A Recruiting Kickoff Process for a High-Performing Top of Funnel
About this Episode
Natan highlights the importance of identifying non-negotiable must-haves for a role. These can range from compensation and skills to culture fit and location. He advises hiring managers to limit their non-negotiables to four key points, with the rest being nice-to-haves. This approach, Natan argues, helps to create a clear and realistic picture of the job.
Natan's hot take on recruiting is that understanding customers and their needs should be directly connected to the recruiting process. He encourages companies to align their hiring process with their business process, ensuring that the people they hire can effectively meet their customers' needs. Natan's insights offer a fresh perspective on the hiring process, emphasizing the importance of clear communication, realistic expectations, and customer-focused recruiting.
Topics
This Episode's Guest
Natan Fisher
Co-Founder and Co-CEO @ SingleSprout
Natan Fisher is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of SingleSprout, a tech-enabled search firm that specializes in hiring software engineers, data scientists, product managers, and attorneys for high-growth tech companies and law firms across the US. Started 10 years ago with the idea of innovating recruiting, Natan and David Saad (Co-Founder and also Co-CEO) differentiated themselves from other search firms by building internal technology that allows their recruiters to focus on building relationships that perfectly match candidates. Externally focused, Natan’s innovative approach to the recruiting kickoff process has paired hundreds of job seekers with the fastest-growing companies in the world.
Key Learnings
The biggest challenge in recruiting is the top of the funnel, which is getting qualified and interested candidates in the door. While you can’t control certain elements (e.g. # of applications, # of candidates you will need to interview to find the right one, etc), there are elements in the hiring process that are fully under your control, and this all starts at the beginning with the intake process. To find the right candidate, at the right time, for the right role, having a clear vision for success, the correct inputs, and alignment is absolutely key. In this episode, Natan Fisher walks through how to do all of that and more.
Major takeaways:
-
Defining Success and Failure in a Role - Natan emphasizes the importance of understanding what a job is/is not and what failure looks like before starting on a role. He believes that not doing this leads to mismanaged expectations and, often, employee turnover or unnecessary roles. Therefore, success should be clearly defined at the beginning of the recruiting process. This approach helps paint a clear picture of the job and sets realistic expectations for both the employer and the potential employee.
-
Identifying Non-negotiables in Hiring - The importance of identifying non-negotiable must-haves for a role is key, according to Natan. These must-haves range from compensation or hard skills to culture fit and location. He often advises hiring managers to limit their non-negotiables to four key points, with the rest becoming nice-to-haves. This approach helps to create a clear and realistic picture of the job and the type of candidate to fill it successfully.
-
Aligning Recruiting with Customer Needs - Natan’s hot take on recruiting centers on how understanding customers and their needs and then directly connecting them to the recruiting process. He encourages companies to align their hiring process with their business process, ensuring that the people they hire can effectively meet their customers' needs. Natan’s insights offer a fresh perspective on the hiring process, emphasizing the importance of clear communication, realistic expectations, and customer-focused recruiting.
Other Episodes
Building Stronger Talent Strategy Through Co-Design
In this episode of Offer Accepted, Blair Bennett, SVP of Global Talent Acquisition at PepsiCo, shares how co-designing with the business leads to better outcomes for recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates alike. Shannon and Blair talk through the process of building a global interview framework and how involving stakeholders early drives buy-in and builds credibility. Whether you’re designing at scale or just starting to introduce new systems, this episode offers tactical insight into how to lead change through collaboration.
Future-Proofing Talent Teams for the Age of AI and Automation
In this episode of Offer Accepted, Mike Joyner, Founding Partner at Growth by Design Talent, shares how recruiting teams can evolve their structure, workflow, and mindset in response to the rise of AI. Shannon and Mike explore how automation can enable more thoughtful candidate experiences, why roles like Career Guides and AI Coaches are emerging, and how teams can design for adaptability without losing their human touch. Whether you’re scaling with fewer resources or reevaluating your team’s structure, this episode offers clear, actionable strategies to future-proof your hiring function.
Join the Hiring Excellence movement
New episodes every month － subscribe here so you never miss out.
