Craig Cowdrey: How to Recruit for Self-awareness
Tech CEO Craig Cowdrey leverages his diverse work experience to drive the development of his pioneering wellbeing platform, Sonder, while also looking after his team.
Cowdrey spent a decade with the Australian Army, including officer training at the prestigious Royal Military College – Duntroon, followed by roles as a corporate lawyer and diplomat. Now he leads Sonder, an app that makes safety, medical and mental health support accessible 24/7. “Our purpose at Sonder is to empower people to be the best versions of themselves – both our customers and our own people,” says Cowdrey.
He was speaking at Qantas magazine’s second Think. event for 2024, held at Tama in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. The topic for the panel discussion was “Executive evolution – how great leaders stay great”.
For Cowdrey, being at the top of an organisation can sometimes be a lonely experience. “You have to seek out feedback, particularly if you are the CEO,” he adds. “I seek out feedback from my chair, the co-founder – who’s still in the business – and the executive team.”
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Founded in 2016, Sonder has quickly been adopted by companies and institutions across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. As he recruits talent for the growing business, Cowdrey says it’s critical to take the time to get it right. “We have a ‘hire slow, fire fast’ approach – if you hire people who are the wrong fit, it’s very difficult for everyone involved, so we put a lot of work into making sure we articulate the skills matrix and be very transparent about the business.
“One of the things we test for when we recruit people is the ability to be self-aware and autonomous – there are certain questions we ask to try to identify [those traits] in our candidates,” he adds.
“I like to ask, ‘You’ve been really successful in your career – what are the three things you attribute that to?’ If they say, ‘I’m smart, hardworking and resilient’, that’s okay but I prefer to see an answer that includes something outside of themselves. They might say, ‘Well, I was really lucky. I had a great mentor in school and they really inspired me to get into software coding’ or perhaps, ‘My dad was a doctor in the Middle East and now he cleans toilets here – he sacrificed everything to give me this chance.’ I’m not a psychologist but I’ve found those kinds of answers indicate an awareness that none of us do this on our own. We all have someone who helps us and people around us who push us forward. If you think it’s all you then you’re probably not very self-aware.”
Cowdrey also works hard at self-reflection. “I use tools I’ve picked up from previous careers, such as the after-action review from the army,” he says. “This involves doing a retrospective immediately after [an incident or issue] to reflect on what you can sustain, what you can improve and what you can fix. We do that in our business and I also do it for myself in the lead-up to board meetings.”
Think. is a thought-leadership event and content series, presented by Qantas magazine in association with LSH Auto Australia – the country’s leading Mercedes-Benz dealer group. Find out more about LSH Auto Australia.
