Caring deeply: How to hire the right people and earn your team’s trust

“You are who you are and that’s why we love you. That’s why we hired you. So don’t try to be someone else because we wanted you.” – Omer Molad

Today we’re talking with Omer Molad, the founder and CEO of the recruiting software startup, Vervoe, on how to bring a more human element into the hiring process.

Omer shares an incredibly personal story about how he learned to earn the trust of his team members’ while he was a platoon commander in the Israeli army in his early 20s.

That story alone is enough of a reason to listen to this episode, but Omer also talks about how he overcame the challenges & prejudices that he faced as an outsider to the tech industry in Melbourne, Australia while looking for work, and how that led him to develop a new way to hire that eventually became the heart of Vervoe.

What I loved about speaking with Omer was his complete openness and transparency, his willingness to admit that even as the CEO, he doesn’t have all the answers but is 100% willing to make the effort and find his way.

He’s definitely an inspirational figure, and I hope you get as much value out of listening to him share his stories as I did.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• [00:01:27] What brought Omer to Melbourne, Australia
• [00:02:47] The differences between working in Israel and working in Australia
• [00:04:07] What the experience of trying to find a job in Melbourne was like
• [00:07:13] How Omer landed his first job in Melbourne
• [00:08:21] Omer’s time in the Israeli military
• [00:10:54] What made Omer realize he needed to build trust with his team when he was a platoon commander
• [00:17:41] How Omer’s experiences with the military apply to where he is now
• [00:20:23] How psychological safety and trust can help teams perform better
• [00:24:03] How Vervoe is different from more traditional companies
• [00:27:14] How compartmentalization can take energy away from work
• [00:28:50] How leaders should balance being vulnerable with being a positive and motivating force for the team
• [00:31:35] How Omer’s past experience combined with taking a human-first approach play out at Vervoe
• [00:35:19] Omer’s experiences with hiring people who might otherwise have been screened out
• [00:42:35] What the first stage of Vervoe’s hiring process looks like
• [00:47:05] What happens in the second stage of Vervoe’s hiring process
• [00:49:05] What Vervoe applicants do after completing stage two
• [00:53:44] A resource that Omer recommends
• [00:55:31] What Omer has learned from talking with introverted employees