Order Out of Chaos: Susan Chy, Founding Recruiter at Modo Energy

In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Susan Chy, Founding Recruiter at Modo Energy. Susan spent 15 years in talent acquisition, starting at Google and Amazon, then joined startups as the first recruiter at employee number 10, 20 or 30. We recorded in her first week at Modo Energy, a company in the energy and climate tech space. Susan walks through her first month in a company with no hiring playbook: assess what is in place and who the stakeholders are, become an expert in the product before the first candidate call, plan with founders and hiring managers as a partner, then execute and measure. Her rule is to create order out of chaos without building a bureaucracy: one standard interview process with room for engineering and sales to differ, shortcuts that keep the vetting, and a process that never trades quality for speed. Then the founder side of the job. Susan explains why she offers a test instead of advice ("let's try this, and if not, I'm happy to go back"), why data from a spreadsheet is enough when there is no ATS, how drop-off and withdrawals give first-time founders their "come to Jesus moment" about unicorn expectations, and why a founding recruiter has to make their own impact visible, from all-hands updates to a Slack announcement, instead of waiting to be asked. **Timecodes** 01:17 Welcome: Susan Chy, 15 years in TA from Google and Amazon to startups 02:33 The first month with no playbook: assess, plan, execute 05:20 Order out of chaos without the red tape 06:10 One interview process or twenty: standardizing across teams 07:31 Speed versus quality 08:58 When founders bring in their own hires: building trust 11:06 What older Susan does differently with founders 12:32 Metrics you can track without an ATS 13:54 Unicorn expectations and the come to Jesus moment 17:24 The first 30 days at a new startup 18:42 Make your impact visible: over-communicate 22:26 How to connect with Susan \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\__ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\__ Connect with Susan Chy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanchy/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\__ Resources mentioned in this episode: Modo Energy: https://modoenergy.com/ \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\__ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml