How we hire at Compound

An honest look at how I think about building an exceptional content team.

Tommy Clark
April 08, 2025

Hey!

Welcome to Social Files—your no-BS guide to generating demand for your B2B product using social & content.

Hope you had a great weekend. I spent the weekend reading (currently reading Mistborn: Well of Ascension), eating paella, and catching up on sleep.

Working from Barcelona in the European timezone has taught me two things:

(1) Euro mornings are glorious. No Slack messages. 6-7hrs of pure, deep work.

(2) Taking meetings at 9pm on a Friday night is not it, and almost enough to cancel out the benefits of working from over here.

(3) I also miss Whole Foods and cold brew. Just being honest.

Now, today’s edition. It’s a little different, but I think you’ll like it. I’m walking you through exactly how I think about hiring at Compound—my content agency. I’ve taken 1000+ interviews over the past 2 years and built the team to 15 people. While I’m not an expert, I have picked up on what’s required to be a great content professional on our team.

Shall we?

(BTW - we’re hiring. If you read this and think, hell yeah…check out our listings here.)

🔎 DEEP DIVE

How we hire at Compound

An honest look at how I think about building an exceptional content team.

It’s been just over 2 years since I left my job to launch Compound.

In that time I’ve learned that recruiting and hiring are my most important jobs as an agency CEO. My top priority is attracting the best content talent I can to join our team.

Compound is not the place for everyone. If you're looking for a ‘chill job,’ no hard feelings, but this is probably not the place for you. If you’re serious about becoming the best writer you can be, and committed to doing what it takes to get there, this might be the company for you.

See, early on, I filtered our ambition. I thought it would make us seem ‘crazy’ to good candidates.

Will they get scared if I tell them that there might be some days that require working past 5:01pm? Will they get their feelings hurt after getting critical feedback on a piece of writing?

Well yeah, some people would. But those aren’t people we’d have wanted working at Compound anyway. Had I been more direct about what our culture really looks like, I could have saved myself hours—maybe even days—of dead-end screening calls.

Candidly, I also would have avoided hiring some people I shouldn’t have. I second guessed whether my expectations were ‘reasonable,’ and some poor-fit fires made their way into our team. That’s my mistake—not theirs.

I’ve had several moments where I’ve seen what excellence looks like firsthand.

The first was actually pretty early on. We worked (still work) with a freelance writer who was excellent. He over-communicates. He completes work on time. And most importantly…his writing is actually good. I’ve tried to hire him full-time. I can’t afford him. Maybe one day I’ll buy his agency.

The second was when I hired my now Head of Content, Rachel. I am convinced this hire restored my conviction in the agency business model. It was so obvious that she was an A-player. I knew it was a matter of time before she took over the Head of Content role. Hiring her made me think, Oh…that’s what an A-player looks like.

The third was recent. Rachel spent two weeks OOO on a much-deserved vacation. During that time, Kayla, one of our Content Writers stepped up. She handled a significant amount of Rachel’s edits. She ran Content Interviews for the first time and crushed it. She stayed on top of client requests. All of this without me needing to ask about it. She just got promoted into an Editor position, by the way.

Fortunately, these moments have been a lot more frequent in the past year than they were in Compound’s first year of business.

This is because I have been direct about what I expect.

So, I figured, why not write a piece where I’m as direct as humanly possible about what it takes to be a great hire at Compound—and what would disqualify you from being a fit here.

Why would you want to work at Compound?

I think it’s kind of dumb when founders say they want “the best talent,” and then offer shitty pay with no opportunities for significant upside. The math doesn’t math.

Attracting great employees works the same as attracting great clients.

So, here’s my pitch:

There is no way you work at Compound and don’t become a better writer, editor, and content professional.

Also, the numbers look pretty good, too. We did $1M in our second calendar year of business—we’ll likely double that this year. There is a clear path for us to grow to $5M…$10M…etc. Clear, of course, does not mean ‘easy.’ But my point is, if you’d like the opportunity to grow into more senior roles, this is a great place to be. We are not slowing down.

We work/have worked with some pretty cool clients, too. A few examples: the founders of Unify, Retention.com, and more. You essentially get paid to learn from stupidly talented founders building generational companies. Cool gig.

I can’t promise you a venture-scale outcome. We’re not building the next Facebook (that sounds like my personal hell). What I can promise you:

Compound is a great place to be for people who want to master the craft of writing and make good money doing it.

Our hiring process

This is every step of our hiring workflow, and what to expect.

STEP 1: Intro Call (15min). Overall vibe check. I ask you a few questions about your experience & what you’re looking for. You get to grill me on the company. Quick and low-risk way for us both to see if there’s something here.

STEP 2: Technical Interview (30min). You’ll meet with me and my Head of Content. This call will go more in the weeds on content & writing. We’ll dive deep into your past experience and examples of your work. I will say, specific examples are helpful here, should you have them.

STEP 3: Paid test project. This stage allows us to see what your writing is actually like. The project also helps you understand if you’ll enjoy the type of work you’d be doing at Compound.

STEP 4: Paid, 1-week work trial. We don’t make a full-time hire at Compound without doing a work trial. A paid project is great, but an isolated batch of a few posts is still not the same as being in it with the team. We’ll get you in our Slack for a week, operating as if you're in the position.

From here, we have enough context to make a confident decision. This thorough hiring process is just as much for you as it is for us. By the time you're done, you’ll also have all the context you need to be confident that Compound is a great fit for you.

My number one priority in hiring is that we both arrive at a HELL YES by the time we send the offer letter. We should be stoked to hire you. You should be stoked to join the team. Simple!

What does a great fit for Compound look like?

The ideal Compound team member has three characteristics—these, of course, are our core values.

They obsess over quality.
They operate with speed.
They take ownership.

Quality. Speed. Ownership.

Core Value 1: Quality

At Compound, we obsess over quality. Quality work solves all of our business problems. When we do great work for clients…they stay longer and they send us referrals. It’s also fun to do great work.

Writers on our team don’t view their work (writing) as a chore. They love the craft. They have an innate desire to get better at it.

I can teach you to write. I can’t teach you to care about writing. That’s why I am so aggressive about filtering out people who don’t care as soon as possible.

And to be clear—I don’t mean that our culture is cutthroat. It’s anything but. Excellence can be kind. Doing great work should be fun! However, if you scoff at the idea of hopping into a client Slack channel at 7pm on occasion…I’d rather let you down easy now. For both of our sakes.

Core Value 2: Speed

At Compound, we operate with speed. Working at an early-stage company—especially an agency—is not a chill work environment. There are a lot of moving pieces. Clients expect work done well and on time.

I’ll be frank: if your top priority is ‘work-life balance,’ Compound is probably not the best fit.

[Pro-tip: on screening interviews, I always ask “what are 1-3 attributes of company culture that make it a good fit for how you like to work?” If WLB is the first answer that comes to mind…we should save ourselves the time.]

Again, context matters. We’re not pushing 13hr workdays over here. We’re not sending ‘urgent’ pings to teammates who are OOO (our Head of Content just took a 2-week trip to Thailand without needing to “just check in” once). That’s also incredibly dumb and a sign that a function in the business is broken.

But when we’re on, we’re on.

My rule of thumb: our team should feel like they are pushing at “90% capacity.” You should feel slightly stretched, but rarely ever at red-line.

Core Value 3: Ownership

At Compound, we take ownership. When you take ownership, you make everyone’s job easier. When your teammates take ownership, they make your life easier. If everyone takes ownership over their respective tasks—everything runs more smoothly.

Ownership means not making the same, simple mistake twice.

Ownership means getting work done well, without someone looking over your shoulder.

Ownership means trying to solve your own problem with a Google search, a Chat GPT prompt, or a look through our knowledge base before asking someone else to solve it for you.

This core value is usually the area that takes the most coaching for junior team members. They don’t realize that leadership, and our clients, see everything.

We see when something was promised and not delivered. We see when a client request goes ignored. We see when someone leaves a Slack message unanswered, waiting for someone else to take it. We see it because we’ve been in the exact situation before—I’ve tried all the tricks! 😆

Another sign you’d be a great fit for Compound if working with people who don’t exemplify these values drives you insane. You don’t understand how someone couldn’t be obsessed with quality. Slow turnaround times make you question everything. Passing the blame makes you want to pull your hair out.

Thoughts on ramp-up times

You won’t start on Day 1 with every one of the skills you need to be a great content professional by our standards. That’s normal.

It will also take time to learn your clients. This can’t really be rushed.

In my experience, it will take you 90 days—roughly one quarter—to feel like you’re in a good rhythm. By this time, you should be at full capacity (5 accounts for Writers and 10 accounts for Editors).

That said, the attributes needed to become a great content professional should be present and obvious on Day 1.

I think we can be honest here. You shouldn’t need a “ramp up” to care about quality. You shouldn’t need a “ramp up” to move fast. You shouldn’t need a “ramp up” to take ownership.

These are all attributes fully within your control. In my experience, team members who have success at Compound make these attributes obvious in Week 1.

For example, we just had a new Content Writer start 2 weeks back. Does he need to work on his hooks a bit? Sure. But the guy is dialed when it comes to proactively communicating with the team. He’s asking all the right questions. I don’t think he’s made the same mistake twice.

The skills will develop because of the attributes he has. It’s just a matter of time.

What does a bad fit for Compound look like?

I was thinking about how to communicate this effectively, to filter out anyone who might not be a good fit.

Here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to list a few fairly common, potentially uncomfortable situations you might find yourself in while working at Compound. If any of these make you recoil and think OMG, these people are psychotic…I think you have your answer.

(1) If the thought of logging off of work past 5pm anywhere from 1-3 days per week is a dealbreaker, you're probably not a fit. If you’d lean towards turning in a content batch late, versus staying online to get it done well, probably not a fit.

(2) If you’re not open to learning our way of writing content with low ego, you're probably not a fit. My philosophy on creative freedom for writers is that they learn our way first, and then experiment. Creative freedom is earned. The reward for this is that you will become a better content writer & editor by nailing the fundamentals.

Nobody is above the fundamentals. NBA Legend, Kobe Bryant, spent hours working on drills that you’d think belonged in a middle school basketball practice.

(3) If you're overly worried about getting constructive feedback on your content, you're probably not a good fit. Kind, unfiltered feedback is the best way to shorten the time it takes to get to a great post.

We don’t have time for fluff, niceties, or anything remotely passive aggressive. We opt for direct, kind, sometimes uncomfortable feedback. Our teammates generally appreciate this.

You’ll also deal with potentially uncomfortable feedback from clients. Our client roster is fantastic—we’ve done a great job of filtering for clients who are great fits. Even then, we still get some pushback on posts we send over. We miss the mark sometimes.

Or clients are just in a mood some days—been there.

Can you regulate your emotions when you're essentially told, “this work isn’t good?” Can you handle adversity? If not, this job will be draining for you.

(4) If you subtly pass off work to the ‘next person,’ you're probably not a great fit. Here’s an example of what I mean by this.

Say you're finishing the last post of a content batch. Your mind is a bit fried. You know the hook of this post is okay, but not as strong as it could be (you’d rate it a 3 out of 5). You pass it off to your editor anyway—they’ll be able to clean it up, right? They will, but they shouldn’t have to. This is not how we operate.

And again, not to go all Big Brother on you, but we see when this happens. I’m in the content workflow often. Founder mode, baby. My Head of Content has the same bar as—if not a higher bar than—me.

(5) If you're not remotely interested in practicing your craft outside of work hours, you're probably not a great fit.

You probably listen to niche podcasts like How I Write or spend time writing for fun (this is a great episode, by the way). This isn’t some ‘hustle culture’ fluff. I think it’s reasonable to expect people who care about their craft to have fun learning about it voluntarily.

I can’t teach this caring for the craft. I can exemplify it. But I do believe writers either have this or they don’t. Do you?

(6) If you're bored by tech & startups, you're probably not a great fit.

This one might seem silly. But all of our clients are tech companies. So you’ll be writing for a lot of tech companies, and thinking about this space a lot. If you're not interested in this world, this job will be painstakingly boring.

Advertising OG, David Ogilvy, gave this advice on how to do better client work:

"Set yourself to becoming the best-informed person in the agency on the account to which you are assigned.

If, for example, it is a gasoline account, read books on oil geology and the production of petroleum products. Read the trade journals in the field. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, talking to motorists. Visit your client’s refineries and research laboratories. At the end of your first year, you will know more about the oil business than your boss, and be ready to succeed him."

If you aren’t into tech & startups, you won’t be interested enough to create great content for our clients.

The inverse is also true. If you're fascinated by startups, you’ll get to spend hours of your week talking with founders and learning about the category. Dream situation.

(7) if you don’t spend any time on LinkedIn or X, you're probably not a great fit.

You don’t need to be chronically online. But I believe that to write great content for social platforms, you need to be a user of those platforms.

It’s hard to fully understand the intricacies of content strategy for them otherwise.

CEO & leadership need to set the pace

It’s unfair to have high expectations for the team when leadership isn’t held to those same expectations. I’m sure you’ve had a job where your boss talked a big game, but didn’t show it through their own work. That’s lame.

This is not the case at Compound.

I believe culture is a set of standards and behaviors that are reinforced through example. Not through corporate HR fluff and micromanagement.

I can’t expect our team to operate at a high level if I, and the rest of Compound’s leadership team, don’t do the same.

Great talent sees through the BS and the politics. Corporate politics are repulsive to me. No time for that here.

Final thoughts

Okay. You read through this memo and had one of two reactions:

Reaction A: “This company sounds like a f*cking nightmare. No thanks.” No hard feelings, that’s the point. Working at an early-stage agency—particularly Compound—is not for everyone. Still love you! Just not working here.

Reaction B: “No big deal. This all sounds like common sense. Let’s ride.” Awesome. We could have something here.

I think of Compound like a competitive sports team. If you’ve ever been on a high-performing team, you know: winning is the most fun you’ll ever have and one of the hardest things you’ll do.

Doing great work for clients is so fun. The dopamine hit from submitting a post that gets great client feedback is unmatched. Getting better at your craft in real-time is wildly rewarding. Working with others who are just as dialed as you is refreshing.

And as a CEO, seeing new writers go from overwhelmed deer-in-the-headlights to confident professional is one of my favorite things in this world.

Doing great work is also a grind at times. I think it’s important that we get rid of the smoke and mirrors in the recruiting process, and have team members start eyes wide open.

My top priority: Do great work. Get our team paid. Have fun doing it.

Again: there is no way you work at Compound and don’t become a better writer, editor, and content professional.

That requires some pushing. But the right folks fit right in.

If that sounds like you, we’re hiring for content roles here. Would love to hear from you.

🗃 FILE CABINET

Here’s my favorite marketing and business content I bookmarked this week.

I made 10,000 LinkedIn posts and learned this by Tommy Clark 🎥
The Old Communications Playbook Is Dead by David Perrell 🎥
Sanderson's Laws of Magic - Brandon Sanderson's Writing Lecture #7 by Brandon Sanderson 🎥

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

As always, thanks for allowing me into your email inbox every week.