Most founders hire on gut feel. They meet someone who seems smart, confident, and likeable — maybe they've worked at a recognisable company — and they make an offer. Six months later, the person is underperforming, the team is frustrated, and the founder is asking why they thought this was a good idea.
Bad hiring isn't bad luck. It's a bad process. The WHO method — developed by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, used by some of the most systematic hirers in business — replaces gut feel with a structured approach that significantly increases your hit rate.
"Hiring is the most important thing you do. It's also the thing most founders do worst."
Step 1: The Scorecard
Before you write a job description, write a scorecard. A scorecard defines what you actually need someone to achieve — not what you want them to do day to day, but what success looks like in the role after 12 months.
A good scorecard has three components:
- Mission: A one-sentence summary of what the person exists to do. ("Own our outbound motion and generate 40% of pipeline by Q4.")
- Outcomes: Three to five specific, measurable results you expect them to achieve in their first year. Not activities — outcomes. Not "manage the SDR team" but "increase SDR-sourced pipeline from £500K to £1.2M."
- Competencies: The six to eight behaviours that make someone exceptional in this role. Be specific. Not "good communicator" — "can explain complex technical concepts to non-technical buyers without oversimplifying."
The scorecard drives every other part of the process. If you can't define what good looks like, you can't hire for it.
Step 2: Source Aggressively
Job boards are a last resort, not a first step. By the time a great candidate is on a job board, they've either already been hired or they're in multiple processes and your offer has to compete on price.
WHO-method sourcing means:
- Ask everyone you know: "Who are the best salespeople you've ever worked with?" Then ask those people the same question.
- Build a target list of companies that have already trained people for the role you need. If you want a SaaS AE with experience in your vertical, identify the companies already doing it at scale and find people who've been there.
- Reach out personally, not via recruiter. A direct message from the founder carries more weight than an agency template.
The goal is to have 10+ candidates at the top of the funnel before you start interviewing. If you're moving to close on fewer than that, you're making a choice on limited information.
Step 3: The Structured Interview
The WHO interview has a specific structure: a career walkthrough that starts at the beginning and works chronologically through every role.
For each role in their history, ask:
- What were you hired to do?
- What were your biggest accomplishments?
- What were your biggest failures or mistakes?
- Why did you leave?
The power of this approach is that patterns emerge across a career that a single-role interview misses. Someone who always blames the company when things go wrong. Someone whose "accomplishments" are always team achievements with no personal accountability. Someone who leaves every role within 18 months when it gets hard.
You're also listening for specifics. Great candidates talk in specifics. Weak candidates talk in generalities. "I increased pipeline by 40%" versus "I really helped the team perform better." Which one do you want?
Red Flags That Most Founders Ignore
- They badmouth previous employers. They'll badmouth you too.
- They can't give specific numbers. Either they don't know their own impact or they're inflating it.
- They have an answer for everything immediately. Real reflection takes a moment. Slick answers are rehearsed answers.
- They're vague about why they left roles. Push past the PR version and find out what actually happened.
- They're overly focused on comp in early conversations. Not a dealbreaker, but warrants attention in a first role at a small company.
The Reference Check (That Actually Tells You Something)
Most reference checks are useless because candidates choose their references and everyone knows they'll be positive. The WHO method fixes this: ask the candidate for references and then ask their references for other people who knew them well. You're looking for the reference of a reference — someone with no reason to be polished.
Ask references: "On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate their performance?" Nobody says 10 about anyone. When they say 7, ask "What would make them a 9?" You'll get the honest answer.
Hiring well is a learnable skill. Most founders get good at it only after making enough bad hires to finally take it seriously. The WHO method compresses that learning curve — and at a stage where one bad hire can genuinely derail six months of progress, that matters.