One philosophy that Iโve always believed in is to manage by outcomes.
At datavruti, I donโt ask my team how many resumes were reviewed, how many calls were made or how many profiles were submitted.
Closures matter.
Outcomes matter.
Bottomline matters.
๐๐ก๐ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ค๐
Where I initially got it wrong was taking this philosophy to one extreme.
I only looked at outcomes at the company level.
If the business had a great year, I assumed we were doing something right.
If we hit our numbers, I didn't spend enough time understanding how we got there.
A few years into building datavruti, I realised that managing by outcomes and understanding outcomes are two very different things.
๐๐ก๐ ๐ฎ๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐๐ง๐๐๐ ๐๐จ๐ง๐ฌ๐๐ช๐ฎ๐๐ง๐๐
A recruiter billing 5X their salary cost could quietly hide someone billing 0.5X.
Someone could have an incredible year because they inherited a set of mandates that perfectly matched their strengths.
Someone else could struggle because of offer drops, difficult clients, niche requirements, location constraints or compensation mismatches.
I found myself asking questions I should have asked much earlier:
- Was this recruiter genuinely struggling?
- Were they simply unlucky?
- Were we setting them up for success?
- Or were we expecting everyone to succeed under completely different conditions?
The answer wasn't always obvious.
๐๐ก๐ ๐ฌ๐ก๐ข๐๐ญ
Over time, I started separating things into three buckets.
Things we ๐๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐จ๐ฅ.
Things we can ๐ข๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐๐ง๐๐.
Things we ๐๐จ๐ง'๐ญ ๐๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ซ๐จ๐ฅ.
We can control preparation, candidate quality, stakeholder management, communication and follow-through.
We can influence candidate experience, client relationships and offer conversions.
There are also things that simply happen despite our best efforts:
- Clients freeze hiring.
- Candidates back out.
- Budgets change.
- Business cycles shift.
Once I started looking at performance through this lens, the conversations became better.
Less judgement.
More curiosity.
Less comparison.
More coaching.
๐๐ก๐ ๐ฃ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐๐ฒ
I don't think I've fully figured this out.
What I do know is that I no longer want recruiters to think of themselves as profile pushers.
I want them to gradually understand the ๐๐๐จ๐ง๐จ๐ฆ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ข๐ซ ๐จ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค.
- know where they thrive.
- understand what slows them down.
- recognise the difference between effort and contribution.
- develop an intuition for where they're likely to create value.
In some small way, I want them to think a little more like business owners, and over time, influence where the business itself goes.
I'm curious how other founders think about this.
How do you separate performance issues from process issues, market realities and plain old bad luck?