10 lessons from recruiting Opendoor’s original bizops team

1. Good bizops candidates can come from anywhere.
2. If you’re hiring from unpedigreed places, hire for EQ. If you’re hiring from the pedigreed places (consulting, finance, startups), also hire for EQ, and put extra weight on humility.
3. The formula for greatness is high IQ + high EQ + relentless drive.
4. Recognize there is noise in interview performance, and put in the work to get good backchannel.
5. If they’re in a structured program like MBB consulting, ask them their rating.
6. Bizops are generalists, but there are flavors. Figure out which you need (analytics, BD, operations, etc.) and flow that into your evaluation criteria.
7. Interviewers have an unconscious tendency to look for themselves in candidates. So have diverse interviewers, even if that means getting outside help, and define what you’re really looking for to buffer against the pitfalls of “fit”.
8. Work trials are underutilized. Bring the candidate on as a well-paid contractor for a few weeks.
9. Want to close better bizops candidates? Earn a track record of giving high potential people big responsibility and helping them succeed.
10. The best time to join a startup in bizops is before a big milestone. The easiest time to recruit in bizops is right after a big milestone.

The best person you’ve ever worked with would probably make a good bizops hire. If you can, hire her. If you can’t, refer her to me, especially if she isn’t looking. You might get Harry Potter tickets (true story).