Josh James, Founder and CEO of Domo; Author of Startup Rules responds to ~ The Case for Hiring “Under Qualified" by digging deeper into his hiring philosophy & success. He's also the all-star executive who also co-founded Omniture and took it from inception to IPO to sale for $1.8B to Adobe
Assessments don't catch what Josh James is talking about, the renegades, the untested, as well as the angry ones who have something to prove. In that light, Josh James proves how one of his rules shows the limits of the others. - Deb
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#45: No Unemployed Candidates. Always an Excuse. Too Risky. Top-Rated, currently employed candidates who won’t leave… PERFECT.”
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Excerpts:
Josh James's response to "Dave, Dave, Dave..." in Forbes focusing on his Rule 45: "No Unemployed Candidates. Always an Excuse. Too Risky. Top-Rated, Currently Employed Candidates Who Won’t Leave… PERFECT.”
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...a handful of my executives ...had been fired from their previous job. They were so angry and motivated to prove the world wrong...that I couldn’t resist.
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I’ve always believed that hiring people with untapped potential can serve as a tremendous accelerant to your business. This is something I learned very early on in my career and has been a staple of my hiring and promoting decisions throughout the course of running my businesses.
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...hire orphans, picked-on people, or people who have been fired for that exact reason—they are motivated...
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[However], if you were faced with hiring 10 employees who were terminated for one reason or another, or hiring 10 employees who were top-rated, currently employed individuals who didn’t want to initially even interview, then I think the latter group would prove to contain dramatically more successful individuals 90% of the time.
That said, a handful of my executives at Omniture who had been fired from their previous job.
- They were so angry and motivated to prove the world wrong (another one of my rules: hire orphans, picked-on people, or people who have been fired for that exact reason—they are motivated), that I couldn’t resist.
...We have an obligation to the rest of our employees and their families to ensure we have a world-class, globally competitive company. In order to do that, I want to stack the cards in our favor as much as possible. Capitalism isn’t always nice.
If you look at my other rules, (DN: In his list of 55 Start-Up Rules) you’ll notice number 46:
- There are exceptions to every rule and to the extent you make the exceptions, you accept greater risk, but you can also receive greater reward.
In that vein, my startup rule number 20 (also found at http://www.joshjames.com) speaks to that, about hiring the underprivileged and undeserved, who, although they haven’t had the best chances yet, they have the gumption, desire, and enthusiasm and are just waiting for the right person to believe in them.
Half of my management team at Omniture and already half of the leaders who have received promotions at Domo are people who were or are learning on the job.
We are chock full of people whom I have my eye on and who are killing it in their positions.
They will deserve and receive promotions down the road despite their lack of a been-there-done-that resume. They have the intangibles. (DN: That don't show up on assessments, necessarily.)
And by the way, we’re hiring. - Josh James
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