Hiring Notes
Hiring Plan
Resources To Process
- "How To Hire" by Sam Altman
- "Hiring Religion" by Paul Irish
- http://pmarchive.com/how_to_hire_the_best_people.html
- http://web.archive.org/web/20080229161757/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/08/the-pmarca-guid.html
- http://firstround.com/review/the-simple-numbers-that-could-change-how-you-hire
- http://firstround.com/review/this-is-how-coursera-competes-against-google-and-facebook-for-the-best-talent/
- http://firstround.com/review/how-to-consistently-hire-remarkable-data-scientists/
- http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/1278/5-Quick-Pointers-On-Startup-Hiring.aspx
Relevance Hiring Process
- Sourcing: personal network. "hiring posts." proactive reachout once someone was identified.
- Always hiring great people. Rarely "needed someone" so we had to go find them.
Process
- "resume" sent around - people express interest or not - unless someone has had some bad experience.
- phone interviews - 30-60 minute call asking specific questions around skill, personality, culture, etc
- remote pairing sessions - 1-2 hour work together on a project
- Friday hiring day - all-day long
- pair with 5-6 people for an hour to 1.5 hours
- interviewers volunteered - sometimes would craft a "task" on a project for them to work on - would DEFINITELY have something prepared. Specific, crafted tasks to explore how the candidate would respond.
- what was being evaluated:
- ENERGY. INTENSITY. DRIVE. Difficult: had to accommodate for extrovert / introvert. And accommodate for difference in experience in pairing. ENERGY
- CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
- COMPETENCY
- TEACHABILITY. How fast do they adapt.
- ADAPTABILITY. They're working on YOUR computer.
- QUESTION-ASKING. How are they helping you by asking good questions.
- lunch would be catered in, and the prospect would give a prepared 20-30 minute talk. with questions. usually slides. would usually show off a side project or something they've done.
- Whole company.
- COMMUNICATION. Speaking skills. Question asking.
- COMPETENCY. What have they done? Are they experts at it?
- COMPANY gets to chime in, ask questions.
- "walk" interview - a single person or very small group (3 maximum) would take the person out for coffee during a 1 hour slot.
- CULTURE. Do they like the same movies, tv shows, do I want to hang out with them?
- RELATIONAL SKILLS. Can they carry a conversation, etc.
- end of the day - wrap up with the candidate at 4pm.
- hiring group gets together at 4:00pm and reviews together.
- whole company gets together at 4:30pm.
- Thumbs up / thumbs down / thumbs in the middle (not enough information / abstaining)
- simultaneously
- look around the room. Any thumbs down, the candidate fails.
- briefly, the thumbs down folks will explain why.
- throughout the day, sometimes you'd have a candidate "fail" mid-day. That was awkward. Cut it short. "Hiring manager" would show them the door, kindly.
- OPEN, HONEST feedback on why.
- Hiring Manager would spend significant time with the candidate, helping them find other positions.
- Tried to add as much value to candidates who DIDN'T make the cut.
- if all thumbs up, hiring manager steps out, calls them immediately, and gives them an offer.
- week to decide, generally. over the next week the hiring manger is responsible for closing, but may ask for help from the team in terms of reaching out, following up on relationships that were built from Friday.
- pair with 5-6 people for an hour to 1.5 hours
Areas of the biz: DATA - OUTREACH & SALES - NETWORK - PRODUCT
Hiring Notes
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Hiring Notes
Hiring Plan
Resources To Process
Relevance Hiring Process
Process