals rote regurgitation, or uncovers the one critical dimension they haven’t voiced that might be a dealbreaker.

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Ryan Westwood, CEO and founder of Fullcast and serial entrepreneur who previously scaled Simplist to over $600 million in revenue. Ryan reveals his systematic approach to M&A and executive hiring, including why he uses physical activities to assess mindset beyond polished interviews and maintains a multi-decade spreadsheet of talent observed in authentic contexts. His frameworks demonstrate how maintaining six executives with 10+ year tenure creates compound advantages in speed and decision-making. Topics discussed: - Using physical activities to reveal authentic leadership beyond interviews: Why Ryan uses VR skydiving for acquisition target CEOs and walking or fly fishing for executive candidates. These contexts bypass the ”professional interviewer” problem where senior leaders have refined responses across 25+ similar conversations. Ryan notes: ”I will find without fail, I will learn very insightful things. I’ve never been on a walk in an interview process where I didn’t pick up on really great nuggets that I never gathered in the interviews.” - The decisive integration framework for M&A success: After vetting the CEO, the critical success factor is decisive clarity on two variables: the CEO’s specific role going forward and whether products will integrate. The failure zone is ambiguity or the ”middle ground.” If a CEO is tired after 15 years, that’s acceptable if explicitly acknowledged upfront rather than pretending continued enthusiasm while the team detects misalignment through actions. - The compounding advantage of hiring one executive at a time: Ryan has never hired more than one executive in a year time frame, maintaining six executives with 10+ year tenure. This creates asymmetric advantages: zero political dynamics, executives who proactively solve problems without CEO involvement, and bandwidth to deeply support the single new hire versus the typical scenario of simultaneously training four executives competing for attention. - The board composition question that reveals company dynamics: Ryan walks through how to decode company risk, culture, and power dynamics by understanding board makeup (common vs. preferred seats, independents, investor types). The specific question to ask during interviews: ”Tell me about the board you’ve constructed.” This single question reveals more about a company’s trajectory than hours of other diligence. - The repeat executive diagnostic for vetting CEO quality: When evaluating offers, ask ”How many people are repeat executives for you?” If a CEO built a unicorn but zero executives from their prior company joined their next venture, that’s a signal about working relationship quality. Ryan’s six long-term executives each received double-digit equity stakes, creating aligned economics beyond typical executive compensation. - Maintaining a talent observation system across decades: Ryan keeps a spreadsheet of impressive operators observed in non-interview contexts: cubicle colleagues who stayed focused during company chaos, HR consultants who delivered executive-caliber presentations, people demonstrating character in everyday situations. This becomes the first hiring source because authentic behavior reveals more than performative interviews. - The 50-page CEO Operating Rhythm document for accelerated onboarding: Ryan maintains a living document covering his complete operating philosophy, department-specific frameworks, decision-making preferences, and working style. New executives review relevant sections to compress the getting-to-know-you period from years to weeks. Supplement with daily check-ins initially, weekly video calls, and mandatory first-week meetings with all other executives who report observations back to Ryan.

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Robin Bordoli, CRO & CMO at Weights & Biases, about his engineering-informed approach to hiring senior GTM talent in AI-native companies. Drawing from his experience leading revenue organizations through IPO at Marketo and Jive, plus CEO roles at Nextroll and Figure 8, Robin shares his five-element pre-search system and how he applies optimal stopping theory to make mathematically rigorous hiring decisions. Topics discussed: - Why VP of Field Engineering is the hardest GTM hire, requiring leaders who can manage four distinct technical roles (solution architects, pre/post-sales solution engineers, forward-deployed engineers) while balancing deep technical acumen with commercial instincts that most candidates spike one direction or the other. - The mandatory five-element pre-search framework executed before meeting any candidates: JDs written from scratch with force-ranking criteria (specific program spend, pipeline targets, ARR stage), hunting grounds, minimum five sample profiles ranked against the JD, interview process with decider/inputs/socializers explicitly designated, and role-specific take home exercises. - How to design AI-resistant take home exercises using open-ended scenarios (annual planning with constraints for demand gen, live sales positioning with 10 minutes prep for PMM) requiring 1-3 hours prep plus live presentation, where synthesis quality and trade-off articulation matter more than the artifact itself. - The three-round interview structure optimized for 9-hour total candidate investment, with Round 3 socializers serving as the final gate where candidates can expose naivete about equity/board dynamics or reveal poor judgment through inappropriate requests. - Why external recruiters provide three strategic advantages beyond sourcing: accessing passive candidates planning six-month professional exits, providing market intelligence on whether hundreds or five people fit specialized criteria, and creating trusted advisor dynamics where candidates reveal vulnerabilities they won’t share internally. - Applying optimal stopping theory (the 37% rule) to sequential hiring decisions: estimate total qualified candidates meetable in your timeline, interview the first 37% to calibrate on the strongest, then extend offer to the next candidate exceeding that benchmark. - Three executive diagnostic questions that expose readiness: ”What four adjectives appear in a word cloud from everyone who knows you well?” ”Where were you the best and worst versions of yourself and why?” ”What are your decision criteria and where does your current role fall short?” - The counterintuitive onboarding framework that prevents executive failure: explicitly contract for 30-90 days where the only ask is listening and learning, while concurrently assigning a first project that’s in their wheelhouse but requires cross-functional engagement to balance psychological safety with purposeful integration.

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Julien Sauvage, CMO at Cordial, about building authentic hiring processes that cut through scripted interactions. Drawing from his experience scaling marketing at Salesforce, Gong, Clary, and Talend, Julien reveals why he starts every interview by saying ”I hate interviews,” how to identify storytellers within three sentences, and why the commoditized 30-60-90 day plan has become useless for evaluating senior talent. Topics discussed: - How to assess storytelling and listening skills immediately: evaluating whether candidates create narrative contrast in warm-up questions versus flat responses, while ensuring they demonstrate empathy and active listening rather than constant pitch mode. - Why you must build the plan and define outcomes before the org chart: using the create-capture-convert demand framework to color-code performance gaps, then determining whether to solve with programs or headcount rather than reflexively backfilling roles. - The strategic outsourcing decision matrix: why PMM and brand require full-time employees who breathe company identity daily, while creative and MOPs can be outsourced when CEOs won’t approve design headcount over campaign managers. - The broken state of VP+ recruiting: receiving 3,000 applications for a senior manager role at Cordial, leading to targeted outreach through operator networks instead of posting senior roles that waste everyone’s time. - Why company pedigree matters and when to take risks: prioritizing candidates from high-growth companies over inflated titles at stagnant organizations, while recognizing when to make strategic bets like his jump from public company VP to three-person team at pre-unicorn Gong. - Creating joyful interview experiences through radical authenticity: starting with ”I hate interviews, let’s not make this feel like one” to drop facades and enable real assessment of how candidates handle ambiguity. - The go-to interview question for marketing leaders: ”What’s the riskiest bet you’ve taken?” to assess boldness, self-awareness, and ability to reflect on both wins and failures in a risk-averse industry. - How to close candidates with brutal honesty: explicitly stating ”there’s no dream job” while painting the real challenges alongside opportunities, removing fluffy mission-driven narratives that candidates see through. - Why the 30-60-90 day plan is dead: everyone uses GPT to generate identical plans, making it worthless for evaluation while emphasizing the need for balance between strategic thinking and delivering quick wins in the first six months.

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Tolithia Kornweibel, CEO of Beam Benefits, about her progression from CMO to CRO at Gusto before taking the CEO helm. Having scaled through Gusto’s growth from 300 employees to its current size while managing both marketing and sales organizations, Tolithia shares why she deliberately operates without talent acquisition at Beam and how transparent communication about company challenges, including directing candidates to read negative Glassdoor reviews, actually strengthens hiring outcomes. Her approach challenges conventional wisdom, from eliminating 90-day plans to maintaining hands-on involvement from day one. Topics discussed: - Why sales leadership remains the hardest GTM hire to get right, with success depending as much on organizational readiness to support transformation as finding the right person, and why it must show impact within one sales cycle. - The ”describe your perfect boss” interview technique that reveals collaboration style and independence spectrum positioning, with resistance to ”micromanagement” serving as an immediate disqualifier for small company environments requiring altitude flexibility. - How transition from Gusto’s 70-person talent acquisition team to zero TA at Beam forced a shift to continuous networking and proactive relationship building, often having 3-4 hours of exploratory conversations before formal interviews. - The deliberate use of job postings solely as shareable links for network distribution, acknowledging that at VP level and above, submitted applications are essentially unusable due to volume and AI-generated noise. - Why keeping interview panels to 4 people maximum (2 decision makers, 4 total) while encouraging candidates to request additional stakeholder access serves as both efficiency measure and positive signal of thoroughness. - The mixed value of Gusto’s hiring committee structure requiring conviction (”if it’s a soft yes, it’s a no”) for values alignment, while creating educational tax for GTM leaders needing to justify hires to engineering-heavy committees. - The case against 90-day plans for senior hires: ”Your half-informed decision is probably better statistically than anything we were coming up with before” because senior leaders are hired specifically to drive immediate change. - Why senior leaders must become ”mildly dangerous” with AI tools quickly, not for innovation but to implement brilliant basics, validate ideas rapidly, and create psychological safety for their teams’ experimentation in an AI-transformed landscape. ABOUT YOUR HOST: Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Manny Medina, Co-Founder & CEO of Paid (an AI agent monetization platform), about dismantling the traditional SaaS hiring playbook that helped define his previous company, Outreach. After scaling Outreach to over 1,000 employees and hundreds of millions in revenue, Manny reveals why he’s now refusing to hire senior executives and instead building Paid with a radical junior-first, contractor-heavy approach. His contrarian insights challenge twenty years of VC-backed wisdom about org structure, talent evaluation, and the fundamental economics of building software companies in the AI era. Topics discussed: - Why the era of templated org structure playbooks is dead: Manny challenges the assumption that every SaaS company needs the standard SDR → AE → CSM structure, arguing companies should question whether these roles should even exist rather than automatically copying what worked elsewhere. - Mission charts over org charts at Paid: Instead of traditional reporting structures, Paid organizes around specific revenue missions (self-serve for agent builders, SaaS companies selling agents, enterprise) with teams aligned to outcomes rather than titles or hierarchies. - The ”AI first, then contractor, then person” hiring framework: This progression allows maximum flexibility to correct inevitable hiring mistakes while testing whether roles can be automated before committing to full-time headcount. - Why ”no breath is better than bad breath” thinking is dangerous: Manny learned that hiring mediocre talent lowers the bar for future hires and signals to existing team members they can coast, creating a gradual slide from A-players to B-plus teams. - The power of forward deploy engineers learning directly from customers: Putting junior talent in front of customers accelerates their learning curve and business acumen faster than any internal training, while costing a fraction of senior hires. - How aggressive negotiation reveals future management headaches: When candidates push too hard on compensation during offers, it often predicts they’ll renegotiate every 60 days, turning one-on-ones into advocacy sessions rather than productive work discussions. - Hiring mistakes aren’t permanent if you stay close: By personally onboarding everyone and maintaining proximity to new hires in the first 30-60 days, you can quickly spot mismatches between talent and role requirements, then course-correct before damage compounds. ABOUT YOUR HOST: Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Alina Vandenberghe, Co-CEO of Chili Piper, about building high-performing remote teams through radical transparency and unconventional talent development. Over 10 years of scaling Chili Piper into a leading demand conversion platform, Alina has developed contrarian approaches to executive hiring, from requiring GTM leaders to pass technical competency tests to sharing complete financial data during interviews. Her insights reveal how treating internal promotion as the default path, rather than external hiring, creates both stronger leadership and better cultural alignment. Topics discussed: Why Chili Piper opens their entire data room to all employees, including cash runway, churn rates, and board decks, and how this transparency enables SDRs to develop executive-level thinking and grow into VP roles within the company. The ”electrons and protons” framework for role optimization: identifying energy-giving versus energy-draining tasks for each employee, then strategically deploying fractional specialists and AI agents to handle the draining work while maximizing individual impact zones. How to evaluate remote work readiness beyond the resume: screening for intrinsic motivation through storytelling passion, why office experience is non-negotiable for junior hires, and the correlation between self-directed learning and remote success. The technical competency requirement for all GTM executives, including testing CMOs and CROs on JSON and JavaScript understanding, to ensure they can credibly engage with RevOps buyers and technical stakeholders. The three-part framework for evaluating departure stories: verifying honesty through back-channel references, assessing ownership versus blame mentality, and gauging compassion toward their current employer as a predictor of future behavior. Why leading with questions rather than data during executive interviews reveals strategic thinking: asking candidates what metrics they need rather than presenting your board deck shows how they prioritize and think about the business. The paradox of building a fully remote company while prioritizing in-person recruiting at industry events, using stage presence and dinner interactions as leading indicators of cultural fit and relationship-building ability. The intensive onboarding approach where new executives spend multiple days at Alina’s home, observing founder-mode operations firsthand and understanding how personal mission integrates with business execution, plus explicitly communicating where founder support ends and external mentorship begins. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Patty DuChene, SVP of Marketing and Growth at Sendoso, about her systematic approach to inheriting and rebuilding teams post-acquisition. Drawing from her experience scaling from first sales hire at bootstrapped Wrike to leading teams through high-growth trajectories, Patty shares her 45-day team diagnostic framework, her contrarian stance against case studies, and why she deliberately targets hospitality veterans and returning parents for revenue roles. Topics discussed: - The JD forensics methodology for new leaders—systematically auditing every team member’s original job description against their actual time allocation through self-assessment, revealing scope creep patterns where critical functions (like demand gen) were consuming 40% instead of planned 10% of bandwidth. - Why deliberately posting senior roles publicly functions as a behavioral screen for leaders who retain entrepreneurial hunger—specifically filtering for executives willing to navigate competitive application processes rather than waiting for recruiters to approach them passively. - The acquisition integration playbook of cataloging competitor intimidation factors first—identifying specific capabilities that created competitive anxiety, then reverse-engineering those strengths into role definitions and team gaps for the combined entity. - Google’s empirical finding that three 45-minute interviews predict role fit regardless of seniority level, making organizations requiring 6+ interviews or extensive case studies symptomatic of executive indecision rather than thoroughness. - Non-traditional talent arbitrage strategies targeting hospitality professionals (bartenders managing 2am crowd control translate directly to cold-calling resilience) and returning parents (daily EQ testing with children builds exceptional people leadership capabilities that surface in management roles). - Two behavioral interview questions that bypass resume screening: Asking ”What are you most proud of?” without clarification to assess self-direction versus approval-seeking, and ”What’s the last thing you taught someone?” to evaluate knowledge transfer capabilities essential for cross-functional influence. - The strategic onboarding framework of pre-structured cross-functional stakeholder meetings with specific agendas, enabling new hires to understand each leader’s decision-making triggers and craft compelling change narratives from day one. - The 45-day confidence litmus test for senior hires—executives who haven’t begun making autonomous decisions by this milestone typically indicate fundamental issues with executive presence that compound over time, requiring immediate intervention or replacement. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Mike Weir, CRO of Finalis and former CRO of G2, about his tactical approach to executive hiring at inflection points. Mike shares the specific methodologies he uses to assess leadership gaps when joining early-stage companies, restructure inherited hiring processes mid-flight, and design roles that prevent the expensive cycle of executive turnover. His contrarian insights on posting strategy, interview control dynamics, and pre-emptive problem solving reveal how intentional hiring decisions compound organizational velocity. Topics discussed: Why head of revenue operations is the critical first hire within 30 days of any CRO joining: Serving as brain trust for business fundamentals while functioning as organizational ambassador who keeps leadership accountable to cross-functional stakeholders and long-term planning. The precise methodology for inheriting in-process executive searches: How Mike evaluates existing candidates without prior team bias, uses the interview process to calibrate expectations with peer leadership, and reshapes job requirements mid-search when business needs shift. The bright-line rule for executive recruitment: C-suite roles never get posted due to competitive intelligence risks and requirement customization needs, while VP-level roles always get posted to access talent pools beyond homogeneous networks—with specific tactics for managing high-volume applications. Strategic role architecture decisions: When to hire Chief Sales Officer versus full-stack CRO based on company stage and CEO capacity, including the trade-offs of having the CEO become the final go-to-market decider and required operational depth this demands. The ”business conversation litmus test” for senior leadership interviews: If candidates cannot engage in strategic dialogue about real company challenges and offer substantive questions within the first interaction, they lack the executive presence required for autonomous leadership roles. Mike’s pre-structured onboarding methodology: A meticulously mapped 3-week schedule with defined meeting agendas for peer introductions, foundational knowledge transfer, and strategic context—designed to accelerate time-to-impact while securing early wins before complex problem inheritance. The preemptive talent management approach: Why Mike negotiates difficult personnel decisions and active performance issues before new executive hires start, preventing them from absorbing political damage and relationship capital loss in their first 90 days. Technical assessment frameworks for executive hiring: Using real business scenarios and current decision points as case studies to evaluate thinking processes, stakeholder engagement approaches, and decision-making frameworks rather than theoretical responses. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner.com, about building systematic hiring processes that overcome cognitive bias in high-velocity sales environments. Drawing from his experience scaling Owner.com from $20M to approaching $50M ARR while maintaining 2.5X year-over-year growth, Kyle shares data-driven frameworks for evaluating talent in SMB-focused sales organizations. His approach reveals how structured processes and post-hire analysis can dramatically improve hiring accuracy when traditional interview methods fail. Topics discussed: The ”hire 18 months ahead” framework for companies above $20M ARR still doubling - specifically how Kyle hired an SVP of Go-to-Market Strategy from HubSpot to unlock initiatives he was personally bottlenecking, demonstrating when to pull senior hires forward versus waiting. Kyle’s counter-intuitive discovery through quarterly hiring analysis that sales craft performance in case studies was non-predictive of role success - leading to a complete restructuring toward evaluating ”psychotic work ethic,” organizational skills, and coachability over traditional sales acumen. The systematic bias-fighting approach using Kahneman’s principles: independent scorecarding across five company values, asking identical questions in identical sequence, and providing the same feedback to all candidates to create controlled comparison environments that prevent halo effect contamination. Kyle’s quarterly ”hiring autopsy” process where RevOps correlates interview scores from all stages (recruiter screen, hiring manager, case study, bar raiser) against actual performance metrics, then conducts 90-minute outlier analysis sessions to identify process gaps and manage blind spots. The champion-based hiring model that explicitly avoids consensus decision-making - where bar raisers provide structured feedback on specific criteria but hiring managers retain full ownership, preventing diluted accountability while maintaining quality control. Kyle’s ”mutual references” system including his template that lists every direct report and counterpart from his career, granting candidates permission to source their own references while requesting the same access - plus his specific back-channel questions like percentile ranking among all functional peers. Why cold calling the functional hiring manager remains the highest-conversion candidate strategy, and how Kyle’s systematic LinkedIn content creation (generating 40-80K impressions per job post pre-algorithm change) created hiring flywheels that sourced 80% of initial IC team through network effects. The shift toward hiring new graduates over experienced reps when backed by heavy enablement infrastructure - Kyle’s data showing university hires ramp faster than experienced SDRs due to coachability and lack of bad habits, supported by strong enablement team investment. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Connor Fee, COO at Fathom.ai, about his systematic approach to scaling operations across revenue, data, and finance functions at a 100-person company. Drawing from his leadership experience at UserVoice, Clearbit, Shortcut, and Winning by Design, Connor reveals how he transformed a company lacking leadership culture into an aligned executive team and shares his counterintuitive hiring methodologies. His insights demonstrate how AI-powered interview analysis can eliminate traditional hiring blind spots while accelerating senior talent evaluation. Topics discussed: - How Connor conducted a three-day executive offsite that moved from ”knockdown screaming match” over a game of Fishbowl to establishing four company-wide goals that directly dictate hiring priorities, transforming reactive backfilling into strategic talent acquisition aligned with business outcomes. - The ”WHO method” scorecard methodology for senior roles that forces executive alignment by defining four specific six-month outcomes before considering candidates, including Connor’s example of requiring five iterations to align on what their head of data would actually accomplish. - Connor’s systematic approach to hiring unfamiliar roles: conducting 10-15 discovery interviews with finance leaders across PLG and non-PLG companies, then using Fathom’s AI to extract common hiring mistakes and build targeted interview frameworks for functions outside his expertise. - The ”top 10 strengths” phone screen technique that reveals self-awareness and coachability - Connor pushes candidates through the awkwardness of identifying strengths 7-10 using follow-up prompts like ”What would your boss say?” and can predict final hiring outcomes based solely on how they navigate this discomfort. - Advanced reference check methodology that bypasses positive bias: asking ”What was their biggest challenge way back when you worked with them?” to create temporal distance, then following with ”This person told me you’d say their challenge was X - would you agree?” to give references explicit permission to elaborate on known weaknesses. - Implementation of RAPID decision framework to eliminate cross-functional bottlenecks, with Connor explicitly defining himself as ”decider” while giving his CEO veto power and telling his team that input will be ”taken very seriously” but final decisions aren’t democratic. - AI-powered candidate screening using Ashby’s pattern-matching against five ideal LinkedIn profiles to automatically score and surface top 10% of applicants, with Connor noting ”it doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to get us to the top 10%” to solve signal-to-noise problems. - The daily 30-minute check-in onboarding protocol for senior hires combined with shared Asana boards for queuing non-urgent questions, ensuring new executives are never more than 8 hours away from getting unstuck during their first three weeks while maintaining Connor’s availability for immediate issues. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Alan Stein, CEO of Kadima Careers and former post-sales/CS leader at Salesforce, Tableau, and Facebook, about his systematic approach to executive hiring after interviewing 500+ candidates at Google. Alan reveals the hidden reality that most senior roles are designed around specific people before posting, and shares the tactical frameworks that separate the 5% of standout candidates from those who unknowingly eliminate themselves. His insights expose the gap between what executives think matters in hiring versus what actually drives decisions behind closed doors. Topics discussed: - The proactive role design strategy where Alan created positions around specific talent, including how he enhanced an escalation management role by incorporating predictive telemetry capabilities after the candidate suggested preventing escalations rather than just managing them. - The structured four-phase interview evaluation that 90% of interviews follow: recruiter knockout screen for location/comp/qualifications, hiring manager assessment for cultural fit + capability, loop interviews with specific behavioral/technical components, and the tactical ”questions from you” phase where executives frequently self-eliminate. - Why LinkedIn optimization has replaced resume strategy for executive hiring, with specific examples of how Andy landed multiple unicorn roles without ever submitting a traditional resume, and the structured approach to making your profile function as an effective landing page. - The contrarian ”take every interview to completion” philosophy, including Alan’s real example of an offer being rescinded for being overqualified due to resource expectations from Google, and how to position yourself when pursuing roles below your traditional level. - Alan’s Gmail monetization case study that he used across 500+ Google interviews to evaluate general cognitive ability through market sizing, pros/cons analysis, and executive recommendation synthesis—adaptable across companies for assessing strategic thinking under pressure. - The back-channel reference methodology that circumvents provided references, including the tactical approach of identifying LinkedIn mutual connections with stronger relationships to you than the candidate, and the ”only respond if awesome” communication framework. - How acquiring company-specific terminology differentiates you from 95% of candidates through strategic intelligence gathering—V2MOMs at Salesforce, XFNs (cross-functional networks) at Facebook—rather than generic research that anyone can Google. The advocate cultivation system for breaking into target companies, where Alan explains identifying decision-maker influencers who can bypass the thousands of posted applicants by getting your profile directly in front of hiring managers before formal processes begin. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

When 70% year-over-year growth meets precision hiring, you get Mollie Bodensteiner’s playbook. Instead of posting roles and drowning in LinkedIn noise, she’s built Engine’s operations engine through whispered networks and ruthless outcome definition. Her contrarian approach reveals why the best senior ops hires never see job boards—and why silence from new hires should terrify you more than any red flag. From converting enablement pros into RevOps stars to using AI-era case studies that actually work, Mollie shares battle-tested frameworks for scaling teams when every hire matters and every miss costs months. Topics discussed: - Working backwards from business outcomes to avoid organizational cargo cult hiring — Defining revenue targets, operational efficiency metrics, and market expansion goals first, then mapping scope and handoffs to prevent territorial conflicts during hypergrowth phases, rather than defaulting to ”we need a CMO because we don’t have one.” - The two-week referral sprint methodology that eliminates job postings — Running network-first sourcing through VCs for pattern recognition and backdoor reference checks, using strategic investors as talent validators rather than just sourcing engines, before considering external postings that generate noise over signal. - Testing ICP thinking through the ”describe yellow to someone blind” framework — Mollie’s signature interview question that reveals how candidates adapt complex concepts to audience limitations and constraints, directly mirroring the core GTM challenge of messaging to prospects with different contexts and pain points. - Why enablement-to-operations career paths outperform traditional ops hiring — Converting people who teach processes into systems operators since they already understand stakeholder management and translation challenges that pure systems thinkers often struggle with in cross-functional environments. - The AI-resistant case study evaluation system using assumption mapping — Structuring 45-minute presentations focused on questioning and thought process rather than deliverables, specifically asking ”what did you wish you knew that you didn’t ask” to reveal reasoning patterns that ChatGPT can’t replicate. - Daily communication protocols over structured onboarding documentation — Using Slack canvases for async question capture with three-times-weekly check-ins, since silence in the first two weeks indicates disengagement more reliably than any other early-stage performance metric. - The restaurant analogy for 90-day relationship crystallization — Explaining to new hires that working relationships solidify like choosing familiar restaurants after exploring a new town, requiring active feedback exchange during the exploration phase before patterns become permanent. - Systematic fresh-eyes capture through challenge permission protocols — Explicitly authorizing new hires to question status quo decisions with ”see something, say something” frameworks, since hypergrowth companies lose decision rationale faster than they can document it. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with James Roth, Chief Revenue Officer at ZoomInfo, about his systematic approach to executive hiring at scale. Having risen from door-knocking outside sales to leading GTM at the company behind the literal GTM ticker symbol, James reveals how ZoomInfo maintains hiring velocity while raising the bar—processing thousands of applications for senior roles while consistently identifying transformational talent. His frameworks challenge hiring orthodoxy and expose the operational realities of talent acquisition at publicly traded SaaS companies. Topics discussed: - The organizational design trap of proliferative C-suite titles—why ”Chief Customer Officer” reporting to a ”Chief Revenue Officer” creates catastrophic metric misalignment, and James’s framework for determining when executive roles should be peers versus hierarchical based on outcome ownership. - The ”calculator test” interrogation methodology for sales hires—how asking candidates to pull out calculators and walk through quota math, accelerator tiers, and deal timing exposes the difference between genuine 300% achievers and those gaming ramp periods or small quotas. - Why 90% of VP+ hires come from ZoomInfo’s customer and vendor ecosystem rather than posted roles—the systematic approach to tracking prospects across 3+ year cycles and leveraging the unique advantage of selling directly to GTM executives who become hiring targets. - The three-minute constraint framework that replaces traditional behavioral interviews—”Tell me who you are and why you’re here in exactly three minutes” as a forcing function to evaluate message discipline, prioritization under pressure, and executive presence without scripted responses. - Performance-background candidate sourcing beyond traditional athletics—targeting former founders, professional performers, and anyone conditioned to harsh feedback cycles, contrasting this with candidates from ”everybody gets a trophy” environments who crumble under constructive criticism. - Strategic CEO involvement architecture—James’s model for identifying specific hiring categories (upmarket roles, remote candidates, manager+ levels) that require executive oversight versus granting complete autonomy, avoiding the bottleneck trap while maintaining quality control. - The daily one-on-one onboarding intensive—forcing new executives through 50+ stakeholder meetings in 30 days, immediate MOR presentation accountability at 2.5 weeks, and structured ”pop quiz” knowledge validation to compress traditional 6-month learning curves. - Leveraging sales prospect intelligence for talent acquisition—systematically tracking exceptional performers who attempt to sell to ZoomInfo leadership, building multi-year talent pipelines through vendor relationship management and customer success touchpoints. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Josh Roth, VP of Revenue at Gorgias, about his systematic approach to scaling revenue organizations through strategic internal development and disciplined hiring execution. Drawing from his experience leading sales at LOB and now building go-to-market at the AI-powered no-code automation platform, Josh shares tactical frameworks for evaluating promotion readiness, executing network-driven recruitment at scale, and making data-driven hiring decisions that drive sustainable growth. His insights reveal how rigorous talent evaluation and development methodology can differentiate high-performing revenue teams. Topics discussed: - Why the three most dangerous promotion transitions (SDR to AE, BDR manager to Sales manager, Director to VP of Revenue) consistently fail due to delegation and prioritization skill gaps, and how to identify readiness beyond performance metrics. - The counterintuitive reality is that sales leaders who avoid selling make catastrophic AE managers—why mastering ”internal sales” (securing resources, influence, cross-functional support) is more predictive of management success than quota attainment. - How Josh’s network-driven recruitment strategy consistently generates 7-10 qualified candidates from targeted connections while avoiding the ”inbox management” trap of public postings—including his AI-powered candidate identification process through Pipefy’s platform. - The context-driven interviewing methodology that replaces structured question lists: giving candidates specific situational context about role challenges and evaluating granular specificity in their response stories to separate real experience from rehearsed answers. - Why Josh’s comprehensive back-channeling approach for every hire focuses on consistency patterns (like ”high standards”) rather than universal approval, and how he coaches candidates to expect and embrace this process. - The 91-day performance identification framework: specific milestone mapping (day 1: communication systems, week 1: customer outreach, month 1: first opportunity generation) and why leaders own the outcome if they retain underperformers beyond month 3. - How high-performing ICs often provide more valuable hiring insights than managers from other functions, and why targeting your best individual contributors for candidate referrals generates a superior pipeline than traditional executive networking. - The behavioral input evaluation system that predicts sales success: measuring customer proximity, attention to execution detail, and evidence of legitimate effort as leading indicators, particularly for new hires struggling with initial outcomes but demonstrating correct process adherence. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Tim Dorris, Chief Revenue Officer at Stensul, about his systematic approach to hiring executive talent that goes far beyond traditional resume screening. With six years of leadership at Stensul and experience scaling revenue organizations, Tim shares his methodology for identifying the top 10% of executive candidates through outcome-based scorecards, deep historical analysis, and unconventional selling tactics. His insights reveal how to build bulletproof hiring processes that attract A-players while maintaining rigorous standards in today’s noisy talent market. Topics discussed: How to create outcome-based scorecards collaboratively with founders, people leaders, and direct reports rather than jumping straight to job descriptions, ensuring alignment on what success actually looks like in the first 6-12 months. The ”Who” methodology’s ”top grade” interview technique—a 90-minute chronological deep dive through every role in a candidate’s career that uncovers patterns, motivations, and red flags that traditional interviews miss entirely. Why Tim positions himself as the first interviewer after recruiter screening to maintain tight feedback loops and prevent his team from wasting time on misaligned candidates, despite the time investment. The strategic approach to reference checking that leverages the top grade process to identify specific former managers, peers, and direct reports rather than accepting candidates’ self-selected references. How to evaluate whether candidates can step up from individual contributor to manager roles by testing for cross-functional project experience and the ability to manage managers, not just execute within a territory. Tim’s ”going all in” candidate courting strategies, including traveling to meet prospects in their cities, involving them in team events like karaoke nights, and creating presentation-style offer processes that mirror executive sales proposals. The counterintuitive requirement that all executive hires become product demo-certified and master individual contributor skills rather than managing purely through dashboards, ensuring hands-on leadership capability. Why posting roles publicly still works despite AI-generated application volume, and how to balance broad visibility with targeted recruiting through networks and warm introductions. ABOUT YOUR HOST: Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Evan Huck, CEO & Co-Founder of UserEvidence, about his systematic approach to executive hiring while scaling from zero to 40 employees. As a former AE turned CEO who still interviews every single hire, Evan shares advanced frameworks for role architecture, candidate evaluation differentiation by function, and decision-making processes that prevent costly mis-hires. His methodology reveals how early-stage leaders can maintain hiring excellence while building the foundational team that determines long-term trajectory. Topics discussed: The role portfolio methodology for unfamiliar executive functions—how Evan mapped his first VP Marketing hire to 50% product marketing, 30% brand, 20% demand gen by conducting discovery interviews with marketers to understand skill set differences, then matching capabilities to company-specific initiatives rather than generic job descriptions. Function-specific candidate evaluation strategies that match role requirements—why sales candidates must demonstrate multi-threaded outreach to multiple stakeholders during application (testing core job skills), while engineering candidates should follow standard application processes, with marketing requiring essay-based assessments for writing evaluation. The rationalization identification framework for preventing mis-hires—distinguishing between candidates who make hiring managers ”beaming and stoked” versus those who trigger qualification language like ”lots of relevant experience” and ”really good at this dimension,” which signals dangerous rationalization patterns. Advanced reference call techniques that extract meaningful differentiation—moving beyond checkbox validation to identify ”would hire again” versus ”top 1% of my career, would move mountains to work with again” responses, plus recognizing the power signal when employed candidates provide current CEO references. The Socratic overrule method for maintaining hiring standards without undermining manager autonomy—using inception techniques to challenge enthusiasm levels and test conviction through defensive responses rather than direct vetoes, ensuring A-players hire A-players cascading effect. Skip-level interview strategy as competitive differentiation—how CEO involvement in non-executive hires becomes a closing tool against competitors while serving as cultural bar-raising, with plans to maintain two-level skip interviews through 300+ employees. The patience-over-urgency principle with quantified decision frameworks—recognizing that 3 weeks of additional search time prevents 4-6 months of performance management, while offering 2-week decompression periods between roles for tenured candidates to reset before multi-year commitments. Consulting-style aptitude assessment across all roles using problem-solving scenarios unrelated to specific function—evaluating raw IQ, assumption-laying ability, and ”chill humble” cultural fit over experience matching, particularly critical for early-career hires where potential trumps track record. ABOUT YOUR HOST:  Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.  Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Dustin Joost, CRO at Suralink, about his systematic approach to breaking traditional hiring patterns that create organizational blind spots. From his experience scaling revenue teams from seed stage through public companies, Dustin reveals how talent market dynamics fundamentally alter recruiting strategies and why the best revenue leaders optimize for stage-fit over industry experience. His frameworks challenge executives to rethink what makes candidates ”incredibly deadly” in evolving GTM environments. Topics discussed: Why optimizing for ”complementary excellence” over carbon copies prevents blind spots as businesses mature, and the specific assessment criteria Dustin uses to identify candidates who fill strategic gaps rather than replicate existing team strengths. The intellectual curiosity + hunger + self-awareness combination that creates ”incredible deadliness” through coachability, including how to evaluate these intangibles during interviews and why this trinity outweighs industry-specific experience for executive hires. How to implement ”just-in-time hiring sprints” with 90-day retrospectives covering channel conversion metrics, bottleneck analysis, and specific SLAs for interviewing committees—treating talent acquisition like product development cycles. The bench pipeline methodology of maintaining 3-5 pre-vetted candidates through weekly conversations, enabling urgency without lowered standards while staying two quarters ahead of hiring needs based on 90-day average time-to-fill benchmarks. Why non-traditional backgrounds (teachers managing 30 different learning styles, theater actors mastering tension/payoff storytelling) consistently outperform traditional sales hires in complex category creation and enterprise motions. The ”magic wand friction point” interview question that surfaces cross-functional empathy and systems-level problem-solving in one response, revealing how candidates think about their role in the entire customer journey versus lone-wolf mentalities. How candidates break through noise using creative outbound tactics—commenting on CRO posts for pattern recognition, leveraging second-degree connections with templated referral messages, and demonstrating sales methodology in their own candidacy approach. The ”strategy, structure, people, process” onboarding framework combined with empowerment-then-monitoring approach, using first 30-60 day execution depth (sales leaders running cycles, marketing leaders joining prospect calls) to distinguish managing-up from genuine impact. ABOUT YOUR HOST: Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search