Whispered Hiring with Tim Dorris - CRO @ Stensul

In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Tim Dorris, Chief Revenue Officer at Stensul, about his systematic approach to hiring executive talent that goes far beyond traditional resume screening. With six years of leadership at Stensul and experience scaling revenue organizations, Tim shares his methodology for identifying the top 10% of executive candidates through outcome-based scorecards, deep historical analysis, and unconventional selling tactics. His insights reveal how to build bulletproof hiring processes that attract A-players while maintaining rigorous standards in today's noisy talent market.

Topics discussed:

• How to create outcome-based scorecards collaboratively with founders, people leaders, and direct reports rather than jumping straight to job descriptions, ensuring alignment on what success actually looks like in the first 6-12 months.
• The "Who" methodology's "top grade" interview technique—a 90-minute chronological deep dive through every role in a candidate's career that uncovers patterns, motivations, and red flags that traditional interviews miss entirely.
• Why Tim positions himself as the first interviewer after recruiter screening to maintain tight feedback loops and prevent his team from wasting time on misaligned candidates, despite the time investment.
• The strategic approach to reference checking that leverages the top grade process to identify specific former managers, peers, and direct reports rather than accepting candidates' self-selected references.
• How to evaluate whether candidates can step up from individual contributor to manager roles by testing for cross-functional project experience and the ability to manage managers, not just execute within a territory.
• Tim's "going all in" candidate courting strategies, including traveling to meet prospects in their cities, involving them in team events like karaoke nights, and creating presentation-style offer processes that mirror executive sales proposals.
• The counterintuitive requirement that all executive hires become product demo-certified and master individual contributor skills rather than managing purely through dashboards, ensuring hands-on leadership capability.
• Why posting roles publicly still works despite AI-generated application volume, and how to balance broad visibility with targeted recruiting through networks and warm introductions.

ABOUT YOUR HOST: 

Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating. 

Learn more about about Whispered: www.whispered.com

Interact with AI Andy: www.whispered.com/whisper-search