I need to bring people on to help us scale. How do I hire the best experts in areas I know nothing about?

Q: We are scaling our company. I’m looking for a board member and to build out my executive team. How do I hire experts in areas outside my scope of knowledge who are willing to do today's job?

-Founder of a growing venture-backed company

Dear Founder,

This is a good question. As you grow, you’ll constantly need to hire people who have expertise that you don’t. For example, tech execs typically need help with a go-to-market strategy or strong financial knowledge from a CFO. There will always be talent that you will have to import and develop. As such, building a competency around that skill is invaluable.

First and foremost, though, reframe your thinking. Don’t just look for someone who can do today’s job, but for someone who can do tomorrow’s job as well. That’s not always easy but it’s necessary as these people will (hopefully) be with you for a long time.

Here’s what I think you should do:

Determine the areas you need to recruit for. If it’s a board seat, you have to be especially careful because there are so few of these roles and the person will be with you for years, if not decades. Hopefully you won’t make mistakes in hiring executive staff leaders, but missteps there are easier to fix.

When it comes to finding the right person for the board, do research to discover who is deeply experienced in the expertise you seek.

• Other board members and the VCs who invested in your company will have recommendations.
• Ask CEOs who might have some suggestions.
• If you can’t find people on your own, hire a recruiter.

When looking for executives, identify companies like yours that are executing well in the area that you need.

• Look at companies that have a competency here and find out why—who is on their team and what are they doing?
• When tapping new talent, you want to find the person who created this success rather than maintained it. Look for “builders”.
• It’s important to consider what you need—whether you are looking to create competency, scale, or maintain. It’s rare to find groups who can do all three well. If I’m doing something new, I look to hire someone who has done it before and got to scale. Just remember that some of those folks may be addicted to creation and scale and want nothing to do with maintenance.

As we know, achieving success is ultimately all about the people on your team. The better you become at recruiting and retaining top talent the better your business results will be.

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