How I Hire
Claim This Podcastby Whispered.com & Frontlines.io
Podcast Authority
Beta
Podcast Overview
<p><span>Whispered Hiring - the podcast where we talk with senior GTM leaders about how they find, vet, attract and grow new talent. Hosted by the team at Whispered, each episode uncovers the unwritten playbook for executive hiring that drives exponential growth.</span></p>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
5/19/2025
Unlock The Full Podcast Authority Score Report
See how your podcast performs across key metrics
Podcast Authority
BetaRecommendations available
Unlock the full report to see detailed tips
Unlock comprehensive insights including:
- • YouTube presence analysis
- • Social media reach metrics
- • RSS compliance scoring
- • Podcast 2.0 features
- • Technical standards
Detailed Analytics
- Complete breakdown of all 19 authority metrics
- Personalized recommendations for each metric
- Industry benchmarks and comparisons
- Technical RSS feed analysis and compliance scoring
Growth Strategies
- Step-by-step action plans for improvement
- Quick wins to boost your score immediately
- Pro tips from successful podcasters
See how your show performs across every key metric
High authority scores make your podcast more attractive to industry leaders and influencers who want to appear on credible shows.
Sponsors look for podcasts with proven authority and engagement. Your score demonstrates your podcast's value to potential partners.
Understanding your strengths and weaknesses helps you make data-driven decisions to expand your listener base effectively.
3 verified contact emails on file for How I Hire
Pitch yourself as a guest, propose sponsorships, or reach out directly to the host.
Recent Episodes
March 3, 2026
Whispered Hiring with Jon Dick, CCO @ HubSpot
<p>In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Andy Mowat speaks with Jon Dick, Chief Customer Officer at HubSpot, about the hiring philosophy behind his decade-long rise from VP of Marketing to CCO. Jon's central argument cuts against conventional wisdom: stop searching for people who've seen the movie, and start finding people who can direct it. His frameworks for defining roles, evaluating AI capability, and onboarding senior leaders are specific, battle-tested, and immediately applicable.</p><p><strong>Topics discussed:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Why "having seen the movie" is an increasingly hollow hiring signal. In a first-principles world, you don't need someone who's watched it before. You need someone who can direct it or star in it. Those are fundamentally different things from sitting in the audience.</p></li><li><p>The most common exec hiring failure Jon sees: going to market before defining the non-negotiables. Writing a generic job description and planning to "calibrate through the process" is a recipe for shiny object syndrome and hires who were never set up to succeed.</p></li><li><p>How HubSpot evolved its interview process over the last five to seven years to require every panelist to ask the same questions, enabling genuine cross-candidate calibration rather than a collection of disconnected impressions.</p></li><li><p>Jon's "strong yes" standard for exec hires: if most of your panel comes back with a passing yes rather than a strong yes, you have a problem. Most interviewers lack the reps to take a firm stance and default to letting people through. A room full of soft yeses is a signal to stop, not proceed.</p></li><li><p>Why Jon builds extended, unstructured time with exec candidates at the end of the final round, a practice borrowed from HubSpot's CMO Kip. A debrief dinner or afternoon whiteboard session isn't just better evaluation. It signals to the candidate exactly what kind of leader you'll be when things get hard six months in.</p></li><li><p>Jon's two-part framework for evaluating AI capability: obsession with learning ("learn-it-alls" over "know-it-alls") and the ability to fly high and fly low, meaning a leader who can go genuinely deep on a workflow to actually implement AI, not just talk about it. His ultimate tell: how prepared a candidate is for the interview itself. If they don't show up knowing the basics about your business and role, they clearly aren't using the tools available to them.</p></li><li><p>Why referencing starts inside the interview room. Jon's go-to question asks candidates directly what their back-channel references will reveal about their growth areas. The quality of that self-assessment is his most reliable indicator of self-awareness.</p></li><li><p>How to close an exec candidate the right way: reflect back what you learned about them as a person throughout the process, in the offer structure, a thoughtful gift, or the closing conversation. Personalization at the finish line is the ultimate test of whether the hiring manager was actually paying attention.</p></li><li><p>Yamini's onboarding practice for new senior leaders at HubSpot: before standard onboarding begins, the incoming exec spends several days with the core leadership team going deep on the business and each other. When HubSpot hired its Chief Sales Officer, it was five people for a couple of days. This replaces the "half-hour meeting shuffle" with the kind of depth that actually accelerates alignment and performance.</p></li></ul><p><strong>ABOUT YOUR HOST: </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">Andy Mowat</a> has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. </p><p>Learn more about about Whispered:<a href="https://www.whispered.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"> www.whispered.com</a></p><p>Interact with AI Andy:<a href="https://www.whispered.com/whisper-search" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"> www.whispered.com/whisper-search</a></p>
February 24, 2026
Whispered Hiring with Matt Martin, CEO @ Clockwise
<p>In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Andy Mowat speaks with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/voxmatt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Matt Martin</a>, Co-Founder and CEO of <a href="https://www.getclockwise.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Clockwise</a>, about his contrarian approach to executive hiring that prioritizes immediate fit over long-term potential. Matt shares his tactical frameworks for structuring board involvement, selecting recruiting partners, and conducting first-call conversations that accelerate funnel velocity while maintaining rigorous standards. His insights reveal why predictability matters more than growth trajectory when hiring senior leaders.</p><p><strong>Topics discussed:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Why Matt shifts executive candidates to text messaging as early as possible to break through the priority threshold and create fluid, responsive communication that email scheduling can't replicate, especially critical during closing stages when speed determines outcomes.</p></li><li><p>The two-year hiring horizon framework: How simultaneously predicting company evolution AND candidate growth creates compounding uncertainty that destroys hiring accuracy, and why explicitly setting a two-year performance window (with anything beyond that as "gravy") establishes clearer mutual expectations from day one.</p></li><li><p>The mechanics of board-led recruiting: Assigning one board member per executive search creates repeat-player dynamics with recruiting firms (VCs hire constantly, CEOs hire occasionally), provides horizontal industry pattern recognition, enables deeper network mining beyond first-degree connections, and delivers third-party validation during closing conversations.</p></li><li><p>How recruiter selection should prioritize storytelling capability over brand reputation: Since recruiters conduct initial calls (not CEOs), their ability to authentically inhabit your narrative and explain your company's unique positioning becomes the primary filter, especially for complex PLG-to-enterprise or non-obvious business models.</p></li><li><p>The selling-first philosophy for initial candidate calls: Using the product onboarding "calorie budget" concept to build candidate excitement before spending it down through a demanding process, with post-call enthusiasm serving as a legitimate qualification signal that saves time on misaligned candidates.</p></li><li><p>Red flag signals that reveal fundamental misalignment: Candidates who allocate significant early conversation time to compensation discussions indicate mercenary motivation, while those who don't probe team composition, decision-making structures, or cross-functional dynamics demonstrate they don't understand how executive leverage actually compounds.</p></li><li><p>The emergency-access expectation for direct reports: Why requiring cell phone access doesn't signal unhealthy always-on culture but rather creates a clear bright line for rare, genuine emergencies (website down, major customer issues, urgent board needs) that distinguishes serious executives from those who compartmentalize too rigidly.</p></li><li><p>Cole Group's reputation advantage in GTM hiring: How the "name brand college effect" creates self-reinforcing talent access regardless of whether quality differences are objectively measurable, since top candidates make themselves available to perceived top-tier firms, giving those firms better candidate pools by definition.</p></li></ul><p><strong>ABOUT YOUR HOST: </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/"><u>Andy Mowat</u></a> has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. </p><p>Learn more about about Whispered:<a href="https://www.whispered.com/"> <u>www.whispered.com</u></a></p><p>Interact with AI Andy:<a href="https://www.whispered.com/whisper-search"> <u>www.whispered.com/whisper-search</u></a></p><p><br></p>
February 17, 2026
Whispered Hiring with Paul Staelin @ 3 Time CCO
<p>In this episode, Andy Mowat speaks with<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulstaelin/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer"> Paul Staelin</a>, Fractional CCO at CornerstoneX and former CCO at Vercel, Trifacta, and Birst, about building customer success organizations that drove 40-point NDR improvements. Drawing from his Siebel Systems training and two decades scaling post-sales functions, Paul shares why CS teams fail without three distinct DNA profiles, his "time machine" question that exposes growth mindset, and how mental flexibility matters more than age when evaluating executives.</p><p><strong>Topics discussed:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Why every customer touchpoint must deliver tangible value through discovery questions, teaching moments, or solution guidance rather than conversations about kids and dogs, treating customer experience as a scalable product where each step must justify its existence.</p></li><li><p>The customer advisory board scarcity exercise: give customers exactly 5 votes to distribute across a six-month roadmap in any combination, forcing authentic prioritization beyond reactive fire drills while making customers co-owners of tradeoff decisions.</p></li><li><p>Why high-performing CS organizations require three DNA profiles like chili ingredients: implementation veterans with project structuring instincts, sales-trained professionals comfortable with "golden silence" instead of filling awkward pauses, and former customers who provide authentic empathy for buyer challenges.</p></li><li><p>How professional services implementations at Birst drove 40 percentage points higher NDR, and why "forward deployed engineering" is brilliant PS rebranding that risks creating unsustainable 3,000-person field organizations without deliberate customer ownership transfer strategies.</p></li><li><p>The "time machine" question that reveals growth mindset: "if I gave you the grace of a time machine and you could go back and do this project again, what would you do differently?" separates introspective leaders from those who don't examine their approach.</p></li><li><p>Why ageism concerns miss the real criterion of mental flexibility: will executives be guided by experience or led by it? When Paul was 35-year-old co-founder at Birst, he needed assurance executives wouldn't just "run a play" regardless of unique company context.</p></li><li><p>Vercel's AI support training discipline under Matthew Sweeney: 30 support team members grading 5 AI responses weekly drove resolution rates from 30% to 70% over nine months, freeing engineers from repetitive tickets to focus on complex technical investigations.</p></li><li><p>The executive onboarding principle that jamming managers in over team objections never works, requiring team excitement about candidates and designing roles with enough "real estate" so executives aren't crippled by dependencies on other functions.</p></li></ul><p><strong>ABOUT YOUR HOST: </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/"><u>Andy Mowat</u></a> has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. </p><p>Learn more about about Whispered:<a href="https://www.whispered.com/"> <u>www.whispered.com</u></a></p><p><br>Interact with AI Andy:<a href="https://www.whispered.com/whisper-search"> </a><a href="http://www.whispered.com/whisper-search"><u>www.whispered.com/whisper-search</u></a></p>
38 total episodes available
Recent guests on How I Hire
Guests from recent episodes — sign up to see every guest that has ever appeared on this show.
Evan Huck
Guest
Dustin Joost
Guest
Ejieme Eromosele
Guest
Tim Geisenheimer
Guest
Karrie Sanderson
Guest
Deep-dive analytics for How I Hire
Frequently asked questions
Have a different question and can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our support team by sending us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
- What is How I Hire?
<p><span>Whispered Hiring - the podcast where we talk with senior GTM leaders about how they find, vet, attract and grow new talent. Hosted by the team at Whispered, each episode uncovers the unwritten playbook for executive hiring that drives exponential growth.</span></p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Information about guest appearances is not available.
Legal Disclaimer
Pod Engine is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected with any of the podcasts displayed on this platform. We operate independently as a podcast discovery and analytics service.
All podcast artwork, thumbnails, and content displayed on this page are the property of their respective owners and are protected by applicable copyright laws. This includes, but is not limited to, podcast cover art, episode artwork, show descriptions, episode titles, transcripts, audio snippets, and any other content originating from the podcast creators or their licensors.
We display this content under fair use principles and/or implied license for the purpose of podcast discovery, information, and commentary. We make no claim of ownership over any podcast content, artwork, or related materials shown on this platform. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
While we strive to ensure all content usage is properly authorized, if you are a rights holder and believe your content is being used inappropriately or without proper authorization, please contact us immediately at hey@podengine.ai for prompt review and appropriate action, which may include content removal or proper attribution.
By accessing and using this platform, you acknowledge and agree to respect all applicable copyright laws and intellectual property rights of content owners. Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or commercial use of the content displayed on this platform is strictly prohibited.