Hey Marc. Always enjoy and appreciate your perspective. Some personal experiences on interviewing that might amuse/interest you. I started my beard the day I left the Army in 1969. After seven successful years at my first company, I decided to move on. Although I landed in a good spot, there were a couple speed bumps. The head of Siemens medical division in the U.S. rejected me outright because I had a beard despite strong recommendations from the executive who would have been my boss. The president of a mid-size company he had founded, would not even interview me when he saw my beard. More in line with your guidance, the best hire I ever made, took a lot of selling on my part. I needed a product manager for a very innovative and promising electronic cardiac instrument. My hiring criteria were classic cookie cutter stuff: technical undergraduate degree, successful experience in field sales and an MBA. I met the person I eventually hired in a non-recruiting setting. He had undergraduate and advanced degrees in public health administration. He had put himself through school, working as a Los Angeles County Fire Paramedic. I convinced him to join the commercial sector because he could have more impact on mankind by moving across the country and marketing our cardiac products. He was there long after I left and went on to be president of a leading competitor.
It’s so true the exit interview is so important! I left a job once because I was moving states, and my manager at the time made an unethical move to try and cut my compensation before I left. I was so hurt and it tarnished what was otherwise a positive relationship. I was let go of another job and my leadership time up to my SVP called me after and encouraged me, even helping me to set up interviews. They often have people follow them to different companies and if I went back to sales, I’d work with them in a heartbeat. Arguably my time at the first job was smoother, but how people treated me when I left made a strong impression. As someone who works for myself now as a writing coach, I’m going to try and apply this to my own conversations.
Love the reframe from buying to selling. But I'm curious about the step before the interview even happens.
You mention alumni interviews for "highly selective schools that reject brilliant kids by the thousands." That filter itself seems worth examining.
At Netflix, was there ever any work done to test whether the pipeline (Stanford, Ivy League, "name brand" backgrounds) was actually optimal?
Or were you potentially selecting for people who were identified as high-potential at 17, which might correlate more with family resources and "right-think" than with the kind of people who'd challenge assumptions or bring genuinely different ideas?
The selling approach makes sense once someone's in the room.
But I wonder if the buying mindset starts earlier, in deciding who's worth inviting at all.
As far as I know there was never the “we only hire from ivys” rule at Netflix - since most of the interviews at Netflix were almost entirely about “what will you be able to accomplish in the future” versus “what have you accomplished in the past”.
Even without a rule, did recruiters naturally gravitate toward "Stanford, ex-Google, ex-McKinsey" resumes because they pattern-matched to past hires? Did referral networks skew toward people who already knew people inside?
Not suggesting ill intent, more just wondering if the "future potential" lens still got filtered through a "looks like people we've hired before" screen before anyone even got to demonstrate that potential.
Was there ever an effort to deliberately widen that top of funnel? And if so, what did or did not work about it?
Excellent framing on the interview paradox. The insight about treating even rejections as reputaion-building moments rather than wasted time fundamentally reshapes the hiring equation. I've seen this play out where candidates I passed on early in my career came back 5 years later as exaclty the right fit, but only because that first interaction left them wanting to work with us. Every conversation is either building or burning future optionality.
It is definitely powerful, and a strong lesson to learn. Someone I burned at Netflix (early on, before I had learned the power of selling) never hesitated to tell me how badly I had missed out by not hiring him. And he was right.
Very interesting. I’m hiring at the moment and have had a few solid people decide not to take the role. Looks like I might have to change tack.
As an aside, someone my family knew moved to take a role with Netflix about 10 years ago. My dad, also a software engineer, had heard heaps about the Netflix work/ownership culture and certainly thought the guy had been given an opportunity of a lifetime. Looks like the strategy worked if rumours made it all the way to Australia!
Hey Marc. Always enjoy and appreciate your perspective. Some personal experiences on interviewing that might amuse/interest you. I started my beard the day I left the Army in 1969. After seven successful years at my first company, I decided to move on. Although I landed in a good spot, there were a couple speed bumps. The head of Siemens medical division in the U.S. rejected me outright because I had a beard despite strong recommendations from the executive who would have been my boss. The president of a mid-size company he had founded, would not even interview me when he saw my beard. More in line with your guidance, the best hire I ever made, took a lot of selling on my part. I needed a product manager for a very innovative and promising electronic cardiac instrument. My hiring criteria were classic cookie cutter stuff: technical undergraduate degree, successful experience in field sales and an MBA. I met the person I eventually hired in a non-recruiting setting. He had undergraduate and advanced degrees in public health administration. He had put himself through school, working as a Los Angeles County Fire Paramedic. I convinced him to join the commercial sector because he could have more impact on mankind by moving across the country and marketing our cardiac products. He was there long after I left and went on to be president of a leading competitor.
Your mileage may vary, but I find that selling candidate ends up coming back to reward me at least half the time. I’ll take those odds any day.
It’s so true the exit interview is so important! I left a job once because I was moving states, and my manager at the time made an unethical move to try and cut my compensation before I left. I was so hurt and it tarnished what was otherwise a positive relationship. I was let go of another job and my leadership time up to my SVP called me after and encouraged me, even helping me to set up interviews. They often have people follow them to different companies and if I went back to sales, I’d work with them in a heartbeat. Arguably my time at the first job was smoother, but how people treated me when I left made a strong impression. As someone who works for myself now as a writing coach, I’m going to try and apply this to my own conversations.
Everything is always sales. Not an ironic statement.
Love the reframe from buying to selling. But I'm curious about the step before the interview even happens.
You mention alumni interviews for "highly selective schools that reject brilliant kids by the thousands." That filter itself seems worth examining.
At Netflix, was there ever any work done to test whether the pipeline (Stanford, Ivy League, "name brand" backgrounds) was actually optimal?
Or were you potentially selecting for people who were identified as high-potential at 17, which might correlate more with family resources and "right-think" than with the kind of people who'd challenge assumptions or bring genuinely different ideas?
The selling approach makes sense once someone's in the room.
But I wonder if the buying mindset starts earlier, in deciding who's worth inviting at all.
As far as I know there was never the “we only hire from ivys” rule at Netflix - since most of the interviews at Netflix were almost entirely about “what will you be able to accomplish in the future” versus “what have you accomplished in the past”.
Thanks Marc. I hear you on no official policy.
But I'm curious about the informal layer.
Even without a rule, did recruiters naturally gravitate toward "Stanford, ex-Google, ex-McKinsey" resumes because they pattern-matched to past hires? Did referral networks skew toward people who already knew people inside?
Not suggesting ill intent, more just wondering if the "future potential" lens still got filtered through a "looks like people we've hired before" screen before anyone even got to demonstrate that potential.
Was there ever an effort to deliberately widen that top of funnel? And if so, what did or did not work about it?
Excellent framing on the interview paradox. The insight about treating even rejections as reputaion-building moments rather than wasted time fundamentally reshapes the hiring equation. I've seen this play out where candidates I passed on early in my career came back 5 years later as exaclty the right fit, but only because that first interaction left them wanting to work with us. Every conversation is either building or burning future optionality.
It is definitely powerful, and a strong lesson to learn. Someone I burned at Netflix (early on, before I had learned the power of selling) never hesitated to tell me how badly I had missed out by not hiring him. And he was right.
Very interesting. I’m hiring at the moment and have had a few solid people decide not to take the role. Looks like I might have to change tack.
As an aside, someone my family knew moved to take a role with Netflix about 10 years ago. My dad, also a software engineer, had heard heaps about the Netflix work/ownership culture and certainly thought the guy had been given an opportunity of a lifetime. Looks like the strategy worked if rumours made it all the way to Australia!
I guess the hiring word of mouth was stronger than I thought. (Or maybe all the time I spend in Australia is paying off).
Perhaps!