Hire talent to fit your culture...not someone else's ideal

There is a tendency among Technology Engineering leadership to find a star engineer, aka 10x developer, to have on their team. This leads to inordinate amount of time spent hunting for that diamond. You can absolutely find such engineers, however, you should ask yourself whether the challenge you're putting in front of them is going to excite them.

Another way to build your team is to look for a team you can coach and grow organically. Its far easier to find such coachable talent. They're out there, and are willing to put in the time and effort when they see they're being mentored and are shown a direction. In time, you might find that you've developed one of those rockstar 10x engineer with this approach.

When recruiting for talent in a tight market, look for non-traditional places. It goes a long way to show up and be there for folks who don't have access, networks or connections.

Have a Hiring Thesis...and stick to it

Once I was hiring for a hard-to-fill position in a competitive environment. After interviewing multiple candidates didn't impress, one candidate stood out. Resume matched up with what I was hearing in the interview.

The candidate went through our interview process. The interview panel expressed a concern - which would need to be addressed before I made an offer. I didn't think it was much of an issue. I picked up the phone and called the candidate, intent on making an offer.

After letting the candidate know how the process was going, I asked about the concern the panel had raised. The candidate lost it, started yelling and hung up, without giving me a chance to make the offer. I was shocked, and our pipeline was empty.

The next day a better candidate showed up in our pipeline. I ended up hiring this new candidate. I've never regretted walking away from a red flag from the interview panels since. When your team that you trust says they've got a concern, it almost never works out, and its best to cut your losses and move on.