10 Lessons from 1000 hours spent recruiting at Opendoor

Expanded from a LinkedIn post.

Recruiting is one of the most important activities at a startup. At each stage of Opendoor, we’ve needed everyone’s involvement to source, interview, close, and onboard candidates. Here are some of the lessons I’ve gained —

1. I have spent less than 10% of my time recruiting, but I should have spent 20%
2. You can stand at an intersection in SoMa and shout that you have a PM role open and get 5 applicants
3. One bad hire outweighs 10 good ones
4. When SF-based candidates say they would do anything to land a role, that does not include moving outside SF
5. The top student from a state school is better than the average student at Stanford
6. I receive about one personalized cold email per year (Eric receives far more). I respond to them all. Last year’s cold email is now a rising star.
7. Some zero-base-salary people from traditional real estate business models are hard wired to have that comp structure
8. Just because someone refers a candidate does not mean they endorse them.
9. When you can least afford to shift capacity to recruiting, you will need to shift capacity to recruiting.
10. Never skip diligence.

Special thanks to everyone who has trusted me with their referrals in the past. We’re entering our biggest recruiting wave yet, so if you’re interested in a role for yourself or for a friend, check out opendoor.com/jobs or drop me a note!