did Dan go thru the same routine hiring process or was that a move you did behind the scenes cause you were already friends? or did he just knock it out of the park during his interview? have you ever had to turn someone away who had a great resume but didnt pass your "initiation" tests to find out if they'd "gel" with style of your site

This is a huge corporation with background checks and all kinds of other stuff that every single person who gets hired has to clear. While I was fairly certain that he’d apply for the job and thought his past work would probably make him a good fit, there are a number of things that could derail that process. So I looked over a lot of resumes and talked to our recruiting team a lot over that position, just as I’m doing with the one we currently have open. The only “behind the scenes” move I can really make at that part of the process is to tell the recruiter “this person has a resume that looks solid, you should have a chat with them.”

By comparison, hiring Patrick was way easier, because at a smaller company the conversation was more about “can we afford a new hire and what does this person add to the site?” than about “is this person a convicted felon?”