Human-First: The GTM Hiring Show

Most people using AI in recruiting are asking the wrong question. They want to know how much they can automate. Cassie Chao Leemans wants to know where the human has to stay in the loop, and she has built her entire workflow around that distinction. Cassie is VP of Talent at Craft Ventures, a team of one, and a recruiter with 15 years of experience scaling teams at Uber, Palantir, and Threads. Ove...

Here's how to tell if you need a GTM Engineer and what to fix first. Lauren Hughes is VP of Revenue Effectiveness at JustWorks, where she rebuilt the entire function from the ground up by merging rev ops and enablement, introducing GTM engineering roles, and hiring AI enablement specialists. Roughly 75% of her team is either new or in a completely different seat than before. From this episode of H...

A lot of founders get their first go-to-market hire wrong. Not because they pick the wrong resume, but because they skip the thinking that comes before the job description. You've raised the round, your investors are pushing you to scale, and you're copy-pasting job descriptions from companies ten times your size. But you don't actually know what "great" looks like for this role at your stage, and...

Most European founders expanding to the US make the same hiring mistake. This episode breaks down what actually works when building a commercial team across the Atlantic. Tired of watching US expansion burn through cash with nothing to show for it? Wondering whether to hire senior or junior first, which city to land in, or how to stop your new US team from churning out within a year? James Isilay...

Your first revenue-generating hire can unlock your Series A or quietly burn 12 months of runway. This episode breaks down how to get it right. Hiring your first salesperson when you don't come from a sales background? You don't know what "great" looks like, sellers are experts at selling themselves, and the old playbook of poaching from a big-logo company keeps backfiring. Sound familiar? Ben News...

Welcome to Human First.  AI is reshaping every stage of the hiring funnel. But the companies winning the talent war aren't the ones automating the most, they're the ones knowing exactly where to draw the line. You're buried in AI-optimized applications, unsure which tools to trust, and wondering whether your recruiting function even has a future. Sound familiar? Hung Lee curates Recruiting Brainfo...

Most companies say they want AI-native hires. Almost none of them can tell the real thing from a polished talking point. You're writing "AI fluency required" into every job description, but when you sit across from a candidate, you don't actually know what good looks like. And your interview process? It's probably optimized for charisma, not competence. Kyle Norton is CRO at Owner.com, one of the...

Welcome to Human First.  The bar for AI fluency in go-to-market hiring has shifted dramatically and most executives haven't caught up. You know you need to talk about AI in interviews, but you're not sure what "good" actually looks like anymore. Is using ChatGPT to brainstorm enough? Should you be building dashboards? And how do you evaluate something you're still figuring out yourself? Andy Mowat...

We help early- to mid-stage SaaS founders and revenue leaders make go-to market hires that actually stick. If you're about to make a GTM hire and want to get it right, book a meeting with the Captivate Talent team Most SaaS founders are making go-to-market hires based on gut feel and outdated playbooks. In this teaser, the team at Captivate Talent introduces Human First, the show that pulls back t...