The McKinsey secret I use to hire talent

I was 21 and a senior at Wharton/Penn when I got an offer to join McKinsey & Company. 

They overnighted my offer letter with a bottle of Dom Pérignon (I don't drink, but I appreciated the gesture).

Then I got five phone calls from partners and managers I’d met.

That weekend, they invited me up with 50+ others who had received offers. They took us to fancy dinners, put us up in nice hotels and took us to the hottest club for bottle service.

Then, when I was waffling, they had eight different "McKinsey alums" call me. 

A few were PE folks, a few were hedge funds and a few entrepreneurs (what I told them I wanted to be when I grew up).

Ultimately, I signed my offer, and enjoyed an amazing two years there.

Fast-forward four-plus years and I'm starting Ampush. We had just cracked the code on Facebook ads (in 2010!) and were looking to scale up our team.

I interviewed 20+ digital marketers. I made zero offers. I didn’t find them analytical, operating with high standards or generally motivated.

In frustration, I thought back to the McKinsey days, shrugged and said, “I'll just do what I know and recruit smart, young people from top schools.”

That worked. They grew our business and we grew their careers. Today, many of the people I hired are CMOs at big brands.

Almost 15 years later, if you ask anyone about Ampush’s reputation, it’s singular: best growth marketing talent.

As I grew in my career, I started looking at the best cultures and companies: McKinsey & Company, Meta, Goldman, Google and Red Ventures.

I started to see this common thread: "homegrown" talent seemed to win. I think it’s even more important and common in services businesses because talent IS the product.

Homegrown talent wins because:

• Young people are more malleable and have no previous baggage, so they quickly learn skills and culture

• Younger folks tend to be more energized and creative, they figure things out and work late nights

• They are ambitious to grow themselves and their careers, creating natural upward organizational growth

So, what's the secret?

Reasons not to do it:

• People development doesn't excite you. In this case, either find a senior person on your team whom it DOES excite, or consider a different approach

• You don't have time to nurture/mentor young people. There are many benefits, but also very real costs to younger folks. For example, they don't know how to send an email on their first day

• Your business isn't stable enough to support regular hiring of young people (this is a system, not a one-off thing)

If you're under 30 and your team has fewer than ten people, this is you!

If not, take the youngest and sharpest person and put them in charge of the new hires and programs. They may not be the official manager of the people, but they can be the day-to-day buddy.

It’s important to create what Wall Street calls "the apprenticeship model,” where people at all levels are constantly teaching each other. 

People six to 12 months apart make this amazing. (If you walk around investment banks, you'll hear about "first-year analysts, second-year analysts, associates, senior associates, VPs" and so on.)

There's a genius to this. Ampush had growth marketing analysts, senior growth marketing analysts, growth marketing leads, directors of growth, senior directors of growth, VPs of growth and specialist roles (e.g., paid search expert). 

Like in engineering, we created senior individual contributor roles as well as managerial roles.

But one person gets the party started, and owns this for at least a year.

I'd recommend two to four to start. An obvious one is where you went, if it’s a top school. If not, find the closest top schools to your office. 

For example, if I were doing this, I'd choose Penn (where I went) and WashU (the closest top school to me).

Once you've found the schools, start engaging with them: attend events, speak in classrooms, meet young people. They will blow you away.

Meet the career services teams at universities and lean on them. Post intern and full-time jobs on the relevant job boards.

This is a typical recruiting funnel, but it’s ideal to organize this hiring once or twice a year.

Typically, seniors get jobs anywhere from six to nine months before graduation, so you have to be ready to review resumes and interview folks early when they submit. Typically, you want three rounds, post-resume selection.

1. Screening: High-level fit, motivations, logistics and informational. This can be done by the person selected in Step 2.

2. Second round: I'd recommend two to four interviews, each with a different purpose: one for analytical ability, one for grit/entrepreneurial spirit, one for kindness/empathy and maybe one for client-facing. These are, ideally, on-site and in person.

3. Final round: This is a case study of some kind. At Ampush, we used to have them pick a brand and create a marketing plan (with some specific prompts/data we'd share), followed by a 1x1 with the founder. The founder is the final line of defense.

   You are, ideally, running five to ten people through this process at once (at Ampush, we were running 50 to 100) and then selecting the top 10 to 20 percent. Comparing folks is very valuable.

   Then, you make offers (use McKinsey’s insane playbook above) and get the folks to sign!!

Between making the offer and their start date, you want to engage with the person once a month. 

Maybe have an event, invite them to the office, etc. I usually send one or two books for them to read prior to starting. One month prior, I start sharing training materials.

Young, bright folks are hungry to crush their first job, so the more you give them early, the better.

Once they start, you want a solid orientation and training program. Ampush's official one was two weeks. Goldman's was a month! 

Then, you want at least six months of early apprenticeship, where people are hands-on, teaching them the job. 

Again, it’s usually someone only a year ahead of them who is eager to hand the work off.

Last, but not least (and this can be a longer email), you want a very clear growth and promotion structure. 

What boxes need to be checked for the next salary bump and promotion? When does that conversation happen, and how?

Ampush had six-month cycles and promotions were merit-based versus time-based.

As I sit here today, more than the money I've made or than starting and more than selling a company, I'm MOST proud of and gratified by the people journey of Ampush. 

To be clear, all these folks would have been successful without Ampush, but it was awesome to find them, cultivate their learning and work alongside them.

Not only is young talent a competitive advantage, it's fun and fulfilling.

What questions do you have?

jesse