Insider Q & A: Miles Parroco on Eventbrite and Hiring for Fast Growth Companies
At StartWire we’re passionate about helping people find work — and helping our users find out where the jobs are! Recently, we wrote about job opportunities at Eventbrite, a company that gives you all the tools you need to bring people together and create an event. Projected to grow to 200 by the end of 2011, Eventbrite is hiring across the board. (We’ve registered up and attended plenty of events through Eventbrite so we thought it might be interesting to take a piece inside.)
We sent a shout-out to Eventbrite to learn more and sat down for a conversation with their Director of
Recruiting, Miles Parroco. As employee number 48 for Eventbrite has seen the company grow to 145 and secure $70M in funding. He’s now busy hiring more people; check out their opportunities here!
Miles has worked at enterprise-level companies and start-ups in the Silicon Valley since 2000. In 2004, he joined IronPort systems where he helped the company grow from 120 employees to 320 and a successful exit through a Cisco acquisition of $830M. In 2008, he joined Pure Digital Technologies (maker of the popular Flip Video Camera) and doubled the company from 70 employees to 135 before another successful exit (Cisco acquisition again for for $590M).
Eventbrite’s vision is that “Anyone can become an event organizer.” Are related skill sets—project management and operations must-have skills at Eventbrite?
We don’t deal in absolutes here. We are a big believer in finding individuals who can do the job and who can fit in with our small but growing family. We look for smart individuals who are flexible and who can learn it on the fly. Being able to fit into the team culture and being able to be flexible are important.
We are growing fast, but we still have lunch together as a company every day. You have to be able to sit next to anybody any day of the week. The cultural fit is important. We place an emphasis on understanding that the candidate has the relevant skills set, and that then after that – it’s a cultural fit. Knowing how event management works is a plus, but it isn’t necessary. Are they accessible? Empowering? Open? Social? And humble? Those are things that we look for.
We started out 2010 with 30 employees, we have 144 employees now and we’re looking at being around 200 by the end of the year. Each and every individual we hire makes a huge impact. When I worked at CISCO we made a lot of hires. Every hire makes a difference, and there are high fives around the office when it gets done.
We are building a culture that people want to come to work and participate in.
Eventbrite features include integration with social media. Is the best candidate one who demonstrates that they understand this integration?
It depends on the particular position. If a job is for an engineer working on the back-end code, it’s helpful to understand the business. But the back-end coder doesn’t need to be a marketing specialist. It’s nice if they have an understanding of how it works.
We just recently brought on a marketing intern. That person is going to be solely focused on social media outreach. For that role, you need to understand the psyche behind social media and how that works.
What makes a great candidate beyond industry knowledge and experience? (Or what’s the hardest thing to find in a great candidate?)
Do they meet our brand tenets – accessible, empowering, open, social and humble? Are they passionate? If a software engineer isn’t passionate about our end-product and taking over the ticketing world, they need to passionate about writing clean code. You need passion for how your role relates to our business or our products. Better yet, is to be passionate about it all. Loving the end product, loving the environment. We want people who want to be here.
Do you have any “never do” tips for individuals in working with recruiters?
Never show for a phone screen without taking the time to know what we do. Take the time to research the company, our co-founders – what we do, how we do it. You are really shorting yourself if you don’t do your due diligence.
Any bad assumptions that you’ve seen job seekers make in applying for jobs with Eventbrite?
Occasionally, people aren’t humble enough. People say “I meet all the criteria for the job.” A lot of candidates have come in from our process and people have walked away saying “That’s the smartest person we’ve interviewed for this job but they come out of the interview saying ‘let’s not hire them.’ We like to see people who feel like they have something to learn from us, too. I’m not going to ask you to rewire yourself. You want people who can sell themselves, but people who can be themselves, too.
Are there any questions I haven’t asked that I should be asking? What’s the question, and what’s your answer?
What are your growth plans?
We just got $50M in funding. We don’t know how that will affect our hiring plan yet. But we’ve continued on the trajectory of doubling hires per year…we expect to be at 200 by the end of the year. We are trying to build not only a great project but a great program. People can feel the energy of a healthy and happy work environment. We pay people to do their job. Hopefully that is a sign of a company that values employees. We are a technology company, so we are looking to grow on the engineering side of things in particular.
But we are also looking for sales and marketing candidates. And we are growing both domestically and abroad. We have two jobs available in London, Customer Service and Event Evangelism. We are expanding. This is a very solid business, with a solid business plan. We’re disrupting the way ticket has been done from small events that are self-organized to a Black Eyed Peas concert with 50,000 attendees. We continue to grow. The goal in 2010 was to double what we had done – from $100 million in gross ticket sales to $200 million in gross ticket sales. We did it, now we’re on track to double it again.
Use it now—actionable—advice for job seekers:
Be passionate about what you’re doing. Have some passion for what you do or the company you are getting behind. Enjoy what you are doing or supporting. If you can’t you are in the wrong place.
3-month sabbatical from her role as a career development sabattical from her role as a Career Development Program Manager at Google to promote her recently released book: 
country’s top Human Resource thought leaders by World at Work and Accenture, and has been featured as a workplace expert for the young workforce, appearing as a spokesperson for the new generation of workers on 60 Minutes and PBS Nightly News.
