Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

–Benjamin Franklin

Recently, there was a lot of talk about the infamous Google brainteaser and other tricky challenges that Google and some other tech companies are slowly discovering doesn’t help their recruiting in any way. Because we went through the same mistake, we decided to share a bit more about what we know works, what we know doesn’t and what we are not yet sure about. Of course, it is very contextual and, depending on your company culture, it may or may not be applicable. But at least, we share.

Recruiting at Seedbox

At Seedbox, the number ONE thing that we look for during recruiting is professional love

As with romantic love, professional love is hard to get, and sometimes hard to keep. So we devised a way to filter and groom only the candidate that fit our culture during our recruiting process.
We won’t go into all the details here because a bit of surprise needs to be kept for our potential candidates.

But here are the basic principles we follow :

Avoid bureaucracy, be lovable

Nobody likes to spend 6 hours in an interview, nobody likes to fill up 17-page forms and jump through administrative hoops, nobody enjoys following a 42-step process, nobody wants to meet 149 different people to hopefully be recruited.

=> what we do : we ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’

- One 1-hour interview to get a first contact
- A technical test the candidate does at home (in a familiar environment) so he/she is more focused on problem-solving than trick-jumping
- A second 1h interview with the people they’re bound to work with, focused on collaboration and communication

Be warm and welcoming, show some professional love

Unless you’re in the military or in a job environment where fire / earthquake / natural catastrophe are just another day at the office, you do NOT need to put your candidates in extreme conditions.
Challenge them, put them out of their comfort zone : yes.
Push them to their limit, make them panic : not useful neither for you nor for them.

=> what we do : we demonstrate support from day minus 21

- During the first face-to-face contact, we concentrate on having a cordial, interesting, thorough conversation about them, their past work and anything that would demonstrate their professional love
- We accomodate any reasonable request the candidate may have (for example if he currently has a job, we will accept to hold the interview after work hours)
- During each of the 3 steps of the process and even before and after (whether the candidate is selected or not to work with us), we provide support and honest answers to any question he/she may have
- We encourage candidates to give feedback and comment on the process itself as well as on their experience

Gather people, grow teams, look at professional blossoming (or not ?)

One of the biggest teachings that came from our experience is that as important as technical and communication skills are, the main element of success to get efficient and happy teams remains the ‘fit’.
You can have the best marketer in the world, with the strongest experience and impressive references, if he or she is not able to collaborate with the team in place, you are guaranteed to fail in the mid/long term. It’s not so much about finding the perfect someone, but more about finding someone that your people will want to work with.

=> what we do : candidate always end up meeting their team BEFORE being hired

- As our teams are quite busy, we make sure that we have them meet ONLY the best candidates
- The time the candidate and team spend together is not timeboxed. As long as they need more information on each other, we let them discuss it
- The final question – asked to the team and the candidate – is very precise and simple : ‘do you want to work with that person/team ?’. It’s not about experience, not about skills, only about people
- For selected candidates, any feedback/comment/fear shared after the meeting by both the candidate and/or team is scrupulously followed up during the first phases of the onboarding and integration in the team

Never let love down

Once you’ve decided that a candidate is a good fit for your organization and your team, and he/she decides that you are the organization and the team for him/her, keep the communication open and happening.
It’s not because there’s a 14-day gap between the moment you last meet the candidate and the moment he sets foot in your company that you should close all communications until then.
Make sure that you keep the interest. Like lovers, you have to work for it too : the involvement of the new employee will be proportional to the interest you demonstrated in him/her working for you.

=> what we do : onboarding process

- We make sure that we know what is the best/prefered way to communicate with the newly signed employee before he joins our team
- We plan at least one ‘communication point’ each week before he/she starts
- We involve the team into building the integration plan
- The team selects a mentor to help with the integration of the new employee from the very first day

Success ?

Maybe it’s just us, or maybe we really found the right balance, but since we started using those rules, people say that they are ‘impressed’ by the way we handle recruiting and onboarding.

I hope this helps, challenges and inspires you. Do not hesitate to share what works for you, as well as what doesn’t.

For candidates and other curious people, do not hesitate to check our article about interviewing process too