A founder’s guide to making your first recruiting hire

The mention of hiring a recruiter from a brand name like Facebook or Google is a great point that I imagine may historically be overlooked by founders. For hiring engineers, the theory of "good enough for Google, good enough for me" may be applicable due to Google's vetting process.

Success in recruiting for those companies might be much different, and perhaps the equivalent of being a salesperson (who actually has to sell) vs taking orders. The salesperson who has the commodity or the most recognizable product is simply taking orders, whereas having to sell a relative unknown is much more challenging.

The mention of writing skill was also not something many think about. Recruiters are using written communication as a first point of contact much more now than in say the late 90s (when finding an employee's phone extension was easier than their email address), and candidates are getting their first impression based on the personalization as well as the professionalism and writing quality. Poor grammar and spelling or even the wrong 'voice' can scare off candidates.