Hiring
We are constantly improving the way we hire. This is a work in progress and should be updated as we continue to iterate.
Hiring is difficult. And it should be. Each team member is vital to the growth and development of the company. Not only does each role requires a certain skill set, but we need to ensure we are hiring people that we want to work with. We spend most of our adult life working, we should enjoy those around us and ensure we all work well together.
Managing job openings and candidates
We use LinkedIn as our recruiting platform. You can view a list of current openings here.
Hiring Process
Resumes will be routed from LinkedIn via email to the correct hiring manager for that department.
Phone Screen
If a candidate is qualified or has potential, setup a 30 minute phone conversation with them. The phone screen is a personality test and sales call. This call is mostly to get the candidate excited about position/company and find out if they’re a good fit. Phone screens should have two goals only: excite the candidate and eliminate (not approve).
Script:
- Introductions
- Vision
- Company (team, history, location, perks)
- Tech Stack
- Hiring process and next steps
- Usually better to follow-up after the call instead of moving the candidate down the funnel during the call.
Technical Review
In order to hire a new developer, we need to get an idea of what it’s like to work with them and what their skill level actually is. Email the candidate and ask for them to provide you with links to work that is relevant to the position they are applying for. This can be a portfolio, github repository or work that is in the wild.
Schedule a time to review their work, ask questions and get a general feel for their capabilities. While we don’t believe in whiteboard testing of candidates, we do want to ensure that they perform their job duties as advertised.
Design Review
When hiring a designer, they will typically provide a portfolio of their work. While this is a great indicator of their experience and styles, it’s not necessarily the best indicator of their design personality and skills. Ask them to come prepared with the following:
- An example of a website that they think is “beautiful”.
- A mobile app that has great design.
- Example(s) of great UX on a mobile or web application.
- Links to a few websites/apps they like and why.
During the designs screen, have them walk through the examples they provided and explain why they like them, what makes them beautiful or usable. They should go into detail about what they like and dislike about them and why they choose these examples. To challenge them, ask questions like:
- Give me an example of great UX in a physical product and what makes it good.
- Walk me through your creative process (flows, moodboards, wireframes, etc).
- How do you extract information from clients or customers?
- Give me an example of a project where you disagreed with the client’s direction and tell me how you handled it.
Spend at least 30 minutes with the candidate, but end early if it’s obviously a bad fit. If you’re not comfortable eliminating the candidate on the call, feel free to follow up via email shortly after.
Interview
Candidates that clear the skill review phase should be invited to a remote interview using Google Hangouts with other team members they will be working with.
We typically break down an interview into two primary phases: position interview and cultural interview.
Position Interview
This part of the interview should focus on evaluating the candidate’s experience and abilities. This phase is usually led by the hiring person. You should ask questions that identify their experience, examples of their work, and other relevant questions to identify if this person is a good fit for the job we’re hiring for.
In many cases, we hire for potential, not just exact fit. If the interview is not going well, feel free to end it early and thank the candidates for their time. There is no reason to waste their time as well as the team’s time if the interview is not progressing.
Cultural Interview
Once the position interview portion is completed, invite other team members to participate in the culture interview phase. It’s best to invite a mix of individuals who they would and would not work with. For example, when interviewing a developer, bring in a designer, project manager or copywriter teammate to get a broad sense of their cultural fit.
During this phase, ask questions about their life, experiences, interests, hobbies, etc. The goal of this is to identify if they are a good fit for the team. We want to identify characteristics like humility, willingness to learn, collaboration skills, and just overall kindness.
In some ways, this part is more important than the position hiring. We’d all much rather work with people that we enjoy then those we don’t.
Don’t ever make an offer in an interview. Always thank them for coming (or dialing in) and give them an idea of our hiring timeline. Make sure you identify where they are in their employment process as they might have offers on the table.
Hire
After a candidate accepts an offer, we start the New Hire Onboarding process (TBD).