(Not) just another VP of Talent job

As my dear friend Michael Case is fond of saying, “no one does the VP of Talent job at a hyper-growth company twice.”  Those of you who are doing or have done it are nodding your heads. The rest may be asking “why’s that?”

The short answer: it can be a thankless job.  The longer answer: you have to manage a cohort of executives as stakeholders, each of whom thinks that their team’s hiring needs are top priority within the organization; the hiring targets are aggressive and mission-critical to other departments hitting their goals; your stakeholders and their teams often deprioritize interviews and feedback when they get busy, making headcount goals difficult to impossible to achieve; ultimate responsibility for hitting the goals rests on your shoulders; at each stage of company growth the talent team, systems, and processes need to change without disrupting the current norms and funnel; budgets are tight; timelines are tighter; false positives are unacceptable; diversity is critical.

Hiring is hard.

For some thrill seekers, this challenge is precisely what drew you to this job.  After a couple years of bringing metrics, scale and results to the world of talent in your organization, some leaders ponder, “What is beyond the hiring targets of just my organization?  Can I help humans far and wide to cultivate their own recruiting and career best practices?”

Human Capital's VP of Talent role is meant for those of you who ask yourself this question.

Why not just another VP of Talent job?

• Amplified impact - A talent leader’s impact typically extends only so far as the walls of their organization will allow.  Our VP of Talent, however, knows no such bounds.  You'll impact our members (ambitious engineers), our clients (high growth startups) and the millions of recruiters for whom your work will move the industry forward. (see It’s all about the talent below)
• BHAG: Michael Ovitz built CAA to represent 80% of talent in Hollywood.  Human Capital, with Michael Ovitz as an advisor, is scaling a talent agency to do the same with the best engineers and the best startups. 
• We do business differently: New wave VCs are reshaping how VC is done by shifting the primary focus from financial capital to services.  As discussed in Another kind of capital, Human Capital is one of the only firms saying talent is the service.  Our VP of Talent will build teams, while our VC funds the dreams.   
• Behind every great company is a great recruiter: Or in our case, in front!  You will build and lead the engine that powers our VC.  You will own the P&L for the biggest business unit at Human Capital.  You are the product leader for our core business. 
• The luxury to think long-term: Most recruiters and recruiting leaders are forced to focus short-term on immediate headcount or revenue goals.  Some are fortunate to think medium-term.  This is one of those rare opportunities where a recruiting leader has the luxury to partner and support people in their career journeys from university to retirement.
• It’s all about the talent: Talent is central to Human Capital’s investment thesis—the venture firm wins if and when the talent agency wins.  If this proves to be true, this single occurrence propels recruiting as an industry.  As the VP of Talent, you make this true.  

If this resonates with you, then support me in my mission to recruit the leader that will take one giant leap for all of recruiterkind.  Share, like, refer, call me, and always be recruiting.