Lessons in hiring: How Ryan Gosling helped in Hulu’s battle with culture vampires.

One of the biggest decisions you make as you’re building a company is who you hire. But hiring can be a serious drag.

You have to figure out what you’re looking for, write job descriptions, read resumes, schedule interviews, and take the time to evaluate candidates — all on top of the million other things demanding your attention. And when you feel pressure to grow quickly, it can be tempting to offer the job to the first person who sounds like they could do it.

But in your rush to fill a seat, you might just fill it with a culture vampire.

To be fair, a culture vampire can totally do the job you’re hiring for. They probably perform really well on the things you can measure objectively. They may even seem like they’ve got the smarts to help you succeed in a big way.(1)

But subjectively… they suck.

Even though they’ve got the skills for the spotlight, culture vampires still spend their time lurking in the shadows. They slowly drain the life out of your team. With a snarky comment placed here. A pissed off customer there. A spreadsheet tracking the mistakes of another coworker “accidentally” left on the copier over there.