How to hire for climate startups
A guide for founders & managers evaluating traditional-tech talent
Mirror
Two weeks ago, we published the Coral guide to job-searching in climate tech, written to help mission-driven folks transfer their careers from traditional tech businesses and into more impactful work. The feedback has been wonderful; It’s one of our best-performing pieces to date, and has generated the most reader feedback by far. This makes us happy. We put a lot of work into creating 100% free, ungated resources, and love to see them travel the ecosystem and help people.
Today, we’re going to explore the mirror-image, and more complex associated problem-set of that piece; How should climate companies think about, evaluate, interview, and ultimately hire the traditional-tech talent trying to break into the space?
Economy
There is more incredible talent on the market today, in all disciplines and functional areas, than at any time in the ~13 years of our professional careers. This is unsurprising. Google “tech layoffs 2024” and you’ll be reading for weeks.
Why is this? Largely structural reasons. We are in the early days yet of correcting the damage of inflated valuations and bloated funding rounds that occurred during Covid. Companies need to grow, but they need to grow in a way that prioritizes efficient revenue-per-employee metrics, hovers at or near cash-flow positive, and demonstrates expanding gross-margins on said revenue. The simultaneous rise of AI-based efficiencies feeds into and fuels these phenomena.
We think that the overall headcount in US-based SaaS companies will settle at 50-65% of peak 2021 levels, and is unlikely to expand in a material way for at least five years. Market corrections take a long time, folks.
This point is worth belaboring from the perspective of climate hiring managers for a simple reason; Talent that has been laid off, had multiple short stints since the start of the pandemic, or doesn’t have a deep career history in climate is not necessarily fighty or inherently risky. These folks rode a wave, the wave crashed, and many of them are simply following their hearts and the money into a new industry. This should be celebrated, not red-flagged.
Verticals
Vertical-specific expertise is the most overrated hiring criteria in tech, climate, or otherwise. Your writer is a career-long seller and sales leader, who has closed millions of tech spend in each of commercial real estate, fintech, online learning, IOT, and decarbonization SaaS, none of which he had the slightest experience in before joining the respective startups.
Smart people will figure it out within ~60 days. We actually see domain-specific experience as a mildly inverse signal. Top-level tech operators index heavily on expanding their knowledge, networks, and portfolio of skills, and push themselves further than “I’ll just do the next thing in the same space and call my old clients.”
Resume
Let’s get tactical. You are a climate hiring manager with an open job req, a burning need to offload work to someone smart and capable, and a pile of resumes. What should you look for?
At least one stint of at least three years, with multiple promotions. Preferably two or more. As we noted above, many career paths went wonky during and after covid. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it’s important that candidates show the ability to own increasingly more of a scaling company over time, layer skills, and build successful internal partnerships. Most folks can bluff, network, and fail upwards into a good quarter or two, but multiple years means consistent excellence of work.
Oddball skill or interest, built over many years. An unusual combination of degrees (hard sciences + humanities)? Volunteering for alpine rescue in their mountain town? A successful sideline as a photographer, jewelry maker, session musician, whatever? Look for joy in the excellence of practicing a craft.
Metrics, in near-painful detail. This is not a new insight. The best hires always have performance-against-goal, and performance-against-peers (if relevant) right on the paper. Look for the use of clear, simple language, and widely-understood metrics. The best hide nothing.
Commitment to upskilling. Certifications, continuing education, gold-standard courses. Bonus points if the candidate paid for these themself, but not required.
Public interest in climate. Ok this isn’t on the resume, but close enough. Check their LI, twitter, etc to see if they are thinking, talking, and learning about these problem spaces.
The right amount of stretch for the role. A veteran director of product with plenty of first-line managerial experience, going for a VP role? All good. An IC product manager going for VP….
Have they intentionally taken difficult jobs? There is an old saying in SaaS, which we definitely did not just make up; “You either die a hero, or live long enough to work at a revenue orchestration company.” Has the candidate intentionally taken roles at more and more difficult companies as their career grew? If so, the figure-shit-out factor is usually very high.
Interview
Look, most interviews are boring, scripted, and useless to both parties. Hiring manager asks a generic question, and receives a well-delivered answer in the same vein. We want to break the candidate out of their scripts and have an open, thoughtful conversation about mutual fit and how to design the right role. Some of our favorite questions / talk tracks, which are designed to be delivered in this order;
What’s the most difficult thing you’ve taught yourself since graduating college?
Pattern interrupt, commitment to upskilling, etc.
How would you articulate our mission here at {{company}}, and why do you personally connect to that statement?
This is the primary question in the flow. An expansive, thorough answer should give you a clear sense of what the candidate is trying to get out of the role, their applicable intellectual depth, and overall value-add to the business. A short or unconsidered answer is negative signal.
I’ll be honest, this is a complex role because X / Y / Z. Do you find that scary or appealing? Why?
What metrics do you wish had been in place in your last role, and why?
Tests their org-wide thinking, and delicately opens the door for them to talk about the complaints from previous roles
What resources do you think will be helpful in learning our space? What help would you need from us, and what’s your overall plan to hit the ground quickly?
What questions have I not asked you that I should?
After that, continue into your more standard array of behavioral and tell-me-about-a-time questions. You’ll probably already know by now, though.
Exercise
We recommend doing this as the last major step in the process, after completion of executive, peer, and cross-functional interview loops. It should be the same for all candidates.
“Based on what you now know, please prepare a 30-60-90 plan for joining the company. It should be in the form of a written memo to be published to your functional area leadership and the executive team, and take no more than one hour to complete.”
The trick here is that an hour isn’t enough time for the project, not really. The best candidates will understand your goal, which is to test the ruthless prioritization / pareto thinking that is practiced in successful startups everywhere. Look for their ability to distill complex concepts, understand growth levers, and apply their previous playbooks to your business. Surface the document to the interview committee, and ask them to grade the candidate on how well they understood and played back the value points discussed during the interview.
Conclusion
We’ve mentioned nothing about domain expertise, a specific degree, hard sciences skill etc. This is deliberate. Startups are built by high-agency, high-horsepower, excellence-obsessed pirates and explorers. We hope this piece gives you the framework to find the right crew as you attack your slice of the climate problem.
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