15 Posts Found

Before candidates join for the interview round, Peoplism sends a thorough prep guide to sketch out expectations. “We tell the candidate most of the interview questions in advance. While it is a unique approach, I don’t understand why it’s that controversial and why other companies don’t do the same,” says co-founder Liz Kofman-Burns.

There are plenty of behind-the-scenes factors that contribute to someone being a … [ Read more ]

Authors: Amber Madison, Liz Kofman-Burns | Source: “Why Now’s the Perfect Time to Retool Your Hiring Process and Get Creative” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources | Company: Peoplism

companies are starting to be more intentional about hiring for a candidate’s future potential, not their past history. But it’ll be a long road. Our traditional recruiting processes still place an emphasis on certain types of education, experience, or personal referrals that can lead to a homogenous workforce.

Start by rethinking your job descriptions. Focus on the results you’d like to see, rather than the type … [ Read more ]

Author: Ryan Roslansky | Source: “You Need a Skills-Based Approach to Hiring and Developing Talent” | Original Publication: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball pits the collective old-time wisdom of baseball players, managers, coaches, scouts, and front offices against rigorous statistical analysis in determining which players to recruit. Analysis wins, changing the game forever. Could the same be true for recruiting top talent?

When the National Bureau of Economic Research looked into this, it pitted humans against computers for more than 300,000 hires in high-turnover jobs … [ Read more ]

Authors: Mary Meaney, Scott Keller | Source: “Attracting and retaining the right talent” | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

San Francisco startup Weebly invites job candidates to work on site during a “trial week,” paid at fair market value. Why? Simple: it’s very hard to suppress values-incongruent behaviors when working closely with others for that long. As their CEO says: “Assholes can hide it in interviews, but for whatever reason, they cannot hide it for a whole week. I don’t know why, but it … [ Read more ]

Author: Cameron Sepah | Source: “Your Company’s Culture is Who You Hire Fire and Promote” | Original Publication: Medium | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources | Company: Weebly

Spanning’s Jeff Erramouspe likes to hire salespeople in pairs. “You spend the same energy training one sales rep as two,” he says, “and it promotes healthy competition from the start.” It’s also a hedge against high turnover: “You don’t want to spend all that effort and be back where you started.”

Authors: Alix Stuart, Jeff Erramouspe | Source: “How Many Salespeople Do You Really Need?” | Original Publication: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources, Marketing / Sales, Training | Company: Spanning

One important initiative at ING has been a new three-week onboarding program, also inspired by Zappos, that involves every employee spending at least one full week at the new Customer Loyalty Team operations call center taking customer calls. As they move around the key areas of the bank, new employees quickly establish their own informal networks and gain a deeper understanding of the business.

We have … [ Read more ]

Authors: Bart Schlatmann, Deepak Mahadevan, Peter Jacobs | Source: “ING’s agile transformation” | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources, Training | Company: ING

Successfully competing for top talent involves both selling jobs to the best candidates and retaining the highest performing incumbents. In order to be seen as an employer of choice with a compelling value proposition for employees, many companies measure turnover and conduct exit interviews with departing employees to gather feedback about the experiences people had working there and the reasons why they’re leaving. But a … [ Read more ]

Author: Ben Dattner | Source: “Why You Should Interview People Who Turn Down a Job with Your Company” | Original Publication: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Because you may have a long list of candidates, you should batch calls as often as possible. For example, set aside 15 minute segments in a 3 hour block daily. In a first-pass, I always ask:

1. “Walk me through your resume”, to understand if the candidate is actually interested in a startup via a clear story, or just shotgunning their resume;
2. “If you left a

… [ Read more ]

Author: Tim Chen | Source: “How to Hire Entry-Level at an Early Stage Startup” | Original Publication: Medium | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

You can attract more diverse applicants if you avoid using male pronouns and stereotypically masculine words or attributes when outlining desired qualifications. Tools like Textio can help identify if language in job descriptions is potentially disqualifying.

Source: “The Best Advice We Overheard at First Round’s CTO Unconference” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Most of the time we can only hire one person for a position. That means we may have to turn down some really talented people. Don’t let the work you did finding that talent go to waste. They can become a stable of potential employees ready to fill your next position.

One easy way to make this work is through drip email marketing. Once you’ve made … [ Read more ]

Author: Adam Seabrook | Source: “19 Recruiting Strategies to Make Hiring Your Top Growth Hack” | Original Publication: Betterteam | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

Not sure if an employee can “hack” the startup environment? Try freelancing first or do what companies like Automattic do – figure it out by having potential employees do real (paid) tasks with the team before making it official.

Source: “Recruiting Strategies” | Original Publication: Betterteam | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources | Company: Automattic

Here’s the good news: The new, bigger role of learning allows you to save money in hiring. When I launched my first company in 2008, one of my first hires was a CTO. I chose an experienced developer who was in huge demand and was an expensive hire.

I also hired an entry-level employee who demonstrated enormous potential and ambition, although he had only rudimentary development … [ Read more ]

Author: Nick Gidwani | Source: “How to Support Employees’ Learning Goals While Getting Day-to-Day Stuff Done” | Original Publication: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources, Training

Claire Hughes Johnson, COO of Stripe, occasionally finds it helpful to plot members of the team on a Venn Diagram with three circles: People who are good at their work, people who are making great impact, and people who love what they do. The ideal employee fits into all three circles. Make a list of all the people who fall into this bucket. What other … [ Read more ]

Author: Claire Hughes Johnson | Source: “To Grow Faster Hit Pause — and Ask These Questions from Stripe’s COO” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources | Company: Stripe

In hiring, what most leaders do is they have a set of criteria, they evaluate a bunch of candidates through interviews and resumes and other information available, and then they make decisions based on their gut. You could actually turn that process into a much more scientific approach, where you lose none of your experience but you add a lot of data.

The way I would … [ Read more ]

Author: Adam Grant | Source: “Six secrets to true originality” | Original Publication: The McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources

NerdWallet gives candidates the following materials to make their experience before and after company onsites better:

• An interview day outline. NerdWallet sends every candidate an outline detailing their day at the office 48-hours before they arrive. It includes: the names and roles of the team members with whom they’ll meet, interview times and duration, and any activities they will be participating in throughout the day. The

… [ Read more ]

Author: Flo Thinh | Source: “Turbocharge Your Recruiting Machine — Here’s How” | Original Publication: First Round Review | Subjects: Hiring, Human Resources | Company: NerdWallet