[[Hiring Private]] ## Preparing the Process - [Defining a role](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hIivRKWdAI2WZRApVb8mDjXCpGMZz87AVq4zI6arE0E/edit#heading=h.ebd8b8jkq97g) - Who the A method for hiring [link a](https://medium.com/mbreads/book-summary-who-c4a437d8ae3a) and [link b](https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-who-the-a-method-for-hiring/) - [How to hire when early stage - Carta](https://medium.com/eshares-blog/how-to-hire-34f4ded5f176) - [Identifying good technical talent by Joel Spolsky](https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/1590598385) - [Don't inflate titles](https://medium.com/@gokulrajaram/the-one-thing-ceos-should-delay-as-long-as-possible-ea28347714b0) - Hire vs contract - [Attitude over aptitude](https://bothsidesofthetable.com/whom-should-you-hire-at-a-startup-attitude-over-aptitude-b19ebb7f0357) - [Best practices by MBA Monday](https://avc.com/2012/06/mba-mondays-best-hiring-practices/) - [Interview every candidate](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/25/why-jeff-bezos-used-to-interview-every-job-candidate-at-amazon-himself.html) - "One of his mottos was that every time we hired someone, he or she should raise the bar for the next hire, so that the overall talent pool was always improving," Nicholas Lovejoy, Amazon's fifth employee, says in Wired. // Chieh Huang, CEO of Boxed, an e-commerce startup that brings in more than $100 million in revenue each year, interviews every job candidate personally in order to understand their work ethic, searching for the determination and drive he learned from growing up in poverty." - [Hiring at GitLab](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/hiring/) ||Low skill|High skill| |---|---|---| |High will|Hire & train, or pass|Hire| |Low will|Pass|Contract| ## Job Descriptions & Career Page - [[Good job descriptions]] - [Replit Reasons to not join](https://blog.replit.com/reasons-not-to-join-replit) - [[GitStart Careers.pdf]] ## Sourcing - [Guide to Sourcing by Hiresweet](https://content.hiresweet.com/the-sourcing-guide/) ### GitStart Learnings - Prioritize referrals - Block time for the whole team to refer people - Maintain a list of all channels - A lot of hiring happens in small communities, mapping those extends reach - ![[hiring best channels gitstart.png]] - Post on community relevant job boards - Community job boards are usually free too. - Example, when hiring for our Senior Engineer - Backend role (Elixir+Phoenix) the channel we got the highest hit rate (Initial screen+ / Total applicants) were the elixir forums. - ![[hiring channels ratio.png]] - Avoid major hiring channels - (Unless its for a non critical role where you can have a very tight top of funnel filter) - They generally have very poor quality of applicants and take up a disproportionate amount of time to screen. - Indeed - Angelist - Glassdoor - Linkedin - Beware of scrappers - Some job boards scrap others to get more traffic. - If candidates quality is low, email them, they will take down the JDs quickly. - ex: [Remote.co/Flexjobs.,](http://Remote.co/Flexjobs.,) Dynamite jobs ### GitStart Sample Emails - Hi (xxx)! Want to change lives as a Founding Designer? Short summary: - You’re the most critical hire atm → complete creative freedom 🧑‍🎨 and unlimited budget to accelerate yourself with contractors ⏩. - [Backed by people you know](https://www.gitstart.com/blog/seed-enable-anyone-to-grow) - Investors include Neo, Airbnb founder, Microsoft CTO, Replit CEO, BloomTech founder, Uber CEO, and more. - [Meaningful Mission](https://www.gitstart.com/blog/seed-enable-anyone-to-grow) - Enable anyone to grow on the world’s best codebases. Alumni joined Google, Amazon and Facebook. - Includes [Non-standard benefits](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/gitstart/d842c67e-56e9-46d8-a7d6-07ce44ed4500), [very strong team](https://www.notion.so/Job-Description-Template-5c31ea38dd8846a788c7725fadce85fa?pvs=21) If you’re interested in learning more, I’d love to connect! [Full job description here](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/gitstart/d842c67e-56e9-46d8-a7d6-07ce44ed4500). - Hi (xxx)! We help unlock the potential of the world’s most underrepresented, underprivileged, and underrated software engineers.We change lives ([](http://gitstart.com/careers/)[http://Gitstart.com/careers/](http://Gitstart.com/careers/)), just raised $5M with the best investor line up of the year worldwide ([https://bit.ly/3AVgAtx](https://bit.ly/3AVgAtx)), are 100% remote, and offer non standard benefits ([https://bit.ly/3QU8XZY](https://bit.ly/3QU8XZY)).You can check out the [XXX] position here: [XXX] Let me know if you'd like to connect & chat about the role. ## Interviewing - GitStart interview agenda 1. Structure call - intro, questions, asking questions 2. Ask permission to interrupt 3. Ask intro from candidate first, then we intro ourselves 4. Finish on the mission + mention disco call - In your past experiences, what's one thing you built that's still in use today and why? Whether it's an app, leaflet, process, note, etc. - Forces people to think about the end user. Do they know the name of the end user, are/were they on DM basis? - [ScaleAI founder](https://alexw.substack.com/p/hire?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2): how to hire when the company becomes a good credential - they give a shit about Scale, and - they give a shit about their work in general. - What’s the hardest you’ve ever worked on something? - How many hours were you working a week? - Why did you work so hard? Why did you care? - When were you the most unmotivated in your life? - What’s the thing you’re the most proud of? - Do you think it was worth it? For an obsessed person, it’s always worth it. ## Reference Check ### 1. Understand Context - Can you verify the job candidate’s employment, job title, pay, and responsibilities? - Why did they leave that job? - How do you know the job candidate? ### 2. Evaluate Candidate - What is it like to work with the job candidate? - What are the candidate’s biggest strengths and weaknesses? Have you seen them struggle? what kind of environment have you seen this person be most successful? - "Imagine we run into each other in six months, and I tell you we hired them but it ended up not working out. What's your gut reaction as to why?" - If you were building a new team, would they be among the first 5 people you'd want to recruit, or the first 10, or first 25? Would you cofound with them? Or "What percentile was X among all people you have ever worked with" over and over until they give you a number." ### 3. Opening - What else do I need to know about the job candidate that I didn’t already ask? - Who else should I speak to about the candidate that can provide different insight? ## Rejection Email Hi there, We're sorry to say we couldn't organize an interview with you. The applications we receive get better every month, and since there's a limit on the number of people we can interview, we can't organize interviews a lot of genuinely promising people. Thank you again for considering us and applying! We wish you the best for the year ahead. -- Hi there, We're sorry to say we couldn't organize an interview with you. The applications we receive get better every month, and since there's a limit on the number of people we can interview, we had to turn away a lot of genuinely promising people. Unfortunately, we're too small of a team to give individual feedback about applications. We're trying to get better at this, but the hard limit on the number of interviews means it's practically certain that some candidates we didn’t interview will go become very successful for that same role in other companies. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email telling us about it. We’d love to organize a knowledge sharing session. And we want to learn from our mistakes. We are growing rapidly, so if it’s okay with you, we will keep your profile in the database and reach out when another position that could suit you opens up. Thank you again for considering us and applying! We wish you the best for the year ahead.