📝 Example hiring processes

Now, how to tie together all the steps above? Your process might differ depending on the size of your company. Here’s an example hiring process for both a smaller and larger company:

A hiring process for a smaller startup

1. Schedule the first appointment with the candidate. Make sure that conversation isn’t only you asking them to answer questions for you. Spend time “selling the role” to the candidate and give them the chance to ask any questions that they want to.

2. Schedule an on-site interview to assess technical skill and determine cultural alignment.

• Assign a short technical project prior to the interview date. A technical interview can then be conducted on the day with the project as a focus of discussion.
• If the technical assessment comes back positive, schedule a follow up meeting to determine cultural alignment. In the early stages of your company, it’s incredibly important that the founders have an active hand in who joins the team, so schedule a quick founder’s chat as well. At the same time, schedule some time for the candidate to meet with the team leads and senior team members.

3. Ask the candidate for 2 references that you can call. Make sure to probe beyond the usual glowing recommendations that are sure to come from somebody who has been asked to serve as a reference.
4. If the candidate possesses the competencies to meet the outcomes that you set out in your scorecard and the reference calls don’t raise any red flags, give the candidate a call with the good news! Tell them that you’re putting together an offer (be prepared to answer questions). This should then be followed up with an official offer as soon as possible.
5. As soon as the candidate accepts the offer and a start date has been agreed on, their future team-lead should give them a call to discuss how they can start preparing for day one. This includes getting set up with a laptop and access for accounts they’re going to be using. This person is now part of the team, so it’s the team lead’s responsibility to make sure that they’re invited to any team events that are scheduled prior to their start date.

A hiring process for a larger company

1. Schedule some time with the candidate for a quick phone call to introduce yourself and your company. It’s important that you convey your employee value proposition during this call (why should somebody want to work at your company), while also clarifying any details about the candidate that weren’t obvious from their profiles.
2. If both parties are happy to proceed, assign the candidate an online technical test. Make sure that they understand how to access the test, and are well briefed beforehand on any time limits or special criteria. Once they have submitted the test, get somebody from your dev team to check the results.
3. Due to the company’s size, the founders are not involved in hiring every new team member. If the results of the technical assessment were satisfactory, arrange a structured interview with the hiring team and at least one technical team member who will run through a quick technical interview to cover anything that wasn’t included in the online test. Ensure that everybody is well briefed beforehand; the interviewers on what they will be assessing, and the candidate on who they will be meeting as well as what kinds of questions they can expect.
4. If the feedback from the technical and culture interviews is good, call at least 2 references, making sure to focus on gathering disconfirming information, rather than simply asking them to list what they liked about the person. If needed, organise to have criminal and credit checks run on the candidate. Give them a call beforehand to give them context on why this needs to be done, and to pass along details on how they will be carried out.
5. If the candidate possesses the competencies to meet the outcomes that you set out in your scorecard and the reference calls and other checks don’t raise any red flags, have who was involved in the interview process give the candidate a call to tell them the good news and that you’re putting together an offer (be prepared to answer questions). This should then be followed up with an official offer as soon as possible.
6. As soon as the candidate accepts the offer and a start date has been agreed on, their future team-lead should give them a call to discuss how they can start preparing for day one. This includes getting set up with a laptop and access for accounts they’re going to be using. This person is now part of the team, so it’s the team lead’s responsibility to make sure that they’re invited to any team events that are scheduled prior to their start date.

The final phases of these two processes are quite similar. We find that regardless of company size, after the candidate has come in for an interview most of your success in hiring will hinge on how quickly and effectively you can execute your own internal processes.

Once you have determined that somebody can meet your technical requirements and will be a good addition to your company culture, there shouldn’t be any reason to delay making an offer.

Summary

Whatever hiring process you end up designing for yourself should have the dual goals of being able to effectively move people through its stages quickly and efficiently, while also providing an awesome experience to the person going through it.

At the end of the day, you can’t go wrong if you ask yourself the following question at every part of your process:

Regardless of whether I end up hiring this person or not - are they going to walk out of an interview wanting to work at my company?