Explore

Cohort-based Course on Startup Hiring

⁠

Apply Here

⁠

Cohort 1 was over-subscribed.

Now accepting applications for Cohort 2.

“Great vision without great people is irrelevant.” – Jim Collins

⁠

Who am I?

👋 I’m Kenny Mendes, and I’m creating a new cohort-based course designed to help recruiters, founders/CEOs, and hiring managers build and scale top-tier teams.

I’ve spent the last decade obsessing over how to build exceptional organizations.

Currently lead the People & Operations team at Coda: I helped hire a world-class org, growing the company from 7 to 100+. We deployed innovative equity structures that led to best-in-class closing rates.

Grew Box from 40 to 1,200 & IPO: I was the first recruiting hire at Box and led the recruiting team from 2009 to 2014. People I mentored there are now driving recruiting at companies like Airtable, Notion, Databricks, Affirm, Miro, Asana, and Fastly.

Roots in Executive Search: I started my recruiting career at Riviera Partners where I learned how to communicate a compelling value prop for any type of company, from high-flying social networks to drab property management software.

CEO Advisor: I’ve helped countless founders work through challenging hiring problems - some at early stages and others while they were trying to scale rapidly.

👉 Feel free to connect with me on

LinkedIn⁠

Twitter⁠

What’s covered in the course?

🔎 Find: learn how to build a high quality pipeline, including effective passive sourcing campaigns.

📣 Pitch: become an expert at positioning your company and opportunity well.

🧠 Evaluate: everything from breaking down a resume (fast!) to building repeatable, predictive, and compelling interview flows.

✅ Close: dramatically increase your ability to get candidates to ‘yes.’

You’ll make better quality hires and fewer mistakes.

Who is this course for?

Recruiters: Early in career or senior; individual contributor or team lead. You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t, so you can be a more insightful and effective hiring partner.

Founders and CEOs: Gain a clear understanding of the full funnel, and know how to troubleshoot if things aren’t going well. Ensure your team effectively converts offers into hires.

Hiring Managers: Learn how to get the best people interested in your roles, and become an amazing interviewer.

This course will not provide shortcuts or magic bullets. It will be the frameworks, techniques, and templates that lead to building the strongest, most diverse teams in engineering, product, GTM, and operations.

Commitment

Apply now to save your spot for Cohort 2.

The course will run over three weeks and will be designed for people with full-time jobs. Workshops will be held in the evenings PST over Zoom.

Community Endorsements

❤️

See our wall of love here.⁠

❤️

Kenny is the best recruiter I know. YC founders always reach out to Kenny for advice on how to recruit, build engineering brand and close candidates.

- Anu Hariharan, Partner at Y Combinator

Not only is Kenny a master of what he does - he's an expert teacher of his craft. His business acumen + first-principles thinking + scaling experience = pure recruiting gold. Take this class!

- Marta Pinilla Aguilar, Head of Recruiting, Airtable

I have had the pleasure of working with Kenny for a decade. He is the perfect mixture of operational excellence and strategy. There are few people with his level of mastery when it comes to startup hiring.

- Daniel Portillo, Managing Partner, Sweat Equity Ventures

Kenny led recruiting at Box during a period of hyper growth. He is an amazing recruiting leader and expert, always pushing for new and better ways to locate and assess talent, and find hires that will add to the company's diversity. I learned a ton from Kenny in my 3 years working with him, and I know that you will too!

- Evan Wittenberg, SVP and Chief People Officer, Ancestry.com

⁠

Apply Here

⁠

Cohort 1 was over-subscribed.

Now accepting applications for Cohort 2.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.