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Recruit people before there's a role
Long recruiting
The practice was called long recruiting. A founder or another member of the leadership team kept a list of people they thought were great. Maybe there was no role for them yet, or they weren't interested in working there yet. The point was to meet with them regularly and spend time with them, so that when they were ready to make a move, Stripe was the first company they reached out to.
Nine months of coffee
Cristina Cordova lived it without seeing it at the time. From her coffee with Patrick Collison to her formal interview was about nine months, and she didn't realize she was being assessed. In every interaction there is probably some assessment happening on both sides.
She has rarely joined a company without spending a lot of time with people first, either informally before joining or through a long formal interview process, to make sure the decision is right for both sides.
Why do top candidates rarely respond to job postings?
Strong candidates who already have good jobs are not browsing listings, so a posting rarely reaches them. They tend to move when someone they know and respect offers a reason to. Recruiters call these people passive candidates, and reaching them takes relationships built ahead of time. A list of admired people kept over years is one way to build that pipeline.
Why do casual meetings still count as interviews?
Every conversation gives each side information about the other's judgment, curiosity, and style. A 1998 meta-analysis by Frank Schmidt and John Hunter in Psychological Bulletin found that structured interviews predicted job performance better than unstructured ones. Informal meetings are unstructured, which is why companies pair them with later formal rounds. Over many months, the repeated contact adds more observations than one interview can.
How is long-term recruiting different from sourcing?
Sourcing starts when a role opens, and a recruiter searches for people who fit it. Long-term recruiting starts before any role exists and focuses on the person instead. The goal is a relationship that is warm by the time a role appears. Founder-led companies often use it for their earliest hires.
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