I Almost Let the Perfect VP of Marketing Slip Away Because I Only Gave Him 30 Minutes
Great hires aren’t found in resumes, they’re discovered in deep conversations we’re often too busy to have.
Last week I interviewed a candidate who stopped me in my tracks.
Smart. Battle-tested. Zero pretension. The kind of person you instantly want on your team.
He didn’t go to Stanford, Harvard, or Wharton.
He didn’t climb the Procter & Gamble → Google → Meta ladder that most CMO/VP Marketing playbooks demand.
Instead, he built companies, scaled revenue from scratch, and speaks fluent pipeline math with sales leaders. Exactly what my client needs.
There was only one problem: I gave him 30 minutes.
Thirty. Freaking. Minutes.
By minute 25 I realized I’d barely scratched the surface of what he’d actually accomplished. I walked away kicking myself.
We Waste Hours on the Wrong People and Minutes on the Right Ones
How many times have you spent a full hour politely nodding through an interview with someone you knew wasn’t the fit… five minutes in?
We do it because “it’s only fair” or “HR scheduled it” or “I feel bad cutting it short.”
Meanwhile, the rare unicorn shows up and we rush them off the call like we’re late for our next Zoom funeral.
That has to stop.
When a candidate is clearly exceptional, break the script. Extend the call. Book a follow-up on the spot. Go deep.
Ask:
Walk me through the last revenue engine you built from zero.
Tell me about a time sales said marketing wasn’t helping — what did you do?
What’s one experiment you ran that everyone thought would fail… but 10X’d the business?
If their stories light you up — give them the time they deserve.
Where the Best Talent Actually Hides
Everyone fishes in the same overfished pond: LinkedIn keyword searches, the usual suspect companies, the same three alumni networks.
The best people are usually somewhere else.
For engineers → check their GitHub at 2 a.m. commits, side projects, weird niche tools they built for fun.
For marketers → look at how obsessively they know the numbers, how they talk about sales as a partner instead of a necessary evil, the revenue (not vanity metrics) they own.
Diamonds are rarely sitting in the “actively looking” pile with a polished résumé.
Treat Hiring Like a Relationship, Not a Transaction
When someone’s not the fit, have the guts to say it kindly and quickly:
“I don’t think this role is the right match for your superpowers right now, but I’m impressed and want to stay in touch. How can I actually help you on your journey?”
And then actually help — intro them to someone, share a job you saw, give real feedback.
When someone is the fit? Invest. Go long. Turn a 30-minute screener into a 90-minute download of their brain.
You’ll close better hires, build a real network, and stop wasting everyone’s time (including your own).
The Bottom Line
Most of us are time-starved. We’re trying to fill roles yesterday while juggling ten other fires.
But the cost of moving too fast on the great ones is way higher than the cost of moving too slow on the average ones.
Cut the crap. Protect your calendar ruthlessly for the people who can change everything.
Because the right hire isn’t a transaction.
It’s the start of something big.
P.S. — Recruiting leaders and founders: How many minutes do you give your best candidates? Drop your thoughts (and horror stories) in the comments. Let’s fix this together.