How to Hire a VP of People

VP of People vs HR Manager: When to Hire Which

The VP of People role is a strategic leadership hire — it requires someone who can set people strategy, advise the CEO on organisational design, and build the people infrastructure that supports rapid scaling. An HR Manager is an operational hire — someone who manages the day-to-day people operations, compliance, and administrative functions. At companies under 50 employees, a strong HR Manager is often sufficient. At 50–150 employees, the strategic leadership dimension becomes increasingly important and a VP of People becomes the right investment.

Companies that hire an HR Manager when they need a VP of People create a people function that cannot keep pace with the company's growth. Companies that hire a VP of People before they need one create an expensive role that the company's operational stage cannot fully utilise. Calibrating the timing correctly requires an honest assessment of where the people function bottlenecks are — administrative or strategic.

What to Evaluate in VP People Candidates

Recruiting infrastructure experience. A VP of People at a growth-stage company will spend a significant portion of their first year building recruiting infrastructure — ATS configuration, employer brand, interview process design, offer approval workflows. Candidates who have built these systems before and can describe specifically how they did it are dramatically more effective than those who have inherited and maintained existing infrastructure.

Manager development capability. The quality of an organisation's people experience is determined primarily by the quality of its managers, not by HR policies. VP People candidates should be evaluated on their approach to manager development — how they have assessed manager effectiveness, what interventions they have used to improve it, and how they have handled managers who were not improvable.

Founder relationship navigation. People leadership at a founder-led company requires the ability to give the founder feedback about their own leadership — a conversation that requires trust, skill, and courage. Ask candidates to describe a time they disagreed with a CEO or founder on a people decision and what happened. The answer reveals whether they are genuinely strategic partners or effective yes-people.