What we read.

The structured-interview playbook most premium firms use, in a less polished form than the consultancy versions but more honest. The scorecard concept alone is worth the price; we use a version of it on every retained search.

Not a hiring book, but the chapters on managing leadership transitions, firing, and "wartime CEO" mode are the most honest we have read on the human cost of getting senior hires wrong.

Still the best account of what an Engineering Manager actually does. We recommend it to every senior IC considering a move to people management - and to every founder writing their first EM brief.

The original Netflix culture document, expanded. Underrated chapter on hiring: "We hire fully formed adults." Reads as obvious now because it has been so widely copied - which is the highest compliment a hiring book can earn.

A 1967 book that is more useful than nine in ten contemporary management books. The chapter on staffing for strength rather than against weakness is the foundation of how we read CVs.

The most-bookmarked book on our shelf for founders past Series B. The chapters on hiring senior executives, when to bring on a COO, and managing board dynamics map closely to the conversations we have with clients in advisory engagements.

The Amazon operating manual, written by people who lived it. The bar-raiser hiring process described in the book is the most rigorous structured-hiring system we have seen at scale. Worth reading even if you would never implement it wholesale.

Counter-balance to the "specialist hiring" thesis we run on. Particularly useful for candidates wondering whether to deepen their specialism or widen their range - the answer is more situational than the industry usually allows.

Patrick Collison's description of how Stripe approached early hiring. The deliberate slowness - and the willingness to wait - is rarer than it should be. Pairs well with our piece on low-latency hiring.

Long-form interviews with operators across categories. Particularly strong episodes: Daniel Kahneman on judgement, David Senra on biographies, Rory Sutherland on persuasion. Useful background for anyone trying to think more clearly about hiring decisions.

Deep-dive case studies of company histories. The episodes on Nvidia, TSMC and Berkshire Hathaway each contain more useful detail on how technology firms build for the long run than most strategy textbooks.

Adjacent to hiring rather than directly about it, but the clarity of thought is calibrating. Particularly recommended for fintech founders and senior engineers thinking about regulated environments.