Recruitment & HR

I Can Spot a Great Candidate in 30 Seconds - Without Looking at Their Resume. At Vicco Laboratories, the first few interview rounds are handled by our HR and leadership team. They assess skills, experience, performance history - all the standard checkboxes. But when someone reaches my room, I’m not evaluating capability. I’m evaluating character. Because skills can be trained. Character can’t. So in the final round, I deliberately observe three things before we even get into formal questions: 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 1: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 Before they enter, I always ask our receptionist to make them wait for a few minutes. Not to trouble them — but to observe: Do they greet her or ignore her? Do they show gratitude or entitlement? Do they smile or stay blank? Do they thank her when being called in? If someone is only respectful upwards, they’re not fit for leadership. 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 2: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 During the conversation, I pause intentionally. A great candidate: Doesn’t panic when things go quiet Holds eye contact without overcompensating Thinks before responding, instead of rushing to impress Silence is a pressure test.  Silence exposes a person’s comfort with themselves. And self-assured people make better decisions under pressure. 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 3: 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐀𝐬𝐤 “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐈 𝐆𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐜𝐨”, 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 “𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐈 𝐆𝐞𝐭?” I watch closely when compensation and responsibilities are discussed. If the questions are only about salary, perks and timings, they’re employees. If they ask about learning culture, values, decision-making structure…they are already thinking as an owner. I’ll always choose alignment over achievement. So if you’re ever preparing for your final round anywhere — don’t just prepare your resume. Prepare your presence. Because long after your words fade, your character stays in the room. Sanjeev Pendharkar  Just sharing what I’ve learnt #values #business #hiring #hr #decisionmaking #cv #leadership #skills

I’ll be honest. 
When I first started stepping away from the day-to-day… I used to feel a strange satisfaction when things broke in my absence. 
It made me feel important. 
Like I was the glue holding it all together. But the truth is harsher: 
Every time something breaks when you’re not there, it’s a sign you’ve failed to build a system that works without you. That’s not leadership. 
That’s being a bottleneck. 
A liability. Because when progress depends on your availability, your time, your personal input - the whole business becomes fragile. 
You become the single point of failure. Let me be clear: 
If your team needs you to approve every small move, you’re not scaling excellence - you’re scaling dependence. 
That’s ego. Not leadership. Real leadership is when: - The thinking happens without you. - The decisions happen without you. - The momentum continues without you. Not because you’re not needed. 
But because you’ve built a system that doesn’t collapse when you’re not in the room. If you step away and things grind to a halt, you haven’t built a high-performing team. You’ve built a fragile operation propped up by your control. And that’s on you. Every time something breaks in your absence, it’s feedback: - A system isn’t clear. - Accountability isn’t owned. - Trust isn’t built. It’s a signal to fix the machine, not to double down on micromanaging. Because here’s the harsh reality:
 A business that can’t run without you is a business that can’t grow beyond you. Let that sting. 💡George Stern

10 red flags I look for as an angel investor. I’ve invested in 50+ startups and seen what works (and what doesn’t). If you’re raising money, avoid these mistakes: ~~ 1. No real customers A deck, a landing page, and a “vision” don’t impress me. Show me paying customers. Even better, show me customers coming back. == 2. No path to profitability I don’t care if you raise $100M—if there’s no plan to make money, you’re just burning oxygen. Growth is great, but cash flow keeps you alive. == 3. Founders who won’t sell If you’re scared to get on sales calls, that’s a red flag. The best founders sell in the early days—whether it’s to customers, employees, or investors. == 4. No differentiation “Like X, but cheaper” isn’t a strategy. If your only edge is price, you’ll get crushed. What do you have that no one else does? == 5. No urgency The best founders operate like time is running out. If you’re “exploring ideas” or “thinking about raising next year,” you’ve already lost. == 6. Raising money before proving anything Too many founders try to fundraise their way out of bad ideas. If you need VC to get off the ground, you’re building the wrong business. == 7. No clear distribution strategy Product alone doesn’t win. First-time founders obsess over features. Second-time founders obsess over distribution. How are you getting customers? == 8. No ownership mentality If I hear “I need to hire someone to do that” too early, I’m out. Founders who win figure things out before they delegate. == 9. A CEO who can’t attract talent Your first hires are everything. If great people aren’t willing to join, either the vision is weak—or you are. == 10. No skin in the game If a founder won’t invest their own money or take a pay cut to make it work, why should I? ~~ Enjoyed this post? Follow Josh Payne for more content like this!

Meta began major layoffs today—5% of the company, over 3,600 people. Many of these people are immigrants & visa workers. I've posted this before, and I'll post it again because more people NEED to know the devastating consequences laid-off visa workers face: 1/ workers on most U.S. work visas only have 60 days to find a new job. If they don't find a new job, they need to leave the country. 2/ workers on visas like H-1Bs and L-1s often have spouses who work using a dependent visa. When the principal immigrant is laid off, the dependent spouse will lose their right to work. 3/ layoffs can potentially end a visa worker's green card process. The employee-sponsored green card process has many steps, and if you haven't made it to a certain stage, the process has to start over with a future employer. 4/ workers on L-1 visas can not transfer their visas to another company, so they are required to find a similar role at the company that just laid them off. If that doesn't work, they have to leave the U.S. 5/ workers on visas are not able to use all social services even if they have been paying into these benefits for years. I know lay offs are also really hard for U.S. citizen workers. However, they are much harder for visa workers. Not only is it the end of their livelihood, but it is the potential of end of their American life. Immigration laws needs to change! Let's have more empathy for visa workers who have been laid off, and if you are a hiring manager, HR leader, executive, or founder, consider doing more visa sponsorship! It's a winning corporate strategy.

Just by being Black, the level of latitude you're given for behaviour – especially behaviour deemed "bad" – is often completely different. The consequences are harsher and the scrutiny is sharper. Take disciplinary matters, for example. Black employees are often judged more harshly for the same behaviours as their white counterparts. A Black professional might be labelled “difficult”, “angry”, “intimidating”, or “unprofessional” for expressing frustration in a meeting, while a white colleague might be excused as “passionate” or “assertive”. You know the type of comments – “Elizabeth is just expressing how she feels,” or “Johnny was just a bit hot under the collar.” The disparity isn’t just anecdotal – it’s backed up by research into workplace racial bias. Then there’s career progression. Black employees are frequently held to higher standards to earn the same recognition. Feedback like, “You need to prove yourself more” or “be more of a team player” is often levelled at those who have already delivered exceptional results. Meanwhile, others are promoted based on potential or likeability rather than consistent performance. Not sure if this is (or has) happened in your workplace? 1) Look at patterns in employee relations cases – Are Black employees disproportionately disciplined or receiving harsher feedback compared to their peers in similar roles? 2) Examine promotion criteria – Are Black employees expected to overperform just to be considered for opportunities, while others get ahead based on vague ideas of potential or even subpar performance? How do performance and potential ratings for Black employees compare with others? 3) Observe how behaviours are labelled – Is there a difference in the language used to describe similar actions? Are words like “angry” or “unapproachable” disproportionately applied to Black colleagues? For Black women, how are their traits described compared to non-Black women? For Black men, what “advice” is given under the guise of mentorship to ensure they aren’t perceived as “intimidating” or “scary” – particularly when they express frustration or anger? To address this, the first step is noticing the patterns (or not dismissing or acting defensively when it’s pointed out), the second is to question and avoid making assumptions that it is an “unfounded accusation” and the third? Well, that’s up to you. You can either take action or ignore it. I say that only because too many organisations are still struggling to get past the first step 🤷🏾♀️ 📹 Sterling K. Brown

🚫 How to Run UX Research Without Access To Users. With practical techniques to avoid guesswork and gather insights if you can’t talk directly to users. Attached cheatsheet (with and without access to users) by Nielsen Norman Group. 🚫 Ask for reasons for no access to users: there might be none. ✅ First, study job openings to map existing workflows/tasks. ✅ Make friends with sales, customer success, support, QA. ✅ Find colleagues who are the closest to your customers. ✅ Convey your questions indirectly via your colleagues. ✅ If you can’t get users to come to you, go where they are. ✅ Ask to observe or shadow customers at their workplace. ✅ Listen in to customer calls and interview call centre staff. ✅ Request access to analytics, CRM reports, call centre logs. ✅ Use Google Trends to find product-related search queries. ✅ Gather insights from search logs, Jira backlog, support tickets. ✅ Explore past/ongoing NPS and Voice-of-Customer programs. ✅ Study reviews, discussions, comments for your product/competitors. ✅ Map key themes and user sentiment on TrustPilot, AppStore etc. ✅ Recruit users via UserTesting, Wynter (B2B), Maze, UserInterviews. ✅ Ask for small but steady commitments: 5 users × 30 mins, 1× month. 🚫 Avoid ad-hoc research: set up regular check-ins and timelines. As H Locke noted, if we shed the light strongly enough from many sources, we might end up getting a glimpse of the truth. Ironically, the stakeholders who can’t give you time or resources to talk to users often are the first to demand evidence to support your initiatives. Sometimes the reason why companies are reluctant to grant access to users is simply the lack of trust. They don’t want to disturb relationships with big clients which is carefully maintained by the customer success team. They might feel that research is merely a technical detail that clients shouldn’t be bothered with. Show that you deeply care about that relationship and that you don’t want to disturb it any way. What you do want though is to reduce costs and risk — the risk of drawing wide-reaching conclusions from very little research, or none at all. Your best shot is to explain research as a powerful risk mitigation tool. And: search for people whose priorities align with yours — people who value and see the impact of UX in their units. They would absolutely love to support your work because it also supports their work — and they will put up a good word for you if they only had known that you existed. ✤ Useful resources: UX Research Cheat Sheet, by Susan Farrell from NN/g (attached) https://lnkd.in/eUTHKWvF What Can You Do When You Have No Access To Users?, by H Locke https://lnkd.in/ewHEKhBS UX Research When You Can’t Talk To Users, by Chris Myhill https://lnkd.in/ez5-b6zf #ux #research

Many boutique consulting firms bring in high-profile Partners from larger, well-known firms, anticipating a swift boost in business. However, these hires often face unexpected challenges in transferring revenue from their previous roles. Partners coming from large consultancies are used to a very different environment. They often lack the skill set needed to thrive in a smaller firm, where success depends more on proactive business generation than on relying on the firm’s established infrastructure and inbound client requests. Adjusting to a firm with less brand recognition requires them to sell more actively, often to clients who may view a lesser-known brand as a greater risk. Moreover, restrictive non-compete clauses and client ownership structures can prevent them from bringing clients over immediately, even when strong relationships exist. A thorough, strategic hiring process can mitigate these risks. Beyond assessing the Partner’s credentials and track record, it’s crucial to understand how they’ll adapt to a smaller firm and realistically gauge how much of their previous client work they can actually transfer. A rigorous evaluation process helps uncover potential obstacles early, ensuring that both the firm and the new Partner are realistic about what can actually be delivered. What’s more, success in these hires often requires a long-term strategy. Rather than expecting instant results, support the new Partner in leveraging their industry expertise and reputation to reengage existing clients in fresh ways and open up new opportunities that align with the firm’s strengths. Without a careful hiring process and managed expectations, these moves often fall short of their potential. But with the right foundation, a new Partner can be a powerful asset, driving value beyond the immediate revenue transfer.

How to know if your workplace culture is quietly breaking down. The gap between how leadership experiences the workplace and how everyone else does is where toxicity lives. It grows in the silence of people who have decided it's easier to say nothing than to say what is true. By the time it is visible enough to address, it has already cost you the people, trust, and performance you needed most. Here are 7 warning signs worth paying attention to: 1️⃣ High performers leave and nobody asks why. When your best people exit quietly, something is wrong and leadership already knows it. 2️⃣ Meetings end in agreement but hallways tell a different story. Real alignment means people say the same thing in the conference room as they do outside of it. 3️⃣ Accountability applies to some people and not others. The moment employees see this pattern, you have lost their trust. And trust, once gone, rarely comes back on its own. 4️⃣ Speaking up about a problem becomes the problem. A team afraid to raise issues will watch things quietly fall apart. 5️⃣ Recognition goes to the most visible, not the most valuable. Your quiet high-performers are keeping score. Eventually, they stop showing up. 6️⃣ New ideas die in the room they were born in. When people stop sharing ideas, they have already decided the environment is not worth the risk. 7️⃣ Everyone is busy but nobody can name the priority. Direction is a leadership responsibility and its absence is felt every single day. The leader who reads this list and sees nothing familiar is either in a genuinely exceptional organization or hasn't created the conditions where people feel safe enough to tell them. ♻️ Repost this for every leader trying to build a culture worth staying in. → Follow me for more on leadership, hiring, and the future of work.

CFOs plan to cut 502,000 jobs in 2026 citing AI. That is nine times more than last year. Oxford Economics looked at the productivity data and found gains that, at the macroeconomic level, nobody can actually detect yet. Deutsche Bank analysts have a name for what's happening: "AI redundancy washing." Block is the clearest case. In February, CEO Jack Dorsey cut nearly half the workforce, citing "intelligence tools." The stock surged 20%. Wall Street loved the narrative. Then the narrative cracked. Employees told the Guardian that 95% of AI-generated code still required human modification. At least four laid-off employees were quietly rehired; one was told his layoff was a "clerical error." A technical lead spent two days convincing management that more staff was needed to keep critical customer infrastructure running. By late March, most of the stock's post-layoff gain had evaporated. Klarna ran an earlier version of the same bet. Cut from 5,500 to 3,400, promoted a chatbot doing the work of 700 agents. Six months later, customer satisfaction had fallen sharply and the CEO was rehiring. "We went too far." Wharton's Peter Cappelli put it bluntly: companies say "We expect AI will cover this work." Not that it has. They're hoping - and saying it because that's what investors want to hear. When a company announces AI has made thousands of people redundant, ask one question. Did anyone go to the floor first? Did anyone sit with the people doing the work and learn what would actually break? P.S. I wrote up the full analysis in the first comment

Guide to starting a US company as an international founder. Here are ALL your options: —O-1A /EB-1A visa —International Entrepreneur Rule —H-4, dependent on your spouse —US citizen cofounder with transition timeline —E-2 Treaty investor (not Indian / Chinese) —EB-5 investor O-1A/EB-1A visa - For founders with "extraordinary ability" - Need press, awards, high salary, patents - Can own & operate your company - Start building evidence NOW - EB-1A = permanent version (green card) International Entrepreneur Rule (IER) - Need $264K+ from qualified US investors - OR $105K+ in govt grants - Must own 10%+ of startup - 2.5 years + 2.5 year extension https://lnkd.in/ghcGkyEk H-4 EAD (Dependent Work Authorization) - For spouses of H-1B holders with green card process - Full work authorization - Can operate company - BUT depends on spouse maintaining status US Citizen Co-founder Path 1. They operate initially (51%+) 2. You maintain minority stake + advisor role 3. Transition control as you get work auth 4. Can be on H-1B or keep concurrent cap-exempt H-1B for safety Critical: Clear agreements + control docs E-2 Treaty Investor - Must be from treaty country (not India/China) - "Substantial" investment ($100K+ typical) - Must own 50%+ of company - Renewable indefinitely - Faster processing than most options EB-5 ($800K-$1.05M investment) - Direct path to green card - Full business control - Create 10+ US jobs - Faster option if capital available - No country caps except China Key Tips for all paths: - Start gathering evidence early - Document EVERYTHING - Get immigration counsel first - Build network/advisory board - Consider future transition plans Many billion-dollar companies were started by immigrant founders who navigated these exact paths. Complex but doable with planning. This is not legal advice. Always consult an immigration attorney.