You Can Hire Like Netflix

The streaming platform built an incredible team with a strategy called "talent density." But you don't need to be a tech giant to do it.

- LIZ BRODY

Looking for a job? ClassDojo has 15 positions open, but heads up: The bar is death zone high, and they're in no rush to hire. The children's education company has a team of 220 and a hiring rate of 0.09% of those who apply.

How can a company grow while hiring that slowly? The answer is "talent density," a concept that's gaining steam lately.

Netflix coined the term years ago, and it was popularized in cofounder Reed Hastings' 2020 book, No Rules Rules. He defined it as "a smaller amount of talent overall, but the amount of talent per employee is greater"-which is to say, you hire a smaller team, and you only take superstars who can do multiple people's jobs.

Netflix adopted this strategy after laying off a third of its workforce in 2001, and Hastings credits it for the streaming giant's success. "This is a completely different way of thinking about human capital," says Josh Bersin, a global industry analyst in HR with his own advisory firm-and it's ever more relevant today with AI replacing jobs.