Humble Interviewers And Good Packaging Are What Your Startup Needs

The thing I like about startups is the diversity and complexity of the problems they face. Nobody can solve the puzzle from the outside, it does not matter how many years of experience he or she has.

Here’s the story. A very promising startup received funding from investors and reached out to me for collaboration. They had to grow aggressively to deliver promised results. The initial team included CTO(co-founder), two senior backend developers, two middle-level developers, frontend and backend, QA who also helped them with the design. They needed approximately 15 engineers and four designers within the shortest possible period. I was quite busy with other projects, but I regularly sent candidates, who were highly qualified. Overall, I sent 14 candidates, zero chosen. I was close to withdrawing from that project but chose to stay and understand what was the obstacle there.

I asked their CEO to work from their office for two weeks, and he allowed. As a Hawthorne effect, their in-house team started to deliver exceptional results and provide referrals. I created a referral reward program and compensated them with Kindles. After two weeks I praised everybody for their friendly hospitality and advised CEO to eliminate CTO from the interviewing process.

Here’s why.

Since we had no results from the interviews, I sent candidates I had invited a Google Form including simple questions about the interviewing process. Questions were about the professionalism of the interviewer, the relevance of asked questions for the position, plus questions like whether they would consider our company as a workplace in the future. I got nine responses and seven of them gave negative feedback. Some comments mentioned that the interviewer was trying too hard to show his expertise and superiority. Another applicant wrote that he had been asked irrelevant questions related to his future plans of personal life. While discussing salary range, our beloved CTO gave comments like “I won’t give such rates for your knowledge” or “you can’t say you’re a developer if you don’t know that”. Another response made it clear that questions were specifically constructed to trick candidates, but not to reveal their actual knowledge.

I reached out to people who did not complete the questionnaire and asked to provide feedback by phone. They told me a lot of negative stuff similar to above mentioned. Now I had 13 responses and could not reach out to the last one, so I packed my bag and went straight to his workplace because that’s how I work. After getting my 14th negative feedback, I began to look for a flexible solution, as I could not hire people without CTO’s approval and he was the one who was blocking the process. During my two weeks, I noticed that he arrived at 11:30 AM, drank his latte and started to work from 12:00 PM. Obviously, I began scheduling interviews at 10:00 AM, so he did not think that we don’t want him to participate. The CEO was very helpful. We additionally involved the other two senior developers we had and made some outstanding hires. We worried that the CTO might be against such hires, but he was surprisingly supportive. Candidates were leaving the building smiling, and I was sure that they will consider our proposal if we make one.

Another problem arose later when we were struggling to find qualified designers. We were offering all kinds of goodies/benefits , stuff that nearly everyone offers — a flexible work schedule, snacks, bonuses, a highly competitive salary.

I created a small survey for my designer friends and based on the results changed our offer a bit. The initial proposal included 13th salary as a bonus, quarterly rewards based on the performance and gym membership. I eliminated the 13th salary, made some cuts from quarterly bonuses, (these creative fellows don’t give a damn about money, believe me) and added a weekly trip (anytime after their sixth month in the company) to some exhibitions and art events in Barcelona. Regarding expenses, it was nearly identical, but it crashed the system. We had so many applicants that I was having a really hard time shortlisting the right ones.

I felt like a substitute football player who scored the world cup winning goal at the 114th minute of the game. It was one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever been in. They went on to reach more astonishing results with their strong team.

P.S. I don’t want to mention any names, but in case you’re reading this still remember that brown cake you used to make (you know my address, nothing’s changed).

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