How We Hire at Administrate (Hiring Tips for Startups)
of 15
/15
-
Author
getadministrate -
Category
Recruiting & HR
-
view
8.396 -
download
20
Embed Size (px)
description
This is how we hire at Administrate and was originally presented as a brief talk at the Edinburgh CodeBase educational series for Startup Founders and Chiefs. Feel free to learn from our mistakes and see how we hire!
Transcript of How We Hire at Administrate (Hiring Tips for Startups)
www.getadministrate.com
How We Hire Administrate
First, Some Assumptions
• People and Teamwork are the most important part of our business.
• Our values drive our company, therefore they drive our hiring processes.
• These thoughts are based on our experiences hiring more than 150 candidates over the last 10 years, across a mix of companies.
www.getadministrate.com
Three Ways to Recruit
Buy, Steal, Grow
Right now, we grow.
www.getadministrate.com
Hiring Prerequisites • Team structure (aka an Org Chart) – this is the “meat space” API of
your company! • Job DescripHon that includes:
– Day to day responsibilities (“A day in the life of”) – Success factors – Interfaces to other people, teams, etc.
• Company Values • Time set aside to hire (1-2 hours per day) • You’ve read Peopleware and watched Office Space • Company handbook and employment contract.
www.getadministrate.com
www.getadministrate.com
Don’t have these prerequisites?
Don’t hire. Period.
Our Interview Process 1. Hiring manager works the job themselves for a minimum of 30 days (if it’s a new
position, or if they’ve never managed it before themselves). 2. Refine the job description and success factors, using what’s been learned from Step 1. 3. Interview
1. Review blinded CVs (remove name and university whenever possible) 2. Phone screen first (code test with screen sharing for devs) and have the money
discussion. 3. In-Person interview with hiring manager (candidate meets team, sees environment) 4. 2nd round interview (including team-mate) 5. 3rd round interview if “cross team functionality”, senior role, or if we have a lot of
great candidates. 4. Verbal offer and acceptance. 5. Email offer and acceptance. 6. Official offer letter and acceptance. 7. Send contract over in advance to review. 8. Arrive and sign contract.
www.getadministrate.com
About Our Process 1. Candidates can (and often do) bomb out within 5-10 minutes
on the phone screen. That’s OK. We just politely say we’re not for each other and stop wasting everyone’s time.
2. We respond to ever single CV sent in. Always. 3. The first window into a company is the hiring process. Don’t
be late. Don’t reschedule interviews. Respect the candidates and the process.
4. We try to blind things as much as possible to remove any potential for subconscious (or overt) bias, racism, or discrimination. The phone screen serves to remove appearance as a bias point too.
www.getadministrate.com
About Our Process (continued)
1. We sort the money question early, as it can be a deal breaker. We are transparent about our pay range and don’t play games. We communicate the pay scale first.
2. We don’t outsource critical components of our product or support, so we don’t outsource our hiring.
3. We apply our “values” test during the interviews. If a candidate is unreliable, that’s a values problem for us, and we take it into account.
www.getadministrate.com
ProTips • Figure out a way or a question that can help you test each of
your corporate values. We strongly value reliability, so we’re testing this with every email and interview interaction.
• Trust your gut, but get a second opinion. • Every company has a few insanely valuable people with
nontraditional credentials. Make sure any process you put in place wouldn’t preclude you from hiring that person again.
• If you dress casually, warn the person in advance they don’t need to dress up!
• Be prepared to let your interview time run long if necessary.
www.getadministrate.com
Important Things We’ve Learned
1. Transparency really matters. Almost no question is out of bounds. Why are you hiding something?
2. First week and first impressions are key – make sure EVERYTHING is sorted prior to candidate arrival.
3. We actively attempt to discourage candidates from coming on board by contrasting how we’re different from other companies.
4. We anchor expectations (usually with a small salary adjustment) around the 90 day probation period.
5. During high growth periods, employee referrals are key. 6. The CEO must be personally involved in the first 150 hires.
www.getadministrate.com
REALLY Important Things We’ve Learned
1. You’re changing someone’s life. This a truly important decision. Treat it like one.
2. Approach all HR decisions with empathy and using the Golden Rule.
3. The best way to create a political company culture is to not provide a transparent compensation path.
4. Culture fit is really important. There’s no fixing poor culture fit. 5. More employees, more problems.
www.getadministrate.com
REALLY Important Things We’ve Learned (continued)
1. Educate, educate, educate. In all areas (technical, interpersonal, financial, etc.)
2. Change titles and give senior titles slowly. 3. A startup is stressful. We’ve long understood that lots of life
changes shouldn’t be made together, so we want to make sure if there’s going to be lots of change in their life, we talk about how we’ll both work to manage it.
www.getadministrate.com
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
Employees are #1.
Act like it.
Frequently Asked Questions Q: This sounds really complicated. You guys are obviously a huge company. What about for small startups? A: We only have 13 employees. We’ve used this process from the beginning. You can (and should) too. Q: What if I can’t afford to do X? A: Then you can’t afford to hire people. Q: I don’t like HR. Can’t I just ignore this? A: We don’t like it either, but it’s part of being a company. Do it well and nobody will notice it. Do it poorly and it’ll destroy you. Q: How did you learn all of this? A: We made a lot of mistakes. Learn from us!
www.getadministrate.com
www.getadministrate.com
Questions? Comments?
Feel free to get in touch! www.getadministrate.com
