Best-for-the-Role, Not Best-in-Market
Hire for the specific mandate at this specific stage, not the most impressive resume available.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 90%
Founders hiring their first senior product leader are drawn to big-brand names (the CPO of Google/YouTube) as a proxy for quality. Ipsen argues this is the single biggest hiring mistake: those people are often far from the work and depend on a team of executors. The better question is who is best for THIS role at THIS time, which is a completely different question from who is the best talent in the market.
Origin
Articulated by Lauren Ipsen from 85+ executive placements; she admits early in her own career she chased 'whales of Executives' to prove herself before learning this.
Core principles
- 01Brand recognition is not the same as fit
- 02Senior big-company leaders are often shielded from the tactical, in-the-weeds work an early startup needs
- 03'Best talent' and 'best talent for this role today' are two very different questions
- 04A big logo hire still has to go hire a whole team beneath them
How to run it
- 1
Separate the two questions
Explicitly ask 'who is best for this specific role at this specific time?' rather than 'who is the best product person in the market?' Treat them as distinct queries.
Pro tip Notice when you are choosing a candidate mainly so you can brag that you landed them — that is the vanity trap.
- 2
Audit how close the candidate still is to the work
For senior big-company candidates, probe whether their last few years were spent on camaraderie, team building, and performance reviews rather than innovative A/B-testing product work. Early-stage roles need someone who can still operate hands-on.
Pro tip Look for a hybrid who can operate like a senior PM some days and lead from a vision perspective on others.
Watch out A great 10-years-from-now hire can be the wrong hire for the company as it exists today.
- 3
Bias toward a chip on the shoulder
Favor candidates who have something to prove and want to build a name for themselves over those who have already 'made it' and no longer crave building.
Watch out Do not over-generalize that all senior leaders lack hunger — some go to startups precisely because they crave building.
In the wild
Ipsen recounts that early in recruiting she would try to recruit huge-name executives just to entertain the opportunity and say 'how sick is that,' rather than pursuing the person who could actually move the needle.
→ She learned that landing the most impressive name does not equal hiring the person who advances the company.
Common mistakes
Being distracted by shiny objects and big names
Founders with limited resources chase brand-name executives who are far from the work, then discover they still have to hire an entire executing team beneath that person.
Hiring ahead of product with no defined mandate
When the board says 'we need a head of product' but no one knows what the role must actually do, the search is 'doomed from inception.'
Is it for you?
Best for
Early-stage founders hiring their first senior product or engineering leader with limited resources
Not ideal for
Late-stage companies deliberately hiring a brand-name executive to run a large, layered organization through IPO
From the transcript
“it's really easy to be distracted by shiny objects and look at huge names”
“who is going to be best for this specific role at this specific time not necessarily who is the best talent in the world or…”
“just because this is the best talent that doesn't necessarily mean they're the best talent for this role today”
“I do tend to lean towards folks that have a chip on their shoulder or have something to prove and want to build a name…”
From the episode
Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters
Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst)