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Lenny's Podcast / episode intelligence

Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst)

3 Nov 2022 18 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Lauren IpsenLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

evaluation 6belief 5recommendation 4uncertainty 1observation 1prediction 1

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Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

18 published records

02 / belief

Oftentimes, I encourage founders to simply chat with what good looks like and get a really good sense of what benchmark candidate profiles could be, and who knows where that person will be in a year or what have you, but staying really, really close to really great people and using them from an advising capacity or getting them ingrained in some type of involvement in the product prior to actually having that specific need, I think, is really important.

“Oftentimes, I encourage founders to simply chat with what good looks like and get a really good sense of what benchmark candidate profiles could be, and who knows where that person will be in a year or what have you, but staying really, really close to really great people and using them from an advising capacity or getting them ingrained in some type of involvement in the product prior to actually having that specific need, I think, is really important.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

03 / belief

Variety of experience, I think taking a bet on doing something more entrepreneurial, starting something, and then also joining things that are a little bit later and more established to get best practices.

“Variety of experience, I think taking a bet on doing something more entrepreneurial, starting something, and then also joining things that are a little bit later and more established to get best practices.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

I think more generally, the advice is just treat people like human beings, build rapport, play the long game, and gain trust, and that takes time.

“I think more generally, the advice is just treat people like human beings, build rapport, play the long game, and gain trust, and that takes time.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

06 / belief

All of those things are just the inner workings of the recruiting atmosphere and technology, and I think tapping people, if you don't have the network, talk to a great recruiter or just spend some time kind of doing some research on who's great.

“All of those things are just the inner workings of the recruiting atmosphere and technology, and I think tapping people, if you don't have the network, talk to a great recruiter or just spend some time kind of doing some research on who's great.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / belief

People that are polarizing individuals or have done wrong within an organization or made bad calls across the board are, you can get that information typically pretty quick. It's the mixed ones where it's, "I think that person was decent," those are pretty tough, and you need to really find people that worked super closely with them because otherwise it's pretty difficult to say whether or not they were able to make an impact.

“People that are polarizing individuals or have done wrong within an organization or made bad calls across the board are, you can get that information typically pretty quick. It's the mixed ones where it's, "I think that person was decent," those are pretty tough, and you need to really find people that worked super closely with them because otherwise it's pretty difficult to say whether or not they were able to make an impact.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / uncertainty

I don't know how much more confidence you could instill in a candidate joining a company than the recruiter also then joining the company.

“I don't know how much more confidence you could instill in a candidate joining a company than the recruiter also then joining the company.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / evaluation

There's a way to be an impactful product leader and disagree and make change, and maybe your engineering leader and design leader and marketing leader completely disagree with the direction in which you're going, but because you have all of the data to support it and because you have gone about things in a way that feels very fact first and less emotional, it's really difficult for them to then point to why they disliked this person.

“There's a way to be an impactful product leader and disagree and make change, and maybe your engineering leader and design leader and marketing leader completely disagree with the direction in which you're going, but because you have all of the data to support it and because you have gone about things in a way that feels very fact first and less emotional, it's really difficult for them to then point to why they disliked this person.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / recommendation

The more that you can get that dynamic relationship formed before you even go to search, the more you can determine whether this is someone you want to calibrate with. So yeah, I think just putting them on the spot a little bit and asking them to show their work rather than just sending over a deck of searches that could have been done by other partners or could have just been done by other people on their team.

“The more that you can get that dynamic relationship formed before you even go to search, the more you can determine whether this is someone you want to calibrate with. So yeah, I think just putting them on the spot a little bit and asking them to show their work rather than just sending over a deck of searches that could have been done by other partners or could have just been done by other people on their team.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / observation

I've had this come up a few times when I've interviewed product folks that they'll speak down on their counterparts or say that the reason they weren't able to meet deadlines or push product in the right way was because of the engineering team or because of other components of the business and it wasn't them.

“I've had this come up a few times when I've interviewed product folks that they'll speak down on their counterparts or say that the reason they weren't able to meet deadlines or push product in the right way was because of the engineering team or because of other components of the business and it wasn't them.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / recommendation

I think there's people that probably want to just be a specialist in growth, or want to get super deep on ads, and if that's the case, then by all means, do so. And I think there's something to be said about that as well because those types of skillsets will be needed.

“I think there's people that probably want to just be a specialist in growth, or want to get super deep on ads, and if that's the case, then by all means, do so. And I think there's something to be said about that as well because those types of skillsets will be needed.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / evaluation

Yes and no, because I think if the organization is incredibly good at sales then the majority of the folks are probably amazing, but you always have weak links, and just because someone has a brand on their resume at the right time, I think oftentimes CEOs and founders will do this thing where they kind over generalize, well, Amazon's Prime team at this time was amazing or something like that.

“Yes and no, because I think if the organization is incredibly good at sales then the majority of the folks are probably amazing, but you always have weak links, and just because someone has a brand on their resume at the right time, I think oftentimes CEOs and founders will do this thing where they kind over generalize, well, Amazon's Prime team at this time was amazing or something like that.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / prediction

I think that there's some folks that really lean into the work in a different way and miss that, and often go to startups because they crave building.

“I think that there's some folks that really lean into the work in a different way and miss that, and often go to startups because they crave building.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

Do think people can be enticed by shiny objects, so excited because it's a step up from a title perspective and things like that, and I think that's just so not important in the grand scheme of things.

“Do think people can be enticed by shiny objects, so excited because it's a step up from a title perspective and things like that, and I think that's just so not important in the grand scheme of things.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / recommendation

" You got to find ways to connect with people outside of just shoving them into a job. And so I would say something that I've learned and become very good at is starting with a foundation of relationship building, gaining trust from people, because once you have that, then people will hear you out on jobs and people will listen to you and actually trust your advice from a career direction and perspective, but that takes time to build that, and it's definitely not going to be built by just chucking things at the wall and seeing what sticks with people and seeing where you can shove them temporarily.

“" You got to find ways to connect with people outside of just shoving them into a job. And so I would say something that I've learned and become very good at is starting with a foundation of relationship building, gaining trust from people, because once you have that, then people will hear you out on jobs and people will listen to you and actually trust your advice from a career direction and perspective, but that takes time to build that, and it's definitely not going to be built by just chucking things at the wall and seeing what sticks with people and seeing where you can shove them temporarily.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / evaluation

This is fulfilling," and people want to pour their knowledge, especially into companies that they believe in. So, I think more often than not you'll find that, not just products leaders, but executives across the board are actually really inclined to do so and want to help out because it's a little bit different from the day to day monotony of their work life.

“This is fulfilling," and people want to pour their knowledge, especially into companies that they believe in. So, I think more often than not you'll find that, not just products leaders, but executives across the board are actually really inclined to do so and want to help out because it's a little bit different from the day to day monotony of their work life.”
Speaker
Lauren Ipsen
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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