Job interview in the words of a CEO heading $1 billion firm

Joshua Reeves, the cofounder and CEO of Gusto, a $1 billion company that provides payroll, benefits, and workers' comp insurance to small businesses in the US, recently spoke to Adam Bryant of The New York Times about leadership, culture, and career advice.

During their conversation, Bryant asked Reeves: "How do you hire?"

"I look for value alignment and shared motivation," Reeves says. "And for the interviews, I kind of channel my inner 4-year-old, and I ask a lot of 'why' questions."

He says as the CEO, one of the most important lessons he's learned is how alignment works - especially in terms of hiring. "It's never about a company convincing someone to join, or people convincing the company to hire them. It's a search for alignment and realizing they can do amazing things together," he tells Bryant.

During job interviews, Reeves doesn't focus on a candidate's skills or work experiences. Instead, he tries to get at the thought process the person went through at meaningful points in their life, "like the choice to go to a specific school or to leave or join a company."

"If you keep asking why, you'll get to the meat of it, which is when someone leaves behind trying to think about the right answer, and you get to questions about purpose, and what motivates you," Reeves explains.

He says he also likes to get out of the office building for interviews. "I like to go on a walk. I like to go to the park, sit on a bench and talk about life."

This interview with Joshua Reeves, C.E.O. and co-founder of Gusto, an online payroll, benefits and workers’ compensation firm, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What were some early influences for you?

A. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, but my mother is from Bolivia and my father’s from a small town outside Pittsburgh. His family grew up working in the steel mills, and I learned a lot from them about respect for an honest day’s work. They’re both teachers.

I have one brother, and both of us are Eagle Scouts, so that was a formative part of our childhood, too. In high school, I was a varsity athlete on the crew team, and that was a pretty big time commitment.

I’ve used crew as a metaphor for leadership. Everybody has to pull on their oar as hard as they can, but then it’s all about balance in the boat, and how the eight individuals connect and flow with each other. The coxswain isn’t telling anyone what to do, but they’re guiding and steering.

What else?

There is one story from fifth grade. During a parent-teacher conference, my teacher said that Josh had the ability to succeed, but he had to choose to do so. Up to that point, I wasn’t as focused on academics, but that became a priority for me afterward. And it was high school that was the most transformative time for me.

I was pretty out of shape when I started 10th grade. I chose to become an athlete as a way to both get in shape but also to work with a team and overcome some of my fears of being in a more collaborative setting.

I also remember watching my dad study for his doctorate at night and on weekends. We spent a lot of time in the library. A lot of the lessons I learned from him were around focus and setting a goal. I remember him having to take a statistics class, which really wasn’t his comfort zone, but he did well in the class through effort. That’s been the approach I always take in life — I can do anything if I put the time in.

How has your leadership style evolved?

One way is this idea of letting go. Companies, especially in Silicon Valley, celebrate heroics, and I have a saying that “heroism doesn’t scale, heroes become martyrs.”

I realized that obviously there are a lot of ways to do something beyond the way I want to do it. It means working with my team for an outcome that we can all commit to, but there are many avenues to get there.

Another lesson was understanding how alignment works, especially in terms of hiring. It’s never about a company convincing someone to join, or people convincing the company to hire them. It’s a search for alignment and realizing they can do amazing things together.

If that motivation is aligned, then leadership is in many ways about removing barriers for someone to go do their greatest work. And so it changes how I think about my role. When I have one-on-ones with teammates, it’s their time, their meeting. It’s a chance for them to help me understand whatever I can do to enable and empower them to do their work better. Someone who is here because they actually care about what we’re trying to do makes all the difference.

What’s unusual about the culture of your company?

We started the company in a house in Palo Alto, and because I was raised with shoes off in the home, that house was a shoes-off home, too. When we moved to a proper office in San Francisco, people said, “Let’s keep this.”

Now we’re in two locations, San Francisco and Denver, and we have these huge shoe racks at the entrance. We have socks and slippers and spa sandals for people who come in as guests.

Companies can be sterile and cold. We want our workplace to be really comfortable. In some ways, people feel more like themselves when their shoes are off.

How do you hire?

I look for value alignment, as I mentioned, and shared motivation. And for the interviews, I kind of channel my inner 4-year-old, and I ask a lot of “why” questions.

My interview with any candidate is not about skill or work experience. It’s about the thought process someone went through at meaningful points in their life, like the choice to go to a specific school or to leave or join a company. If you keep asking why, you’ll get to the meat of it, which is when someone leaves behind trying to think about the right answer, and you get to questions about purpose, and what motivates you.

In school, it’s very clear what success looks like. There’s a framework called grades, and that measures success. In life, there is no rubric or metric. A lot of individuals wrestle with that transition. If people don’t spend the time to be introspective and figure out what they actually care about, then society will give you the only remaining rubric, which is how much money you have. And that does not equal happiness, as people can attest to time and time again.

I also like to get out of the building for interviews. I like to go on a walk. I like to go to the park, sit on a bench and talk about life.

What career and life advice do you give to new college grads?

One of my most straightforward ones is that everyone’s always thinking about what job is best. They want the answer. I try in many ways to just communicate that there is no framework anymore, and it’s about actually trying things, discovering.

It’s what college is about. It pains me a bit to hear people who are halfway through college say they want to do a start-up because it’s the thing to do.

I almost want to shake them and say, “Look, starting a company is about being so obsessed with a problem that you can’t imagine not working on it. It’s not a ‘thing to do.’” My advice across the board is not to drop out of school and to see that experience through.

Source: techgig.com