I put a lot of time into this job description and did some unique things I had never done in previous job descriptions that I think really made it stand out and land stellar applicants. 

From my research I knew I was going to spend lots of time with this person and they were going to have access to almost every single piece of information in the company, so you almost have to trust them with your life. I was looking for someone you could give almost anything and everything to and know that they are going to do a pretty good job with it. It might not be exactly how you would do it, that takes time to develop, but it's still high quality and consistent work.

You’ll notice I actually wrote this using first person. It's a subtle change, but  a lot of people commented that they felt like I was actually speaking directly to them and they knew it wasn't an impersonal recruiter putting this together, it was the actual person they were applying to work so closely with.

In one sentence, what I'm doing two things. 

One is that I'm saying, “Hey, you and I are going to work together side by side.” Which is a huge selling point for any Chief Of Staff role is that you get to work side by side with an executive or the CEO. 

Two is that I'm giving them a summary of the types of activities they’ll be tackling and, most importantly, explaining that this is not an EA role. Through my previous research I knew the biggest objection for most Chief of Staff candidates is that they want to make sure this isn't an EA role because that is not in alignment with the career path they are working towards. 

In this third paragraph, I'm landing social validation. If people don't know the Reforge name, I want them to know that we are legit. So I share things that a lot of companies don't share within their JDs, because I think it proves that this is a unique role at a major inflection point of the company. Only then do I go into more details on what their responsibilities include. Usually JDs open up with the opportunities, but if you want amazing people, you have to sell them first, right? Get them interested in the role. I don't understand why people make their job descriptions so dry. It's one of their first touch points with the candidate.

I called this out because being a founder and CEO is very intense and incredibly stressful. When you're in this role, you want your Chief of Staff to be able to take all of those things in stride. For example, with other roles in the company, I'm very respectful of weekends and evenings. However I work evenings and weekends so I can't have my Chief of Staff away during those periods. It is not something I expect from the entire company, but it's something that I specifically call out in this JD because I need the person to be on that same schedule and of my same mindset.

I do some objection handling here. While many Chief of Staffs are wary of EA roles, I want the person in this role not be afraid to take on the manual work. Even as CEO I take on manual work all the time and want the Chief of Staff not to have hesitation to do the same thing.

In 2020 Reforge was growing extremely quickly. We were about six months past our series A and we raised about $20 million with Andreessen Horowitz. We were only about 30 people at the time, but we were already eight figures in revenue and growing more than double year over year. To support this growth, a few founder friends recommended I hire a Chief of Staff. I had never hired a Chief of Staff before, but knew it was a very critical role. I did a ton of research on the role to narrow in on what I would want and that really informed my interview process.

When I talked to many of Chiefs of Staff I asked, “what is the most interesting part of this role and what compelled you to take this role?” Then I flipped those answers around and used them as selling points to get the best candidates. So I go on to talk about how they're going to get access to everything that's going on in the company, a level of visibility that they might not get in another role.

I talk a little bit about career progression because that was another thing that I found in my research. The number one thing people want to know is, “where does this role lead to?” For some Chiefs of Staff they go into a leadership role because they get to see a variety of problems in the org, gather that context, and then become very effective leaders within the org. That was the path of our Chief of Staff.

I included projects I could see this role taking on. These are actual projects that we had taken on within the organization.

Many people say that one of the most important things that they're looking for in a role is the people that they're going to be working with, but the JD typically says nothing about that. That's absolutely crazy to me. In all my job descriptions I actually list out the people they're going to be spending time with so candidates can research those folks and see their interesting backgrounds.

I actually ended up with somebody that had spent some time as an investor as well as a founder. I think it was one of the best hires I've made in my entire career. I'm really proud of that and proud of being able to work with that person.

Brian Balfour

After holding informational interviews with Chiefs of Staff I designed this job description to find the ideal COS for Reforge. I put a unique spin on the JD to appeal to the best candidates. 

I (Brian) am the Founder and CEO of Reforge

. I’m looking for a Chief of Staff to work closely with me, taking many of my strategic projects and making them your own.

We’ll work together side-by-side on a daily basis, tackling new problems that are facing Reforge, defining new scalable systems, and finding new ways to grow the company.

This is an unusual and unique role at a major inflection point in the growth of the company.

 We are a 30 person, 8-figure revenue company with plans to 10X the company size over the next 3 years. We 

recently raised $21M from Andreessen Horowitz

 and a network of VP and C-Level leaders.

You'll be asked to tackle a variety of problems across the business. Your responsibilities will change on a weekly basis. 

It will be intense and difficult but I can promise that you will learn a tremendous amount about the challenge, messiness, and fulfillment of starting and growing a company.

This is not an executive assistant role, however, the right person will have zero hesitation to get their hands dirty and take on manual work required to get a problem solved.

As part of this role you will be integrated into our 

 that helped build companies like Slack, Pinterest, Credit Karma, LinkedIn, Facebook, Spotify, Eventbrite, SurveyMonkey, Thumbtack, and more.

Reforge was founded by Brian Balfour (former VP Growth @ HubSpot, 3X venture backed founder). The team bootstrapped the company to a profitable, 8-figure revenue company. We recently raised $21.5M from Andrew Chen and Anish Acharya at Andreessen Horowitz along with a group of 100 C and VP level leaders. Our executive team currently includes Matt Greenberg, CTO and former VP Engineering at Credit Karma and Fareed Mosavat, VP Programs and former Dir Product Growth at Slack.

Our professional world is changing faster than ever. This accelerating change creates more opportunity, but how we as professionals capture this opportunity is lagging far behind. Professional development and masters level education is a lifelong endeavor, however there is a growing gap of what professionals want/need and the existing options available.

Our mission is to help motivated tech practitioners do the best work of their careers. By distilling the hard-earned insights from the top leaders in tech, offering a supportive community, and providing key guidance, we enable our participants to drive real results, increase their impact, and lead with confidence.

We work with the leaders of the fastest growing and most innovative companies such as Uber, Pinterest, Atlassian, and HubSpot to teach frontier topics to today's emerging leaders. Our programs focus on:

Going deep, rather than skimming the surface

Continuous learning, over static expertise

In just a few years, we've built a thriving community of emerging leaders solving problems at Airbnb, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Amazon, Facebook, New York Times, Peloton, Stitch Fix, and many more. Here are just a few comments from our alums:

I got my MBA at Berkeley, but this program has been more transformational for me then the entire two years I spent there. Thank you!

Reforge has easily been one of the best investments of time and money I've ever made in my professional development. I love how the course codifies what I've been doing for the last four years as VP of Marketing.

Reforge is easily the highest quality professional skills program out there. If I had to choose between attending an unlimited number of industry conferences, versus going only to the Reforge, I'd choose Reforge without hesitation.

 You will have unique access into everything that is going on in the company. If interested, I will also integrate you into my angel and seed investing activities outside of Reforge

 Be part of a 10X path by helping us go from an 8-figure to 9-figure company over the next 3 years.

 The role will be plugged into both our community of experts (VP's at top tech companies) and the Reforge alum community (PM's → VP's in Series B to public software companies).

 Reforge has a top tier reputation within the technology community. Former employees have gone on to roles at Google, Stripe, and other leading companies.

 Reforge is an 8-figure revenue, profitable company, average NPS of 70. We have a lot of fuel in the tank. Our success is not dependent on funding round to funding round.

At Reforge we think equally about how Reforge and the role can help each individual in their career journey and how you can help the company in our journey. I am looking for someone to commit to this role for a minimum of 18 months and ideally 2 years. From there, the role could progress in a couple of directions:

 The role of Chief of Staff will give you unique experience working across a variety of problems at the leadership level setting you up well for a leadership role internally at Reforge or at a new company.

 You'll see the inner workings of an early stage company growing quickly giving you experience around startups that is hard to find in other roles.

 If you enjoy the role, we will create a path internally to remain Chief of Staff taking on problems with a larger scope.

portfolio of high level strategic projects

 for the company across legal, finance, recruiting, team, strategy, and more. Your goal will be to get them to a point where they are either solved, ready for a FT hire, or transition to an existing team member.

Examples of possible projects in this role could be:

 Help prepare Board Meeting and investor communications. Draft company wide communications around strategy, plan changes, goal updates, policy developments and more.

 Craft external blog posts with the CEO on the mission, vision, and purpose of the company.

 Work with our Founder's program to help operationalize and scale our V1 version of the program.

 Research new roles we are considering, draft initial JD's, outline the hiring process.

 Research the impact of Covid on L&D budget among our target audience. Size new markets and audiences that we are considering developing programs in.

 Project manage cross functional initiatives pushing them forward and monitoring/reporting on their status.

 Research copyright law with outside council, draft summaries for the teams, work with various teams for how to implement in product or creation processes.

 Research and find insurance, prepare supporting documents for 409a evaluations, help research changes in market compensation bands, and more.

 Analyze and research possible strategic acquisition targets.

 You'll spend most of your time with Brian Balfour, the Founder and CEO of Reforge. Prior to Reforge, Brian was the VP Growth at Hubspot.

 - You'll work closely with the executive team including Matt Greenberg (CTO), and Fareed Mosavat (VP Programs).

 - You'll spend time cross-functionally with the various directors including Helen Sims, Head of Product, Brendan McCook - Head of Program Development, Sara Caldwell, Head of Program Ops, Dan Wolchonok, Head of Data, Elise Cappadona, Talent Lead, and others.

You likely check 2 out of the following 3 boxes: 

You have at least 4+ years of experience in a scaling tech company in a Product, Strategy, or Business Operations role.

3+ years of experience at a top tier management consulting, private equity, or venture capital firm.

You are a former Founder or part of the first 20 employees of a tech startup.

Ability to communicate complex, disparate ideas in a structured and easy to consume way. Strong and structured writing ability is a must.

Versatile problem solver willing to fill gaps in the org where ever they exist

Multi-tasker and ruthless prioritizer always asking what the highest leverage task is to solve

Experience with quantitative and qualitative market research methods with comfort synthesizing insights from disparate information.

Systems thinker able to transform a messy, undefined problem into a repeatable process.

Analytical, very comfortable with data and financial models.

A self-starter, motivated by continuously solving hard problems.

(bonus) You are on or will to work closely to 8am to 5pm PT timezone.

The internal mission of Reforge is to create an environment where you create the best work of your career. In order to do that we offer:

 - Everyone does their best work in different environments. We operate as a distributed-first team and offer financial support that enables you to create the schedule and environment that fits to you.

 - We focus on a culture of learning. We offer full financial reimbursement for almost all professional development interests and efforts.

 - We offer top rated health, vision, and dental insurance. We cover 100% of monthly premiums for employees, and 70% for dependents.

 - We offer highly competitive salary and equity inline with top tier technology companies.

 - Having plentiful “off the grid” time is a key to doing your best work. We offer flexible PTO. Take time when you need it. Everyone must take at least 10 days per year, and we highly encourage more.

 Ability to invest in a Reforge sponsored 401K.

At Reforge, we believe in the strength that difference brings to our business, our culture, and our community. We value the opinions and experiences of all our employees and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship, or other characteristics protected by law.

Chief of Staff to the CEO Job Description at Reforge

Chief of Staff to the CEO Job Description

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