Talent Tuesday: Momentum While Interviewing
How, Momentum Can Save You When Filling Tough Roles
The Climate Talent Playbook
Helping Climate Founders Build & Retain Teams that Win — and Solve Climate Change
It’s been a rough week for climate. Layoffs. Closures. Canceled Funds. But—we’re keeping the fire burning (wait, bad analogy)… we’re keeping the train moving (yeah better).
In Today’s Issue:
👉 Momentum While Interviewing
👉 Jobs We’re Working On
👉 Word on the Street
Momentum While Interviewing
TLDR: If you don’t maintain momentum throughout the interview process you could lose your best candidates, only to be left with 2nd tier options.
If you’re running a search with a limited candidate pool, momentum is critical.
To be clear, momentum is important on every search, but especially so when the fishing pool is small.
If what you’re looking for is clear, you’re usually going to find your target candidates on the first wave of outreach. With about 5-10x more effort, you’ll reach others, but that first wave tends to be accurate and the most likely to consider a move.
If you get 2-3 really solid candidates out of that first approach, you need to keep the interview process rolling. If it takes too long, some of the following things tend to happen to them.
Talents may take other offers
If they are serious about getting a new job, they are speaking to other companies. Even if they were not speaking with others at the beginning, they usually start speaking with others once the interview process starts. I’m not sure why this always happens, but it happens almost every time.
Candidates get concerned
If a week goes by between the interview and getting feedback, it makes candidates wonder why. Are they not serious? Are they so overworked that they can’t get to it? If so, do I want to be part of a company like that?
If it happens once, not a big deal. If it’s recurring, this gets serious, and almost any candidate in their right mind will develop concern.
There are other things that happen, but these are the two most common.
Here’s how to prevent this from happening.
In short, keep the momentum. But here are a five tactics to keep your competitive edge.
Give Feedback Quickly
You should provide feedback within 2 biz days of an interview if not 24 hours. This keeps things moving without rushing.
Schedule at least 1 interview a week
By doing this, you’ll keep the pace up. If you can manage this, you’ll be at or above most other orgs.
To be elite, fit 2 interviews in one week at some point in the process.
Communicate frequently
Even if you’re facing delays, communicate with the candidates often. Get on a texting basis with them ASAP so you can just send a quick voicenote to let them know what’s up. Voicenotes are much better than text because you can hear the tone of your voice. They are also async, so no need to arrange a call.
Regardless of what’s happening, if they know what’s going on, it will help them stay calm in the interview process. Silence often makes candidates nervous.
Align as a team
Your entire interviewing team needs to be onboard with the pace. If anyone is left out, you’ll run into snags. One reschedule getting pushed out a few days can blow the entire process.
When you have this shared goal of why the hire is important, everyone will move swiftly.
Set a clear timeline
If you want to make the hire by a certain date, you can work backwards what needs to happen to make that date realistic. This includes interview speed, number, and feedback turnaround time. Don’t forget about reference taking AND their expected notice period (often 2-4 weeks).
Having a hard date on the calendar will work wonders.
If you stick to these things, you’ll see a huge improvement in your recruitment processes. And importantly, you’ll be able to keep your top candidates engaged and excited about the opportunity.
One last word of warning: If you lose the 1st wave of candidates, you might be forced to settle for 2nd tier talent. Because the people remaining may not be really hot on the market, OR they will be people that are not getting headhunted often. If you had to go really deep, they might be obscure talent (for a reason).
Remember, momentum, momentum, momentum!
Action Item: Get the word “momentum” tattooed on your forearm. Just kidding. But please do use this framework next time you run a hiring process, especially for the critical, narrow pool searches.
Jobs We’re Working On 💼
Here are the jobs we’re supporting currently.
Director of Manufacturing - Helix Earth Technologies | Houston, TX
Sales Director - PowerGEM, LLC | Remote (USA)
VP of Finance & Ops – EV Charging SaaS Startup | Austin, TX
Sr. Account Executive – Gravity Climate | Remote (USA)
(→ Want your job here? Reply to this email.)
Don’t see a role for you? Submit your resume here.
PS: If you’re looking to find top talent in the US and struggling, reach out. We’ll help you find the best talent in a timely manner, accurately, and for about half of what other firms charge (we charge 12-15% others charge 20-30%).
Sponsored by ErthTech Talent: 70+ Placements since 2020. Affordable. Accurate.
Word on the Street
Seems like Powin did layoffs of almost the entire team recently. They have not shut down, but it seems unlikely they will last unless market conditions change soon.
Pachama announced a huge RIF last week. A big blow to the industry, considering how they have long been considered one of the best companies. But from the sounds of it, they have a strong business long-term. They might have overhired during the climate tech boom towards the end of Biden’s administration.
More optimism despite stuff like this. I am not sure what it is, maybe I drank too much coffee before writing this, but in the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a lot more optimistic energy in the market.
EV Charging is charging ahead. The number of EV and EV-charging related companies I’ve heard about recently is encouraging. It seems like EVs have tipped into the mass adoption curve, and there isn’t much any (bad) policy can do to stop the market from buying them.
Okay folks. That’s all from us. See you next week.
~Silas
💬 Share your hiring win, challenge, or war story.
Reply to this email or DM us—we might feature it next week. We would love to share your lessons. This way, everyone benefits. Together, we can move climate forward in these uncertain times.
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