Paraform

Most recruiters think they’re great at screening calls, until they meet John Keenan. With 17 years at Continuity Partners, he's the recruiter who built Palantir Technologies's NYC office from scratch and the exceptional teams behind companies like Flatiron Health, Oscar, and Squarespace. John knows a thing or two about spotting exceptional talent, fast, so if you want to sharpen your screening game, join our webinar with him. He'll share stories about his favorite screening questions, common mistakes recruiters make, and proven strategies to quickly sniff out top candidates (or spot those who aren't a fit). March 12, 10 AM PT. RSVP at the link in comments.

These people could work anywhere, but they chose to join me and Jeffrey Li to build Paraform. Building a company is really difficult. You start with nothing. Just an idea and a belief that it should exist. And then, somehow, you convince other people to believe in it too. They had every opportunity in the world, and yet, they decided this was worth their time, energy, and talent. Why? 1/ We’re solving one of the hardest problems out there. Everyone—tech companies, fine dining restaurants, factories, financial institutions—needs great talent to grow. We’re tackling a $700B market head-on. 2/ We have a bias towards action. We went from 0 to mid-7-digit revenue in 12 months. All because of focused, high-velocity building. 3/ We attract the best. High-agency, smart-as-hell people who want to build something big, and they want to do it with a team that moves like they do. 4/ We’re designing a company that scales without slowing down. Most startups start fast and then get bogged down by process and bloat. We’re doing the opposite: building a team and culture that stays fast, nimble, and high-agency no matter how big we get. To the team: I’m very grateful to be working with you all. To everyone else: We’re hiring, join us. It’s an opportunity to be part of a generational company you look back on and say, I was there when it all happened.

Why are recruiters still treated this way? External recruiters bring the network advantage companies need to win. Yet they’re massively undervalued. 1/ If recruiters were paid like sales reps, more companies would be winning Most companies treat recruiters like cost centers instead of revenue drivers. The best recruiters make companies money—by landing top talent that moves the business forward. The right Sales Lead can 10x revenue. The right Head of Product can build a category-defining feature. The right Founding Engineer can set the technical foundation that scales for years. 2/ Internal vs external recruiters They play very different but equally crucial roles. Internal teams keep companies running by efficiently filling roles. External recruiters expand those possibilities. They know where the best people are, and more importantly, they know how to pull them in. Yet too many times, external recruiters don’t get nearly enough credit for their impact. 3/ Recruiting has a sales problem Sales tools == recruiter tools. Outbound, nurturing, pipeline management—it’s all the same. The only difference is that sales tech is miles ahead because companies actually invest in it. This makes no sense to me. It’s exactly what we’re solving with Paraform: building a platform with all the tools external recruiters need to succeed. 4/ Recruiters have no clear career path (and that’s a problem) Sales has SDR → AE → Enterprise AE → VP Sales. Recruiting has no standard trajectory, no clear promotions, no real structure. 5/ Recruiters are just like real estate brokers Yet real estate brokers get paid on total home value. Recruiters get paid on first-year salary. One of these models makes sense. The other leaves billions on the table. 6/ A recruiter’s network is more powerful than any ATS, LinkedIn search, or sourcing tool. The best hires don’t come from databases. They come from relationships. What’s the most underrated part of a recruiter’s job that no one talks about?

Hey, there’s not many of you out there. This one's for Founding Engineers only. Founders, recruiters, GTM folks—I know you want to come. But honestly, we’ll be strict. We’re co-hosting a Founding Engineers Meetup with Mintlify at their office on March 5, from 5:30pm. It's a great chance to meet other early-stage builders from top Seed & Series A startups and swap war stories. Pizza, drinks, and exclusive Mintlify & Paraform merch on us. RSVP in the comments. Can't wait to see you there!

Incredibly excited to welcome Cristina Bunea to the Paraform team!! ?? Cristina joins us from leading growth/marketing at Command AI (fka CommandBar) now part of Amplitude.?Before that, she was a PM at Product Hunt and co-founded Listle (YC S19), a consumer startup backed by Y Combinator. This was a long time coming - I'm a massive fan of her content. I first reached out to her early 2024: "saw your changelog video - super cool!". Probably could have done better there. 7 no's later, I finally got a chance to grab coffee with Cristina last October, and rest is history. If you want to work with Cristina to build a generational company, solving the most important problem in the world, email me at [email protected]

You don’t want to work at Anduril Industries. Or at least that's what they want you to believe. They launched #DontWorkAtAnduril, an entire campaign telling you to stay away. Recruiters changed their LinkedIn pics, plastered the same defiant line everywhere, and dropped a new onboarding video to hammer the point home. Because if building cutting-edge defense tech doesn’t get you out of bed in the morning, Anduril doesn’t want you. I’ve always been fascinated by their approach to hiring. It all starts from Palmer Luckey’s personal ethos, which is rooted in a simple concept: “You don’t have to be good at everything—just surround yourself with the people who are.” At Anduril, the same logic applies. They build teams where each person has a distinct superpower. If you're not bringing something unique to the table, you won’t be invited to the potluck. Here’s how they do it: (1) A massive recruitment team. Their talent team has more than 130+ people. (2) High-autonomy, high-stakes culture. “If you see something broken, fix it—don’t wait for permission.” (3) Technical rigor and interview speed. (4) Mission-driven hiring: patriotism and purpose. Interviewers ask pointed questions. The mission is existential and it filters out those who are not fully committed. (5) Internships as a key pipeline. (6) Comp strategy. You get the speed of a startup and the relative stability of a defense contract pipeline. And leading this charge is Allison Kerzner, who heads Anduril’s People team. Their message is clear: They want people who run toward the hardest work, not away from it. At Paraform, we believe in the same approach. The best teams aren’t built by accident: - Hiring is a first-class function. - Uncompromising selectivity. Don’t fill seats with mediocrity. The wrong hire is more expensive than no hire. - Year-round search. Always be on the look out for top talent. - Be unapologetic about your culture – Hard problems attract relentless builders. We wrote an in-depth story that talks about how Anduril hires, see the comments.

Congratulations to the Hightouch team on their Series C and achieving unicorn status! Hightouch has raised $80M from Sapphire Ventures, NewView Capital, ICONIQ Growth, Bain Capital Ventures, Amplify Partners, and Y Combinator to build AI agents for marketing. They’re rethinking how brands determine the most relevant message for each customer across channels, and we’re excited to see their vision continue to take shape. We're looking forward to what’s next and continuing our work with the Hightouch team, Corey Stein, Delaney Mackenzie, Sara Ali-Garcia, Ernest Cheng, Calvin T., Savannah K., Jenna Llama, and Tori Heims!

Recruiters are about to battle for this trip like it’s Gladiator 3

Nicole Chen was Paraform’s first-ever intern on the product & engineering team, and she set the bar ridiculously high. Startups should make space for interns more often—not as an afterthought. Bringing in someone early in their career—hungry to learn, unafraid to get their hands dirty, and excited to make an impact—shows you the best version of what an engineer can be. It raises the bar for hiring. It reminds the rest of us what real ownership and moving fast looks like. That hunger shouldn’t fade as we grow in our careers (but sadly, it often does). Nicole is a Harvard University student (who previously interned at companies like Snap Inc. and Stripe) and she joined us in SF this winter. From day one, she was?on it. Early-stage startup life = constant context switching, ambiguity, and building while the ground shifts beneath you. No one’s handing you neatly scoped Linear tickets. Nicole was proactive, sharp, and always on top of things. Exactly the kind of person I look for when hiring at Paraform. You're missing out on an unfair advantage if you’re a startup and not bringing in interns. And if you’re a product engineer looking for your next challenge—I’m hiring. [email protected] Bonus points for a killer subject line. (Nicole wrote an awesome deep dive on her experience on the Paraform blog. I'll leave the link in the comments.)

???Welcome to the Paraform team, Caleb Cater! Caleb joins us from Sigma Computing, where he worked as a BDR. Before that, he closed real estate investment deals for a family office in the Bay Area. Now, he’s teaming up with Noah Plewa on GTM to help more companies hire top talent faster through Paraform. When Caleb and I first connected, we found out we had a 12-hour overlap in New York. He lived just 10 minutes from where my family and I stayed for Christmas. We found time to grab a drink. Meeting in person early on built great momentum and was key leading to the hiring decision. Now we’re working together! Last year, we grew revenue 28x to mid 7 figures ARR with just a team of 6 and 1 person owning sales. Building out our sales team will supercharge our GTM roadmap. If you’re interested in joining our sales team and want an extremely high career trajectory opportunity, we should talk —?[email protected]. P.S.: You might want to ask Noah Plewa and Caleb Cater how they reached out (valuable trade secret).