It is now the new year, and you are faced with the rather undesirable task of hiring a new VP. Upon reflection, you realize that the SpiderNet hiring process failed. Given the issues (laziness, lack of leadership ability) surrounding the VP you just fired, you realize that your process (or lack thereof) did not properly vet prospective job candidates.

So before you move on to hiring again, you take an inventory of the current process in order to better understand how to correct things in the future. Here’s what you find:

1. You identified the requirements of the position and developed a comprehensive job specification on your own. Since the position reported to you, you did not see the need to ask for other input.
2. You hired a search firm and saw a number of good candidates. You felt that the candidate pool was adequate, but not exceptional.
3. The interview meetings were always with you, your co-founder and one or two other people from the executive team. Everyone exchanged emails on the candidates after their meetings.
4. The search firm did the bulk of the reference checks, which significantly helped your schedule and time.

What mistakes do you think you made and how can you better go about interviewing future candidates?

I have often considered the ability to hire great people as being analogous to a batting average in baseball. A player who hits .300 is near the top of their game. While I have certainly had a much better than 30 percent success rate in my hiring overall, I’m not sure that I’ve topped 30 percent for truly exceptional hires. Hiring phenomenal employees, like hitting in baseball, is difficult. I must admit that only recently did I come to realize that there is a set of steps that a company can follow that will significantly increase the hit rate.

With respect to the SpiderNet situation, there were several mistakes made with the current process. First, there was no input from either the board or the other executives on the job specifications. It is particularly important to gain agreement on the position and have the interviewing team help develop the requirements. Second, there wasn’t a defined interview team and the results of the interviews felt a bit ad hoc. Having a defined interview team should be part of the process. Finally, the CEO left reference checking to the search firm, which was a huge error in judgment, and probably the biggest mistake of the entire process.

I took the liberty of asking Jeff Stump, our partner responsible for Executive Talent at Andreessen Horowitz, and he outlined the following steps that should be taken when hiring an executive:

1. Develop the candidate profile and expected qualifications
2. Lay out the compensation framework
3. Craft a set of questions to be used in the interview process
4. Identify your interview and recruiting methodology
5. Perform reference checks

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

Candidate Profile and Qualifications: There should be a universal understanding of what the profile is and why the company is looking for this new hire. What is the charter of this hire over the next six months to one year? What does the company/hiring manager expect this person to deliver during this timeframe and what does success look like for this hire one year out?

The focus in this phase should be on developing a set of non-negotiable attributes as input to the interview process. Make sure to include input from anyone who is going to have a say in the interview process, including the Board and the management team. There does not need to be universal alignment, but this process will help identify any differences of opinion that can be addressed up front. This first step will drive consistency in the interview process and candidates will take notice.

Compensation and Reporting Framework: Determine the title, reporting structure and compensation of the position. Not doing this up front can often lead to misalignment late in the recruiting process.

Interview Questions: Once the profile and qualifications have been identified and agreed upon, develop a set of questions that are going to be used in the interview process. These can also be used by the search firm to screen candidates. Questions should be crafted to gauge motivation, fit and expectation.

During this phase, the hiring manager also should identify the interviewing team and start the selection of a search firm. In most cases, the company’s internal network will not be sufficient to identify the absolute best candidate and a search firm is recommended. There are exceptions to this, but in most cases, thinking that the company has enough contacts often results in a substantial delay.

Interview and Recruiting Methodology: High-level items to consider:

• Decide on the appropriate team members to be involved in the search process.
• Determine who is running point on the management team. Tasks may include interview coordination, candidate follow-up, feedback collection, reference coordination, compensation, negotiation, etc.
• Who from the board of directors will be involved?
• Define the sequence of interviews and meetings. Who needs to meet when and what is the strategy/objective during a first round vs. a second round of interviews? I also recommend spending a great deal of the first meeting on determining “fit.” Can you work with this person? Nothing else matters if you can’t check this box.
• Have the team interview for different attributes to create a better experience for the candidate and to avoid overlapping questions in the interview process.
• Define the feedback loop: What info gets captured and recorded and how/when is it shared?

Reference Checking: One of the most important — and overlooked — parts of the recruiting process is reference checking. When you make an offer to a candidate, you should feel as though you really know the person, warts and all. Reference checking is the best way to really understand what a candidate is like to work with.

Often your search firm will offer to do reference checks. While it is fine for them to do some investigation, do not leave all of it to them. You need to do a large part of the reference checking yourself. Compare notes with the search firm but handing it off to someone else is a huge mistake.

In general, you should do between 10 to 15 reference checks and they should have a 360-degree approach (i.e., 1/3 bosses, 1/3 peers, 1/3 subordinates). At least one-third of these queries should be backchannel references.

Finally, when you have settled on the final two candidates, you should have the finalists come in to present a 100-day plan with your executive team at your staff meeting. This will give you a very good sense of how the person responds to an assignment and the nature of their work.

Hiring takes planning and time, and the process is often ad hoc or simply non-existent. Don’t make hiring a batting average. Take the time, develop a clear process, and you will see much better results in your overall hit rate.

Peter Levine has been a lecturer at both MIT and Stanford business schools and CEO of Xensource. Prior to Xensource, Peter was EVP of Strategic and Platform Operations at Veritas Software where he helped grow the organization from no revenue to more than $1.5 billion, and from 20 employees to over 6,000.

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo has instituted a hiring freeze across the company and is considering a reduction in force in support units of the company.

While the details of any layoffs — which are expected to be small and selective for now — are still being worked out, sources said that the stricture not to fill hundreds of open positions is the first step toward significant cost-cutting initiatives across the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in the wake of what it expects to be another weak quarterly report next week and a looming proxy fight.

Yahoo reports its fourth quarter earnings Tuesday. While the company has managed to improve the results in the last part of the quarter, sources said they will still show continued weakness in its key businesses and consumer usage.

That’s as competitors such as Google and Facebook have been showing significant growth, especially in the display advertising market.

Thus, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson appears to be zeroing in on costs and managing for margins, said multiple sources, much as his predecessor Carol Bartz did at the start of her tenure.

But many think Yahoo needs even more drastic changes, including massive cuts in staff and also product arenas, to give the company new life.

That includes shifts in leadership at the top levels too. In a major move this week, co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down from the company’s board and all roles there. More directors are expected to leave soon, too.

That will likely come after negotiations to sell part of its lucrative stakes in both the Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan are successfully completed.

While not a certainty, Yahoo’s board hopes that will happen sometime before activist shareholder Daniel Loeb initiates a proxy battle against the company in the coming month.

Sound complex?

It is, and also troubling to Yahoo’s long beleaguered rank and file, who have been worried about more layoffs.

The Yahoo troops have been under intense pressure and have suffered from ongoing attrition. Just yesterday, for example, Yahoo lost one of its top advertising execs, Seth Dallaire, to Amazon.

The company can ill afford such departures of key talent, even as it seeks to pare employee numbers in other parts of its business.

At the end of its last quarter, Yahoo reported that it had 13,700 staffers, down from 14,100 in the previous year.

Yahoo, of course, declined comment.

This morning, Yahoo said it had hired PayPal President Scott Thompson as its newest victim, oops, CEO.

(You can read my interview with him too, here.)

AllThingsD.com had reported the pending development last night — which is how we roll here.

Now we will roll into the conference call on the matter, and are hoping that the head of the lucrative eBay payments unit will make an appearance, given that he does not start until next week.

One piece of advice I will extend Thompson: I would refrain from cursing, as previous Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz did on her first outing. (She was fired in September, although not precisely for the cussing she so enjoyed partaking in.)

Here we go!

7:02 am: It’s on, with Thompson present.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock begins, and he is “very excited, very excited.”

I’d be very excited if Thompson talked and not Roy, who has been to this particular Yahoo CEO rodeo a few too many times before.

Bostock is making promises that this time it’s going to be different. Really!

He also notes that the company will continue its “strategic review” — but who knows what that means now.

And he thanks Tim Morse, the interim CEO who is moving back to the CFO job. (Agreed — nice work, Tim!)

7:06 am: Scott Thompson is on and is “just thrilled” to be the new Yahoo CEO.

I like his accent, which seems like he might be from Boston. He does look and sound like Cliff Clavin, the mailman guy at the Beantown bar from the television classic “Cheers.”

Except, given he has been the darkest of dark horses in this CEO race, nobody knew Thompson’s name.

Thompson is saying all the right stuff, about wanting to increase shareholder value and such.

He sounds so hopeful! Urgency! Thoughtfulness! A bright new morning at Yahoo!

I have been to this rodeo before too, but I am still hoping this time it’ll work.

Scott, if you let me down, I might cry, because you sound so nice.

7:09 am Q&A time already.

Congrats from the Wall Street analyst peanut gallery.

Then, it’s right into a question for Bostock, about the progress of the Asian assets deal.

Also, is Thompson too much of a technologist and not a media dude?

Bostock wants to talk about only Scott, but notes that there will be “no slowdown and no delay” in the Asian process. And Thompson will be all onboard when he comes on board, folks.

Bostock sounds tired, but starts to talk about how a “great customer experience” is the key to the advertising business. He notes that Thompson knows how to do this, hence he’ll be fantastic.

“I have every expectation he’ll be out there calling on advertisers,” says Bostock. I would hope so, given that is where Yahoo makes most of its lettuce.

Bostock is saying Yahoo has been “treading water” and now needs to swim fast. Treading water? I wonder who the top honcho at Yahoo has been while the company has been listlessly dangling its legs in the drink?

Roy — that’s who!

7:15 am: Another analyst asks about margins.

Thompson is not having any of it! He is polite when asking for time to get on the job to make proper statements.

But he does focus on the need to build “great, innovative” products. True, but Yahoo has been incredibly unable to do this of late.

Thompson gives no specifics, though. My big idea: I would steal the self-driving car from Google.

7:17 am: A question about what the core of Yahoo is, and about what lessons Thompson is bringing from his experience at PayPal.

Well, he has not met the team — literally. Yahoo’s board consulted almost no one in the top ranks of execs on this appointment.

But Thompson “suspects” there is talent there. Given the recent attrition, he’ll need a big Inspector Clouseau magnifying glass to find it!

From eBay’s PayPal, he says that the key was balancing the customer experience with network effect and, well, blah, blah, blah Internet-speak.

I am still thinking shoplifting the self-driving car is the bestest idea.

7:20 am: A question about Yahoo’s display business versus Google.

Thompson notes it is too early for him to say — though he had better say soon! — but notes that data is key. He is a well-known by-the-numbers guy, and that is clearly where we are going at Yahoo, now that he is the big dog.

Thus:

“The data these Internet businesses create, the ability to use analytical technology to build a better businesses for your customers … I feel certain that wealth of data is going to be exploitable for next generation products, next generation experiences … My instinct says down in that data we’re going to be able to find ways to compete and innovate that the world hasn’t seen yet.”

I am really liking this accent, which is almost lulling. And so polite! Sources tell me that being “collaborative” was a big goal in this hiring.

7:22 am: A question about the identity of Yahoo, and whether it should be public or private.

Thompson harps on the need for innovation, and hopes it will be the future.

“I would not be here if I didn’t think it was possible,” says Thompson.

Bostock takes the public/private question. Yahoo will be public, he declares! Mostly, because it would be too pricey to take private.

“It’s a moot point,” he says.

7:25 am: More questions about what Yahoo is.

Thompson declines to run off the rails on this dicey one, but he says he believes that Yahoo has great assets.

It does. It’s just that it has been crashed many times — by the people who just hired him — right into a wall.

Just sayin’ — a self-driving car would have done a better job.

7:27 am: A brain-drain question, and more on Asia and on mobile.

Bostock butts in again. He said that Thompson will not be distracted by that, and will concentrate on the core business. Hush up, Roy.

Thompson says that he looks forward to meeting the peeps of Yahoo. (’Cuz he has not, as yet!)

He also loves mobile — which Yahoo has largely borked.

7:32 am: A content strategy question. Early days, so Thompson is still keeping his yap shut.

In this, he’s like the anti-Bartz. Is this good? It’s certainly different.

He says again that, “I can’t wait to meet” everyone at Yahoo. Vice versa, because this dude came from left field.

Thompson promises that he will be a “sponge.”

He closes by noting that he is “genuinely excited,” and says he believes in Yahoo.

Indeed, when it comes to Yahoo, you definitely gotta have faith.

And yet we use them all the time — in our LinkedIn profiles, at least.

The social-networking-for-job-searching company analyzed 135 million professional profiles on its Web site and came up with a list of the Top 10 buzzwords used in LinkedIn profiles across the U.S.

The No. 1 word used: “creative” (which sort of reminds me of this smartphone video ad).

Other words on the LinkedIn list, which can be found here, include “effective,” “motivated” and “dynamic.”

Outside of the U.S., those located north of the equator were likely to use (or overuse) “creative”; people in the Southern Hemisphere were “multinational” and focused on “problem-solving” and their “track record.”

Many of the same buzzwords appeared on last year’s list, which LinkedIn says was one of its most popular analyses of the year. 2010 was the year we were all touting our “extensive experience,” which came in at No. 1.

Oh, and we’ve all gotten a little slower, too, or maybe our work environments have: “Fast-paced,” which ranked No. 8 in last year’s most-overused list, doesn’t appear on the 2011 list.

Let’s dial it back a little bit on buzzwords, though, as they’re not all fun and semantics: Some recruiters and consultants say buzzwords in resumes are too vague, or worse yet, just plain annoying, while others suggest they could actually lose companies money.

But if you’re still looking to facilitate or ramp up your buzzword usage in the new year, you may want to try this buzzword generator, courtesy of Robie the Robot.

Image via of Roman Schvets/Flickr

I was fired from my first job as a programmer after college, and I’ve agonized over terminations ever since. The day I was fired was one of the worst days of my life, and no matter how it was presented, I felt like my world had collapsed. The event had a profound impact on my career and on my actions as a manager. For me, there’s nothing easy about firing someone.

That said, I’ve had to fire many people in my years as a manager and CEO. My worst days were when I knew I had to have “the conversation.” While firing anyone is hard enough, the most difficult terminations were people whom I had recruited and hired as direct reports. I find it disappointing to see my “rock star” fail — and having a vested interest in the person makes the decision quite difficult. There is usually a long period during which the decision process loops: fire, coach, keep, fire, coach, keep, (repeat). As a result, termination day often happens long after I’ve internally decided that the person needs to go.

Industry wisdom suggests that you fire someone immediately after recognizing that a person must be let go. I agree with this — I’ve never looked back on a termination thinking, “I should have waited longer to do something” — but it is way easier said than done.

Earlier in my career, I always wanted to spend the time to work things out for my employees, especially the folks I hired and managed directly. Unfortunately, I was rarely able to change the outcome of the situation, and I would often waste precious time not moving forward with the termination and subsequent re-hire. As I tried to work things out (and inevitably put off making a decision), the impact on the organization and the reflection on me as a manager all took its toll. I’ve since learned that moving forward quickly is the best overall approach. Still, firing someone sucks.

Let’s look at the SpiderNet case and break down some of the pros and cons of each choice.

• Find him a different job in the company. It is very rare in a start-up that you will actually have a job opening for another role that can be filled by a person with a different skill set whom you also want to terminate. This may be easier in larger companies, but not at a start-up. You need to be brutally honest with yourself before making a lateral move and ask, “Is the new position needed and is this person best for that job?” If yes, then move the person. Otherwise, terminate.

  In the SpiderNet case, you are also dealing with a person who is lazy. In my experience, character flaws cannot be corrected, regardless of where you put the person. Once lazy, always lazy. There are additional downsides to creating a new position: how does the rest of the team feel when you “protect” a non-performer? Are you seen as wasting money creating a “non-job”? Are you not stepping up to deal with the problem?

• Put him on a performance plan. Performance plans are generally useless for executives. These plans are nothing more than negotiated action items that are a problem to manage and never get at the core of the issue. My philosophy is that a senior executive is expected to bring a level of expertise and job performance to where you don’t need to hand-hold them with a list of negotiated action items. Do the job or leave. At the end of the three-month plan, the executive usually makes the most of the pre-negotiated goals, but you’ve not made the person less lazy or any more competent. They’ve simply made it through a set of hoops and you still want to get rid of them. Human Resource directors in larger companies always want to put people on plans but I have never seen a three-month plan change the long-term outcome for an executive. Plans only prevent you from making an important change today.
• Fire him and re-hire. As you might imagine, this is my preferred outcome. Do it and move on. Get the new hire process going and don’t screw around. Always treat the person you are terminating with dignity, put together a respectable termination package, and never make the termination personal. In the SpiderNet case, I might ask the co-founder to step back in to run engineering on an interim basis while I searched for a new VP.

When running a software company, hiring is one of the most leveraged activities we can do. The higher the position is, the more impact and importance that hire has on the success of the company. At an executive level, hiring the wrong person can result in months or years of delay, and hiring the right person can help to accelerate the business to entirely new levels.

When a critical hire needs to be made, I have often made the mistake of focusing on managing the department that has the opening, rather than focusing on making the right hire. I have since learned that prioritizing hiring first and managing the department second yields a much more successful hire.

Finally, I’ll say it again: Firing someone sucks, so take the time to hire correctly and you’ll never have to be in a position to have “the conversation.” Let me know the secret when you achieve 100 percent success.

Peter Levine has been a lecturer at both MIT and Stanford business schools and CEO of Xensource. Prior to Xensource, Peter was EVP of Strategic and Platform Operations at Veritas Software where he helped grow the organization from no revenue to more than $1.5 billion, and from 20 employees to over 6,000.

In the previous vignette, you (as the CEO of SpiderNet) were trying to decide on how to organize the engineering unit. Your decision was to hire a new VP of engineering. Your co-founder, who previously oversaw engineering, agreed to become the CTO and chief architect. Everything seemed to have worked out with the transition and your new VP is on the job. You were certain you had a rock star on the team — references from the recruiter came back great, and he had exactly the right profile against your hiring objectives.

A few weeks later, though, at a dinner meeting with a close business associate and CEO of another company, you mention that you’ve hired an incredible new engineering VP. Your dinner friend tells you that he knows your new hire, and you’ve made a big mistake. “He’s really lazy. He has little real domain knowledge, despite the pedigree. You should have called me.” Crap.

Several months later, the laziness starts to show. Your “rock star” now becomes a “project,” and you have to manage his weekly performance and deliverables. He is just not working very hard and does not have the strategic insight into the nuances of your business. He also does not have the team’s respect. They don’t think he is a total lost cause, but they also don’t pay much attention to him. That said, he’s certainly okay — and he’s better than nobody. He puts together decent schedules, brings much-needed process to the team and always says the right things when you have your one on ones. But you don’t feel good about him, and the engineering team is not delivering at the level you’d like. You talk with your board and put together a few options: find a different job for this person and reinstate your co-founder as VP; put him on a plan and reassess in three months; or fire and re-hire.

What now?

Chime in on the comments below, and tune in Friday for Peter’s answer.

Peter Levine has been a lecturer at both MIT and Stanford business schools and CEO of Xensource. Prior to Xensource, Peter was EVP of Strategic and Platform Operations at Veritas Software where he helped grow the organization from no revenue to more than $1.5 billion, and from 20 employees to over 6,000.

Whether explicitly or not, everyone has their own answer to this question, and based on the success rates of start-ups, those answers by and large stink. I don’t have a Magic 8 Ball on the topic, but two things make this the issue I wrestle with most:

1. The often-unpredicted success or failure of “nobodies” or “sure things” respectively
2. The outsized rewards for locating great people, juxtaposed with the probability of abject failure when settling for good ones

There is no central casting for these players — many of the A+ entrepreneurs with whom I have partnered have come in unusual packages: a biology post-doc who thought about opening a microbrewery B&B; a large-animal veterinarian who went to business school in his late 30s; and an ex-EMT who was also a nephew of the President. The best VCs seem to show the same diversity of background.

I now focus on these attributes:

• Great talents find a way to win, and are relentlessly driven to do so. They follow through and complete the task at hand — after all, starting is easy, it’s finishing that takes real will. It is not that they think outside of the box, there simply is no box for them. They view ambiguity as opportunity, not risk. When things get uncertain is when they really perk up and start to pay attention, because that is when real change is possible. Most of all, they exceed expectations. They bend the space-time continuum in some fashion, and their accomplishments are extraordinary.
• Experience is overrated. By and large, the world is changed by the young and the hungry. Experience can be enabling or constraining, but it is not even close to the dealbreaker that many believe it to be. If you are seeking a VP marketing or head of sales at a 100+ person company, absolutely, look at a resume. But to find someone with the passion and uniqueness to actually create an early-stage venture, you have to take time: Watch them and see what they do, talk to them and see what they think, ask around and see how well respected they are.
• Balance exploring/driving with learning/listening. Great people have a very clear grasp of their vision, while understanding that the world has a lot to teach them. They are humble students of the game, but are very confident in their abilities, and never “do what they are told.” They don’t avoid conflict and will always bet on themselves rather than shy away from risk. They ask questions and argue on facts, balancing innumerable data streams with a gut feeling to get to what they believe is the right answer.
• Great people are magnetic. They are not only smart and driven, they attract resources when all the data suggests they should not — whether capital, people or partners — and thereby become larger than just their singular efforts.

While it’s a potentially controversial idea today, I have come to believe that great entrepreneurs and great VCs are two sides of the same coin. Both embody these attributes. They are maniacally focused on changing the way we live with innovations that others thought were not possible. They are passionate about building a great company, and put the company before themselves. Their roles are complementary, like looking down opposite ends of a telescope, but those different perspectives on a problem can be extraordinarily synergistic. Great future entrepreneurs can look like great young VCs, and vice versa — in fact, three of my recent investments are stellar companies started by folks who have crossed from one role to the other.

All venture firms are simultaneously never, and always, looking for team additions. I believe this is a direct result of how difficult it is to identify those who will be not only smart, passionate, personable and high integrity, but also successful in this ever-changing, ambiguous entrepreneurial world, in which a strategy that worked the last time is not a recipe for a future win, but more likely charts a path to mediocrity. In fact, my own difficulty in finding great new additions for our firm is what spurred putting these thoughts on paper.

Bryan Roberts is a partner at Venrock and has been the highest-ranking healthcare investor on Forbes Midas List since 2008. You can follow him on Twitter at @brobertsvc and learn more about him at Venrock.com.

“My response was, ‘It’s the same technology we use to sell them,’” said Selipsky, vice president of marketing, sales and product management at Amazon Web Services. “There was no popular term like cloud computing at the time.”

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“Better check yo self before you wreck yo self”
– Ice Cube

Everyone in the technology industry seems to agree that people are paramount, yet nobody seems to be on the same page about what the people organization — Human Resources — should look like.

The problem is that when it comes to HR, most CEOs don’t really know what they want. In theory, they want a well-managed company with a great culture. They know instinctively that an HR organization probably can’t deliver that. As a result, CEOs usually punt on the issue and implement something that’s suboptimal, if not worthless.

Interestingly, one of the first things that you learn when you run an engineering organization is that a good Quality Assurance department cannot build a high-quality product, but it can tell you when the development team builds a low-quality product. Similarly, a high-quality Human Resources organization cannot make you a well-managed company with a great culture, but it can tell you when you and your managers are not getting the job done.

The employee life cycle
The best way to approach management quality assurance is through the lens of the employee life cycle. From hire to retire, how good is your company? Is your management team world-class in all phases? How do you know?

A great HR organization will support, measure and help improve your management team. Some of the questions that they will help you answer:

Recruiting and hiring

• Do you understand the skills and talents required to succeed in every open position?
• Are your interviewers well-prepared?
• Do your managers and employees do an effective job of selling your company to prospective employees?
• Do interviewers arrive on time?
• Do managers and recruiters follow up with candidates in a timely fashion?
• Do you compete effectively for talent against the best companies?

Compensation

• Do your benefits make sense for your company demographics?
• How do your salary and stock option packages compare to the companies that you compete with for talent?
• How well do your performance rankings correspond to your compensation practices?

Training and integration

• When you hire an employee, how long does it take them to become productive from the perspective of the employee, her peers and her manager?
• Shortly after joining, how well does an employee understand what’s expected of her?

Performance management

• Do your managers give consistent, clear feedback to their employees?
• What is the quality of your company’s written performance reviews?
• Did all of your employees receive their reviews on time?
• Do you effectively manage out poor performers?

Motivation

• Are your employees excited to come to work?
• Do your employees believe in the mission of the company?
• Do they enjoy coming to work every day?
• Do you have any employees who are actively disengaged?
• Do your employees clearly understand what’s expected of them?
• Do employees stay a long time or do they quit faster than normal?
• Why do employees quit?

Requirements to be great at running HR
What kind of person should you look for to comprehensively and continuously understand the quality of your management team? Here are some key requirements:

• World-class process design skills: Much like the head of quality assurance, the head of HR must be a masterful process designer. One key to accurately measuring critical management processes is excellent process design and control.
• A true diplomat: Nobody likes a tattletale, and there’s no way for an HR organization to be effective if the management team doesn’t implicitly trust it. Managers must believe that HR is there to help them improve rather than police them. Great HR leaders genuinely want to help the managers and could not care less about getting credit for identifying problems. They will work directly with the managers to get quality up, and only escalate to the CEO when necessary. If an HR leader hoards knowledge, makes power plays or plays politics, he will be useless.
• Industry knowledge: Compensation, benefits, best recruiting practices, etc., are all fast-moving targets. The head of HR must be deeply networked in the industry and stay abreast of all the latest developments.
• Intellectual heft to be the CEO’s trusted advisor: None of the other skills matter if the CEO does not fully back the head of HR in holding the managers to a high standard of quality. In order for this to happen, the CEO must trust the HR leader’s thinking and judgment.
• Understanding of things unspoken: When management quality starts to break down in a company, nobody says anything about it, but super-perceptive people can tell that the company is slipping. You need one of those.

Acknowledgement
I would like to give a very special thanks to my head of Human Resources, Shannon Callahan, who taught me everything that I know about this subject.

The Huffington Post Media Group, which says it has topped one billion page views for the month of August, has bought an online grassroots platform called Localocracy.

The price for the site, whose key execs will join the AOL content unit, is under $1 million, said sources close to the situation.

The HuffPost also announced it was hiring Lisa Belkin from the New York Times to be a senior columnist covering parenting and family issues.

The latest hiring and purchase are part of a number of moves at the news and blog site, which has been frantically expanding its offerings since it was acquired by AOL.

That now includes four more sections launching this week — Huff/Post50; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School — bringing the grand total of new sites to 21 since the Huffington Post officially merged with AOL in March.

“We want to launch sections for every interest and passion our readers have.” said HuffPost head Arianna Huffington in an interview yesterday. “Whatever your interest, we want to provide the latest content and stories and most advanced tools for engagement.”

And, presumably, get the most traffic from it all. Along with the record one billion page views, the site also said it had 37 million unique visitors in August, the largest number it has posted yet, with 5.1 million comments.

Here’s the official press release for the whole kitchen-sink shebang:

The Huffington Post Media Group Makes Key Announcements:

Acquires Localocracy, Pioneering Online Grassroots Platform, and Hires its
Leadership Team: Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice

Launches Four Huffington Post Sections This Week: Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as Editor-at-Large; HuffPost Gay Voices; HuffPost Weddings; and HuffPost High School; Group is latest of 21 new sites since The Huffington Post Merged with AOL in March

Hires Lisa Belkin from The New York Times as Senior Columnist
Covering Parenting, Work/Life Balance, and Family

Announces Record Huffington Post Size and Engagement, with Largest Number of UVs and Comments Ever, and Site Topping 1 Billion Page Views for First Time

New York, NY — October 3, 2011 – The Huffington Post Media Group (“HPMG”), a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, today makes several key announcements: (1) HPMG is acquiring Localocracy, a groundbreaking online engagement platform enabling citizens to solve problems in their communities, and its founders, Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules, and technology lead, Jay Boice, are joining the Huffington Post Media Group to work on the intersection of editorial and technology, and deepen the sites’ engagement with users; (2) The Huffington Post (“HuffPost”) is launching four sites this week; today, Huff/Post50, with Rita Wilson as editor-at-large; HuffPost Gay Voices; and HuffPost Weddings; tomorrow, HuffPost High School. They are the latest of 21 new verticals since The Huffington Post merged with AOL in March; (4) Lisa Belkin is joining HPMG as Senior Columnist from The New York Times, where she wrote the “Motherlode” blog. She’ll be covering parenting, work/life balance and family; and (5) HuffPost has recently achieved record size and engagement, with its largest number of UVs ever, 37MM*, and greatest number of monthly comments, 5.1MM. In an important milestone, the site also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time.*

“I’m delighted to announce that Conor White-Sullivan, Aaron Soules and Jay Boice are joining our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “They’re pioneers in using the web to empower citizens to improve their towns, and their unique vision and talents will enable us to deepen our users’ engagement with our sites. We’re also excited to be launching HuffPost/50, HuffPost Gay Voices, HuffPost Weddings and HuffPost High School, the latest sections in our continued effort to provide content, community and a platform for expression for our readers’ every interest and passion. We’re also thrilled to welcome Lisa Belkin, who has built a large following with her writing on parenting and work/life balance issues, and who is a leader in online community building. She’ll be launching her ‘Parentlode’ blog on October 17th.”

Creating and Nurturing Online Communities to Make Lives Better

Localocracy was founded in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2009 as an online forum encouraging citizens to engage in local issues, share concerns and opinions, and rank problem-solving ideas. Its goal was to surface problems and employ the power of persuasion to spotlight solutions to issues big and small. At HPMG, founders White-Sullivan and Soules will build on their innovative approach to enhancing local democracy while leveraging HPMG’s powerful online community platform to engage its large and networked audience. Also joining the Group from Localocracy is Jay Boice, who will be instrumental in building new technologies to support enhanced online community interaction.

Said Conor and Soules: “What we’ve learned with Localocracy is that by harnessing user-generated content, we’re able to unleash a lot of people power. Our methodology is simple: we believe that everyone is an expert about something, so we want to give voice to that expertise and allow an exchange of ideas for all to see and participate in. We’re excited to be teaming up with The Huffington Post Media Group, a leader in social news and user engagement, and look forward to pushing the boundaries of what can be done when combining journalism and technology for the common good.”

Four New Sites; Four New Communities

The Huffington Post Media Group announces today the launch of four destination sites: Huff/Post50 (www.huffingtonpost.com/50), HuffPost Gay Voices (www.huffingtonpost.com/gay-voices) and HuffPost Weddings (www.huffingtonpost/weddings). Each offers HuffPost’s unique combination of real-time news and opinion, and passionate communities powered by a leading social news platform.

HuffPost/50 — whose Editor-at-Large is actress, producer and writer Rita Wilson — covers the challenges, complexities and joys facing the boomer generation, now 77 million people strong. It spotlights boomers who fearlessly tackle new challenges in the spirit of reinventing themselves, regardless of age, and encourages boomers to question conventional wisdom about aging. Topics being covered include: longevity, relationships and sex, politics, the intense “sandwich” pressure of simultaneously taking care of aging parents and children, retirement, spirituality and religion, friendship, politics and dying.

The site is meant to be thought-provoking yet also humorous and life-affirming, and while encouraging boomers to seize the present, Huff/Post50 welcomes reflection and the sharing of hard-earned wisdom. The site is a rare platform for people 50 and older who want to share what’s on their minds. Bloggers on the section include: Bill Maher, ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour, and musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson.

Said Rita Wilson: “The idea that we boomers are somehow supposed to wind things down as we get older completely escapes me. Exploring the minds and hearts of this group of people is exciting. It’s never too late to mix things up, change your life, to get to what you really should be doing — or want to be doing. As Mark Twain said, ‘Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.’”

HuffPost High School, launching tomorrow, is a place for teens to engage with one another about what’s really happening in their lives — socially, academically, and culturally. The site features some of the nation’s top high school journalists and is a dynamic platform for teen bloggers. It’s a go-to guide for everything teens care about, from college prep, the nuances of social networking, culture, and celebrity gossip to high school sports, comedy, politics, the prom and beyond.

HuffPost Gay Voices, also launching today, covers the complexities of the LGBT community, from family and faith to politics and sexuality. The section covers news, culture, and trends, and offers opinion that spotlights all matters of interest to the LGBT community. The site fearlessly looks at powerful yet silent influences on identity and relationships, such as class, race and religion. HuffPost Gay Voices features everything from travel, style and entertainment to politics, personalities and health. Launch week bloggers include Christine Quinn, Margaret Cho and Bruce Vilanch. The Human Rights Campaign is Gay Voices’ inaugural sponsor.

HuffPost Weddings, the third section launching today, has comprehensive coverage of weddings and marriage from all angles, from untraditional wedding cakes and exotic dream honeymoons, to the more practical, including tips on navigating the world of wedding planners, contemporary wedding etiquette, and more. The site will spark discussions about everything from managing the family politics of inter-faith ceremonies and the nuances of gay weddings to the latest proposal video gone viral. And while HuffPost Weddings is meant as a one-stop-shop of advice with a supportive community for those planning their weddings, it also appeals to a wider audience interested in the culture and mores of modern weddings planning, weddings, and marriage. Bloggers on the site include: Heidi Klum; Kelly Meyer; celebrity wedding planners Mindy Weiss, Sharon Sacks, Preston Bailey, and Colin Cowie; designers Nanette Lepore, Angel Sanchez, Reem Acra; and more.

Rapid HuffPost Expansion; Record Audience and Engagement

The Huffington Post’s rapid expansion has only intensified following its merger with AOL in March. The site recorded its largest number of unique visitors per month last month — 37 million* — and also surpassed 1 billion page views for the first time. In addition, HuffPost’s engaged community continues to grow, posting a record 5.1 million comments in August.

With the four sites launching this week, HuffPost will have debuted 21 sections since the merger, all listed here:

• Huff/Post50
• HuffPost BlackVoices
• HuffPost Canada
• HuffPost Canada Living
• HuffPost Celebrity
• HuffPost Culture
• HuffPost Gay Voices
• HuffPost High School
• HuffPost LatinoVoices
• HuffPost Locals: San Francisco, D.C
• HuffPost Parents
• HuffPost San Francisco
• HuffPost Small Business
• HuffPost Travel
• HuffPost UK
• HuffPost UK Tech
• HuffPost UK Universities & Education
• HuffPost Women
• StyleList
• StyleList Home

(*comScore, Aug. 2011)

I love the smell of blog wars in the morning!

Acting as Facebook often does to Google, a new site started by former Engadget editor Josh Topolsky just hired away yet another passel of tech journalists from the giant gadget news and reviews organization.

Editorial movement is not uncommon on tech news sites, but this level of it from one site to another is somewhat, um, aggressive.

Engadget, which is owned by AOL, is one of the largest tech-focused sites on the Web. Topolsky left his editor-in-chief job there in March.

By April, he had grabbed eight prominent Engadget staffers who had left the huge tech site amid editorial tensions, in order to start a new competing gadget property for the well-funded sports content start-up SB Nation.

Now, sources said, Topolsky has added Thomas Ricker, an Engadget senior editor, who had run its European coverage; Sean Hollister, a senior associate editor, who ran its West coast team; and Joseph Flatley, an associate editor.

Also hired: Thomas Houston, editor-in-chief of Switched, an AOL tech site that was recently subsumed into its Huffington Post Media unit; and Dieter Bohn, who was editor-in-chief for the Smartphone Experts network of sites, including Crackberry and others.

And other possible new hires soon from Engadget: Another European editor, Vlad Savov, and writer Jacob Schulman.

The Topolsky-helmed site is still unnamed but is now operating as This Is My Next. It already has 16 writers, compared to Engadget’s two dozen, and is set to debut in the fall with a new name.

It will be the first content expansion at the Washington, D.C., SB Nation, which completed a $10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall.

Before that, SB Nation had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.

Another AOL link: SB Nation was founded by former AOLer, CEO Jim Bankoff, who had bought Engadget for AOL many years ago.

Engadget Editorial Director Josh Frulinger said that the impact of the talent drain on Engadget — mostly from This Is My Next raids — has been small, since the site has also been aggressively hiring.

“We’re past the people leaving and into celebrating what we’ve accomplished in six short months, and we welcome any new competition,” he said. “Dana Wollman, Brian Heater, Myriam Joire, Zach Honig, Joe Pollicino, Richard Lawler, Michael Gorman, Sean Buckley, Joseph Volpe, Brad Molen, Terrence O’Brien, Amar Toor and Sharif Skar — all brought on in the past six months — are your Engadget stars of tomorrow.”

To prove it, AOL said unique visitors for Engadget in June were up 1.1 percent from May and will be up again for July. In recent reports, the site had 14 million unique monthly visitors.

The state added 90,600 jobs in the first quarter, more than the increase of 82,600 for all of 2010, according to seasonally adjusted data from its Employment Development Department that exceeded most analysts’ estimates. That put California, a poster state for American economies hobbled by the housing bust, above the national average, with a year-over-year increase in employment of 1.2% in the first quarter, compared with one percent nationwide.

And it puts a balanced budget within dreaming distance. California’s deficit stood at $26 billion just a few weeks ago, before lawmakers agreed to $11 billion in spending cuts. If the jobs machine keeps revving, it could shave as much as $6 billion off the remaining $15 billion deficit through fiscal 2012, said Justin Garosi, an economist for the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

While Facebook should not be expecting big bouquets of love from its partner and investor Microsoft, at least it’s not going to be getting legal brickbats either.

According to sources close to the situation, the pair have settled a dispute over the Silicon Valley social networking site’s talent raid of Microsoft’s head of global ad sales, Carolyn Everson, for a similar job at Facebook.

In fact, Everson has already been at work for a week, sources said, after she agreed not to solicit a small group of advertising clients for a short period of time.

She is also barred from using any strategic information in her new Facebook job that she obtained while at Microsoft, sources said.

This kind of agreement is not uncommon in disputed job shifts and is also a far cry from a more stringent legal outcome, which might have benched her completely for some time.

But Everson is a veteran ad exec, having previously worked at Viacom’s MTV Networks. Thus, Microsoft could not have barred her from calling on advertisers she had known previous to her short employment there.

Still, the February hiring by Facebook came as a surprise to many at Microsoft, especially since Everson (pictured here) had been hired only last June, after a long search. In that time, she had become a high-profile presence at internal and external Microsoft events.

So, it’s clear the Everson hiring infuriated Microsoft execs, especially since the company regards Facebook as a close partner. Microsoft is a longtime investor too.

“We’re no longer angry,” said one source at Microsoft, about the cooling of tensions, “as much as disappointed.”

But key in the weighing of options at Microsoft is the obvious importance of keeping up good relations with Facebook. It is an important partnership, especially for its Bing search business, especially as an advantage over Google.

Thus: Bygones!

Yesterday, BoomTown spent a good part of the day at Yahoo’s HQ in Sunnyvale, Calif., meeting with various product execs and seeing some cool new stuff in the works.

I was impressed, as I had been several times over the many years I have covered the Silicon Valley Internet giant, where I have seen innovative efforts by the truckload.

That is, until they never saw the light of day, until some random teenaged entrepreneur got giant funding for the very same idea months later.

I put this question of failure to ship to Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, who got to the company a little less than a year ago with the goal of shaking the place up.

Irving’s last job was as corporate VP of Microsoft’s Windows Live Platform group.

He left Microsoft several years ago, after 15 years, to spend time with his family and had been teaching at Pepperdine University.

Since he got to Yahoo, he’s certainly done some layoffs, restructuring and hiring–mostly from Microsoft–and now he is promising that there will be big changes in how Yahoo manages its product pipeline.

Here’s a longish video interview with Irving–who is a live wire, as you will see, as well as a wearer of soft and luxe candylicious sweaters–talking about this key issue, the search business, talent retention and more:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110330/video-the-cashmere-stylings-of-yahoo-chief-product-officer-blake-irving/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110330/amid-talent-war-limos-com-tries-speed-hiring/ http://allthingsd.com/20110330/amid-talent-war-limos-com-tries-speed-hiring/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:00:57 +0000 Lizette Chapman http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=38332 Fresh from raising a $10 million Series A round from Austin Ventures, Limos.com LLC is riding high.

The San Francisco-based company, which operates an online marketplace for limousine services, has been profitable since day one, is tracking to do $12 million in revenue this calendar year and now has the cash to scale operations worldwide and go mobile.

Still, like any company trying to expand, growth doesn’t come without a few speed bumps.

Limos.com’s toughest challenge: Hiring.

“It reminds me of 2000,” said Chief Executive T.J Booker, who was the first employee Hotwire.com hired back in the dot-com bubble days.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110330/amid-talent-war-limos-com-tries-speed-hiring/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110321/amd-hires-its-new-cio-away-from-hewlett-packard/ http://allthingsd.com/20110321/amd-hires-its-new-cio-away-from-hewlett-packard/#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:20:21 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=4212 Executives from Hewlett-Packard certainly seem to be in demand from other companies these days, and prospective poachers are clearly having better luck in their recruiting than others. On the same day that reports emerged that chipmaker Intel had unsuccessfully courted Todd Bradley, head of HP’s $41 billion personal systems group for a job that might have led to his being tapped as Paul Otellini’s successor, now we learn that Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices has hired its new CIO away from HP.

His name is Michael Wolfe. He’s 52 and has worked for HP for five years, most recently as VP for Information Technology. This will be his second go as a CIO. Before his stint at HP, he spent 24 years at Motorola’s Semiconductor Unit and was CIO during the period it was spun out to become Freescale Semiconductor.

His new boss, AMD’s interim CEO Thomas Seifert, had high praise. “Mike has effectively led IT transformations constantly focusing on reducing operating costs and significantly improving business innovation,” he said in a statement. “His considerable talent and experience will help AMD to continue strengthening our IT infrastructure and streamline our business based on our own products and platforms.”

This hiring is taking place against the backdrop of the complicated, difficult search for a new CEO at AMD following the surprise resignation of Dirk Meyer in January. COO Robert Rivet soon followed.

AMD shares haven’t moved much since then, and it has been the subject of recurring problematic buyout rumors. Today the shares closed at $8.55, unchanged from the prior session, and that’s up only a nickel from where it was at the start of the year. Shares fell five cents in after-hours trading. Investors seem to consider AMD a company in a holding pattern until there’s some resolution in the corner office.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110321/amd-hires-its-new-cio-away-from-hewlett-packard/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110314/facebook-lures-google-dealmaker/ http://allthingsd.com/20110314/facebook-lures-google-dealmaker/#comments Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:06:24 +0000 Michael Hickins http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=37636 Facebook has hired away Google’s director of corporate development, Amin Zoufonoun, making him its director of corporate development, where his responsibilities will likely include hiring other business development specialists and pursuing acquisitions and partnerships.

The poaching also signals intensifying competition for talent between the two companies, and comes in the wake of Facebook’s February hiring of Google’s chief of sales in Latin America. Last year, Facebook also hired a real estate executive and a key software engineer from Google’s embrace.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110314/facebook-lures-google-dealmaker/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110307/amazons-hiring-spree-will-fill-1-7-million-square-feet-of-office-space-in-seattle/ http://allthingsd.com/20110307/amazons-hiring-spree-will-fill-1-7-million-square-feet-of-office-space-in-seattle/#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:02:54 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=3344 Amazon is on a hiring spree, and what better way to illustrate it than to look at the company’s brand new headquarters, spanning more than 1.7 million square feet.

A story in the Seattle Times this weekend detailed the company’s growing pains as it nears an end to a years-long process to relocate from a number of buildings around town to a centralized campus in downtown Seattle.

The e-commerce giant now occupies seven buildings covering 845,000 square feet, and has long-term leases to occupy more than 1.7 million square feet, including four buildings still to come.

On a worldwide basis, Amazon is gobbling up talent right and left.

In 2010, its ranks swelled by 9,400 positions to 33,700 employees.

It now lists openings for 1,900 jobs in Seattle, which is twice as many as a year ago, The Seattle Times reports. Of those, more than 900 are for technical positions.

Amazon has chosen to relocate in an area just outside of the downtown core that is being revitalized by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Real Estate venture. Called South Lake Union, Allen envisions the area being a magnet for biotech and other tech companies.

Since Allen started investing in the neighborhood, it’s become home to a ton of new lofts and townhomes, a mix of new restaurants, hotels, stores and an electric streetcar that connects the corridor to downtown.

Separately, Vulcan Real Estate announced today that it had completed the third phase of Amazon.com’s new headquarters, with two new office buildings now fully occupied. When completed, the project will have five phases, totaling 11 buildings, some new and some historic. Phase IV is currently under construction and includes three buildings set to open this spring. The final phase, which includes one new office building, has also broken ground and will open in 2013.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110307/amazons-hiring-spree-will-fill-1-7-million-square-feet-of-office-space-in-seattle/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20110307/aol-deal-closes-today-as-more-high-profile-huffington-post-journalism-hires-signal-new-direction/ http://allthingsd.com/20110307/aol-deal-closes-today-as-more-high-profile-huffington-post-journalism-hires-signal-new-direction/#comments Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:01:55 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=41315 AOL will officially close its $315 million acquisition of the Huffington Post today, according to several sources close to the situation.

The culmination of the deal–which has already been approved by regulators–is set to be announced by the New York-based company this morning, only one month after it was struck.

And–in a clear sign of the shift in its focus toward a more editorially driven direction under the now-official content head Arianna Huffington (pictured here)–sources said the closing will be accompanied by the announcement of the hiring of a half-dozen journalists to AOL’s new Huffington Post Media Group unit.

Among the new reporters are some more high-profile grabs from other media giants, including The Daily’s Jon Ward. He has been the Washington bureau chief for New Corp.’s high-profile online newspaper, which only recently launched.

Also set to join AOL is Yahoo’s senior media writer Michael Calderone.

Interestingly, along with more experienced editorial staff, sources said the announcement will also include new hires via the Huffington Post’s Jefferson Program for Young Journalists.

Sources said the new hires are only the beginning of a series of them, as the impact of the leadership of Huffington becomes clearer.

Along with the news and opinion site, the well-known media personality is now in charge of all of AOL’s varied content properties, including its locally aimed Patch.

Huffington, with obviously strong support from AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, has been talking a lot in a plethora of interviews since the deal was announced a few weeks ago about the importance of creating a new media organization focused on original reporting.

In a way, AOL is now competing with big news sites such as those on Yahoo, as well as smaller niche content and also mainstream entities.

Even before the deal was struck with AOL, the Huffington Post had been heading down that path of pulling in mainstream journalists. Last year, it hired former New York Times economics writer Peter Goodman and former Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman, among others.

The formula? Adding the strong journalism reputation of these reporters to the eclectic mix of socializing, blogging, celebritizing and aggressive aggregating that the site has used to garner huge amounts of traffic in recent years.

As I had previously written, the AOL Way–the same for a strategy document about content on the site–is now the Arianna Way.

Here are Huffington and Armstrong talking about such issues in in an exclusive video interview BoomTown did with them just before they announced the deal on Super Bowl Sunday about a month ago:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110307/aol-deal-closes-today-as-more-high-profile-huffington-post-journalism-hires-signal-new-direction/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110215/exclusive-facebook-grabs-microsoft-ad-head-everson/ http://allthingsd.com/20110215/exclusive-facebook-grabs-microsoft-ad-head-everson/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 00:19:48 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=40821

Apparently, it’s not only in Google’s pond where Facebook fishes for talent–the social networking giant has recruited Microsoft’s global advertising head Carolyn Everson as one of its top sales execs.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the hiring, after a query this afternoon by BoomTown. Everson will be VP of Global Sales at the Silicon Valley company, although is likely to be located in New York.

The move will surely cause some tensions with the software giant, which is both a prominent partner of and investor in Facebook, especially since Everson was only hired at Microsoft last June after a long search.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg addressed that issue in a statement:

“Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued. We have a long and strong relationship that includes search ads on our site, a social layer on Bing search results and a deep and popular integration with Xbox. They are a leader when it comes to unlocking the power of social for their already popular products and services. We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them.”

A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.

Despite the possible awkwardness between Facebook and Microsoft–hey, we stole your top sales exec, but you rock!–the move to Facebook is a big opportunity for Everson.

But, according to sources, the former MTV Networks ad exec had become frustrated by the intense focus on pushing traffic to Microsoft’s Bing search service from its MSN portal at the expense of premium ad sales.

In addition, with the massive search and advertising partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo now in place, Everson was also not able to offer search advertising from Microsoft to marketers in packages. Yahoo is now in charge of that offering.

Everson will essentially be replacing longtime and well-regarded Facebook ad exec Mike Murphy, who left the Palo Alto, Calif., company last fall. She will report to former Googler David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

But it was COO Sheryl Sandberg, said sources, who was most focused on Everson. In fact, she just “friended” Everson on Facebook this week, as did another top ad exec, Tom Arrix.

Having a top exec who is amenable to and well known by Madison Avenue is key for Facebook as it ramps up its business, in anticipation of an IPO next year.

Despite being private, Facebook has recently been valued at between $50 and $60 billion by investors, who have been eagerly buying up shares of the company on secondary markets.

Under Murphy and Fischer, ad sales have been doing well already. Facebook’s share of online display advertising has more than quadrupled, from about three percent to almost 14 percent of the nearly $9 billion U.S. market, according to a recent survey.

In growing so quickly, Facebook has grabbed ad revenue–reportedly $2 billion last year–from old online powerhouses, especially Yahoo and AOL, and is also in a big fight with Google over premium ad sales.

Facebook’s surging usage and engagement are the reasons for the increased interest from advertisers, as well as its global growth in both market share and mindshare of consumers.

Thus, the search for a Murphy replacement was far-ranging, and included interest in a number of prominent ad execs from traditional media giants and also ad agencies.

The appointment is a big move for the dynamic Everson, who has mostly worked in the mainstream media for much of her career.

Everson came to Microsoft from a job as EVP of Strategy and Operations for the MTV Networks U.S. ad sales department.

Interestingly, she was also on the short list of candidates Yahoo was once perusing to fill the key U.S. ad sales job after Joanne Bradford departed for Demand Media.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110215/exclusive-facebook-grabs-microsoft-ad-head-everson/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20110202/spotify-isnt-in-the-u-s-is-hiring-there/ http://allthingsd.com/20110202/spotify-isnt-in-the-u-s-is-hiring-there/#comments Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:12:59 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=29078 Spotify has one U.S. label deal and at least one more–with Citigroup’s EMI–that’s very, very close. That doesn’t mean the music service is guaranteed to land in the States, but it’s hiring as if it will: It has just picked up former LimeWire engineer John Pavley, and will put him to work at Spotify’s New York office. It’s also looking for a finance pro.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110202/spotify-isnt-in-the-u-s-is-hiring-there/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110125/make-the-googleplex-25-percent-bigger-google-adding-6000-hires-this-year/ http://allthingsd.com/20110125/make-the-googleplex-25-percent-bigger-google-adding-6000-hires-this-year/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:52:03 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=28573 Google plans its “biggest hiring year in company history” in 2011, the company announced today. That means something north of 6,000 new hires, which was the company’s previous record, set in 2007. And that will push Google’s total head count above 30,000 by the end of the year. Last year Google added more than 4,500 bodies. Bear in mind that many of those came via acquisitions, like the AdMob deal.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110125/make-the-googleplex-25-percent-bigger-google-adding-6000-hires-this-year/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110112/longtime-facebook-biz-dev-leader-ali-rosenthal-to-depart/ http://allthingsd.com/20110112/longtime-facebook-biz-dev-leader-ali-rosenthal-to-depart/#comments Thu, 13 Jan 2011 05:00:56 +0000 Liz Gannes http://networkeffect.allthingsd.com/?p=2318 Alison “Ali” Rosenthal, a veteran of the Facebook business development team, will leave the company at the end of this week, she told NetworkEffect.

Rosenthal had focused on mobile business development in recent years, overseeing Facebook’s relationships with some 300 mobile operators around the world. She is not departing for a specific opportunity, though she said it was likely she’ll end up involved in another start-up.

Rosenthal had joined the company in February 2006, making her one of its earliest remaining employees. She’s the latest of many early Facebookers, including the three Facebook co-founders other than Mark Zuckerberg, to depart over the years.

“I’ve started to feel the pull of some new ideas,” said Rosenthal, adding that she felt Facebook had “unlocked real opportunities at the convergence of mobile and social” that she wants to explore.

By way of explanation for her own and other early-Facebooker departures, Rosenthal contended it’s just that Facebookers tend to be entrepreneurial, and recognize opportunities to extend the social Web in new directions outside of Facebook’s core mission. “It’s very alluring to try a specific idea in an industry you’re passionate about,” she said.

But for now, Rosenthal wants to take some time off. The only specific future plan she would share is to ditch her smartphone for a feature phone for a while in order to “extract myself a little from technology.”

Rosenthal has her MBA from Stanford and previously worked at General Atlantic Partners and Zazzle. She said her replacement has not yet been found, but that Facebook is hiring internationally to have biz dev folks overseeing carrier relationships on a local basis from offices in Europe, Asia and elsewhere.

Other significant recent Facebook departures have included ad sales head Mike Murphy, engineering director Aditya Agarwal and PR head Brandee Barker.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110112/longtime-facebook-biz-dev-leader-ali-rosenthal-to-depart/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20101214/buywithme-likely-to-raise-more-cash-as-competitors-pull-ahead/ http://allthingsd.com/20101214/buywithme-likely-to-raise-more-cash-as-competitors-pull-ahead/#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2010 01:57:10 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=620 BuyWithMe confirmed today that its CEO, Cheryl Rosner, has left the company after only eight months on the job.

To get the skinny, we caught up with the company’s Interim president, David Wolfe, who was promoted from chief product officer as the company seeks a new leader. Wolfe would not elaborate beyond echoing the company’s statement that the decision for Rosner to leave was mutual.

However, Rosner’s departure hints at how nascent the market for daily deals and social/group buying is, and how there’s still work to be done to figure out the economics.

The year-and-a-half old Groupon competitor is no exception. If you aren’t familiar, BuyWithMe is often considered the third- or fourth-largest outfit in the group-buying space. The company, which recently moved to New York City from Boston, operates in 12 markets, and has raised $21 million in venture capital. It has 93 employees.

Wolfe acknowledges that a hiring spree is necessary to catch up to its nearest rivals, Groupon and LivingSocial, and that it will likely need more capital to continue its aggressive expansion plans. “The intent will be to raise more money; it’s a probable event,” he said.

As it is, BuyWithMe will likely miss this year’s goal of being in 15 markets by at least one. But generally, Wolfe says, that’s not the problem: “We are taking a step back. What is most important is for our emerging markets to grow to maturity, and for us to push them over the hump and increase our market share.”

Right now, he claims, BuyWithMe’s best performing market is its first: Boston. Trailing close behind is New York City and Washington, D.C., but the other nine are struggling to have a deal every day. “They are performing as expected, given the focus level and resource level we’ve given them….It’s less that we stumbled strategically, but we really spread ourselves too thin to get into multiple markets, and now we are focusing on making sure we are providing great service.”

Wolfe acknowledges the competition by saying it’s a hard space to build brand loyalty. Consumers will gravitate to the best deal every time, so they are focusing on creating loyalty with merchants. “Our focus is on making sure we are delivering an amazing service to our merchants and consumers. A lot of people have jumped into the game, and it’s a challenging business. It’s not a small feat to deliver [deals] on a consistent basis.”

Does Wolfe believe there’s room for more growth in the market–beyond the successes of Groupon and LivingSocial?

His answer is yes. “I don’t think even with Groupon’s amazing execution that we are even close. We see a lot of blue ocean and a lot of untapped eyeballs on the consumer side across a lot of locations. The excitement over the past couple of months is not the end stage. We are seeing first innings, where a transformational shift is occurring on how retailers reach consumers. That’s fundamental.”

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