{"id":10701,"date":"2018-02-02T18:53:25","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T18:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.intercom.com\/?p=10701"},"modified":"2020-07-31T23:08:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T22:08:39","slug":"would-you-hire-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/would-you-hire-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"Would you hire yourself?"},"content":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s right, would you offer yourself a job at your company? It’s a question every interviewer should ask themselves.<\/p>\n

No, this isn\u2019t some theoretical mental exercise. It\u2019s actually a powerful question to ask yourself when you\u2019re looking to expand your team but find yourself paralyzed with options.<\/p>\n

When you are a small but growing company or team each additional hire has a disproportionately large impact. If you’re still at a really early stage, a bad hire has the potential to set you back several quarters and possibly even blow up the whole company. Even at a later stage, bring on the wrong person can really damage the growth of a team or a function. Faced with such high stakes, it\u2019s no surprise some people struggle to make a decision \u2013 either good or<\/em> bad.<\/p>\n

Asking if you would hire yourself is a great way of snapping out of it and questioning if you have set the bar unrealistically high. It’s a technique I\u2019ve used myself as a hiring manager. It\u2019s at least in part inspired by Andy Grove, the legendary Intel boss, who literally wrote the book on Silicon Valley management style Only the Paranoid Survive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rather than asking would he hire himself, Grove considered what would happen if he and Intel CEO Gordon Moore were fired<\/a>. The new CEO would come in and quickly and unemotionally make the decision that the two experienced execs were agonizing over – to exit the memory business, which Intel was founded on, and focus on microprocessors, an emerging technology. With emotion put to one side Grove and Moore did just that and cemented Intel\u2019s place as one of the giants of the technology industry.<\/p>\n

Resetting your brain<\/h2>\n

To be totally clear this is not about pattern matching so that you end up with a team of \u201cmini-me\u2019s\u201d. Asking if you would hire yourself is also not about whether you are an exact fit for the role you\u2019re trying to fill. You\u2019re not or you wouldn\u2019t be trying to recruit someone, right? But in my experience it does reset your brain and focuses you on three critical factors.<\/p>\n