We are making our first US enterprise hire. What do you wish you had known?

Decide before the search whether this person is a seller or a builder, because the resume for one looks like a red flag for the other. We hired a brilliant seller into a builder job once; both sides were miserable by month four. And budget the New York package before you open the search, not after three candidates decline it.

Reference for resilience, not for wins. Employee one in a market eats twenty rejections a week with nobody down the hall to laugh with. The best US-open hires I have placed all had a previous tour somewhere unglamorous.

Not commercial, but: get their laptop, payroll and health cover flawless on day one. First-hire logistics failures read as 'this company is not real in the US' and they quietly restart their job search.