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Howdy Girdleyworld!
The right hires can make or break your company. Because the truth is, a bad hire costs you more than a vacant seat ever will.
So today: how to find the right person for a role — whether they’re down the street or across the globe.
📅 We’re going deeper on this topic at my free lecture on Apr 10th, with the experts at Near: Top Roles to Offshore to LatAm
These guys will give you the straight scoop on when to offshore… and when not to. Bring your questions!
8 tips to hire the right person
1. Know what type of brain the role needs.
Not everyone thinks like you. That’s a good thing.
Some roles need creative chaos. Others need precision and pattern recognition. Some people light up when you give them a blank canvas. Others thrive in structure.
So figure out what type of person will thrive in this role, then seek them out.
I use tools like Culture Index (personality tests) and Criteria Corp (for cognitive / skills testing) to assess a candidate’s fit before hiring.
2. Use the CWG test.
From the EOS playbook, the best hires pass the “CWG” test:
Can do the job (skills, horsepower)
Want to do the job (they’re motivated)
Get it (they understand the mission and culture)
All three matter. You can’t coach someone to “get it.”
My company Near sources talent exclusively from LatAm because they found it was consistently a great fit for “getting it.”
And because US companies can pay more than local wages, candidates are highly motivated to get and keep their jobs.
3. Watch out for high-charisma, low-output
Some folks are amazing in interviews. Polished, personable, quick on their feet.
But then don’t have what it takes when they’re actually in the seat.
That’s where it pays to read between the lines on the resume.
Make sure they have a track record (with references who’ll vouch for it) to back up their talk.
4. Avoid building teams of people just like you.
I’m an idea guy. But I didn't get that every person is wired differently, and for a long time I mostly hired other idea people, because I liked to talk to them.
I would get annoyed by different thinkers.
But then my teams would have tons of ideas, but get nothing done.
Hire people who fill in your blind spots.
5. If the timing’s wrong, any hire is the wrong hire.
This one’s true for early-stage founders especially: wait for the right time to hire.
Don’t hire with a half-baked idea and one customer.
It’s all about the right inflection points — customer traction, revenue growth, etc.
Pull the trigger too early, and you’re just creating overhead and squeezing your resources.
6. Watch out for toxic people
Toxic doesn’t always mean incompetent. It means corrosive. Because some employees can hit their numbers and still drag your team down.
Red flags:
Constant drama
Gossip levels rising
Good employees avoiding them
“The vibe feels off”
I wrote a post about spotting toxic employees here — maybe I’ll flesh this out for a whole piece! (Interested? Any tips you’ve got?)
7. Run your references
I use a “threat of reference check”: I tell every candidate I do up to 5 hours of reference calls, when it’s a senior position. If someone bristles, that’s a bad sign.
Good candidates are happy, because they know their previous contacts will talk them up.
Bad candidates drop out.
Obviously, this one’s tougher when they’re overseas — especially if their previous employers have a language barrier.
That’s where it’s good to have a staffing firm helping you out.
8. Don’t rush to fill the seat.
This one’s tough—especially when a team is stretched thin.
But rushing a hire almost always backfires. If you have to talk yourself into someone — don’t do it.
Hiring slowly sucks. Firing fast sucks more.
You’ll have a lot less regret with the former than the latter.
Bonus tip: Write a hiring memo.
Before you make an offer, write a 2-page memo to yourself. Reflect on:
Where are they strong?
Where are they weak?
How can we help them?
Why should we hire them?
The best investors write investment memos, and the best business owners write hiring memos.
It’s also a great snapshot you can look back on.
—
That’s the list. Eight rules I return to every time I’m hiring.
They’ve saved me from a lot of regret. (And I still don’t always get it right.)
So what about hiring overseas?
I get this question a lot: Which roles are safe to hire overseas? Which ones aren’t?
Short answer: it depends on the role, your company, and how you execute on it.
Join the lecture this Thursday (Apr 10th) and we’ll walk through:
Which roles work great overseas
Which are red flags
How to make overseas hiring actually work (and not create chaos)
Bring your questions — some of the best stuff comes out in the live Q&A!
3 things from this week
Appetizer: My pal Connor Groce (the franchise guy) says that recurring revenue is overrated. I’m not sure I agree… but I’ll hear him out. He’s doing a free seminar on it https://lu.ma/tol692rn
Main: My Near cofounder Hayden recently told the story of how we built a multi-million dollar business off a single tweet — and all the challenges that come with launching fast. Watch it here!
Dessert: We held HoldCo Conference 2025 this week, and it was a blast. Thank you to everyone who came!
Even if you never hire overseas, I hope this gave you some useful filters.
Thanks for reading!
Michael
P.S. Join the hiring webinar! Even if you can’t make it, I’ll send out the recording if your RSVP.
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