Is Bill Gates the greatest corporate recruiter in History? What can CEO’s & business leaders learn?

Is Bill Gates the best Recruiter ever?

He might well be, and it may come as a surprise that as well as being one of the finest CEO’s he’s also right up there with the best Recruiters who has ever lived.

It’s a little known fact about Bill Gates that he spent the biggest portion of his time in the 70’s & 80’s working on recruiting the best Talent. As well as being CEO, he was also in effect Microsoft’s chief internal recruiter.

He would spend his time identifying the very best programmers, software developers & designers in America, often flying around the country to meet them sell them the vision of Microsoft’s software and convince them to join the company.

Bill Gates understood one thing very clearly at this point in Microsoft’s development:  Whoever has the best Talent wins.  And he also understood that it was his job to ensure Microsoft were hiring the best talent.

So what can we learn and actually do as CEO’s, company founders & Business Leaders to be more like Bill?

1. Don’t divorce yourself from the hiring process.  Hiring great talent should be a huge part of your role and not something just going on around you in the business
2. It is absolutely your responsibility to be very clear on understanding & identifying who the best Talent is that is going to enable your business to WIN, and also be very clear on the strategy & tactics of how you can bring that Talent to the hiring table and convince those individuals to join your company.
3. Understand the supply & demand dynamics in the ‘Talent Markets’ you want to hire in.  This equation will help inform your strategy

So remember, whoever has the best Talent wins and be a bit more like Bill 🙂