Skip to content

Hiring Principles Example

Warning

I am not yet fully convinced that this level of detail is required when outlining hiring principles. I am also not certain of how impactful this is compared to just following the hiring alignment guide.

This is something I want to hear more opinions on, and will explore more in the future.

Who we are

  1. Our hiring standards are high.
    • We want our hiring standards to go up—not down—over time. We would rather leave a role open longer than fill it with someone who is not a great fit.
  2. We hire people from diverse backgrounds who will add to our culture.
    • We actively seek to recruit a diverse pool of candidates from different backgrounds—human diversity (ethnicity, gender, religion, age, etc.) and cultural/cognitive diversity (learning styles, education, work experiences, geographies, points of view, etc.). We are inclusive and collaborative, and we view diversity an addition to our company that will help us to deliver better products and customer experiences. We avoid using terms like “culture fit” and instead prefer that interviewers identify specific behavioural evidence when evaluating a candidate’s non-technical/non-functional capabilities.
  3. We don’t hire candidates who are arrogant and dismissive of others’ points of view, even if we think they’re smart and capable.
    • No assholes. Although someone might be brilliant, they need to operate within a team. Everyone needs to trust each other and feel safe offering differences of opinion.
    • Big ego candidates unwilling to listen and collaborate ruin teams and repel top talent. But, we do want people who will challenge us (respectfully) and demonstrate courage by speaking up.

How we interview

  1. We know the best talent requires engaged hiring managers and interviewers.
    • Hiring managers who hire top talent invest heavily in recruiting and partner effectively with recruiting. Passive hiring managers hire less qualified talent than active, engaged, “always-be-recruiting” hiring managers. Good hiring managers are accountable leaders of the process who drive alignment with their interviewing team and recruiter to ensure everyone is clear on hiring criteria, hiring principles, interviewing process, role expectations, selling the opportunity, meeting service level agreements with recruiters, and sharing evidence-based interview feedback. The hiring manager’s job doesn't end on the start date—they must ensure an onboarding plan is built before the new hire’s first day.
  2. Hiring managers select great interviewing teams and align interviewers to hiring role expectations and requirements.
    • Interview team composition impacts who we hire and the candidate experience we create. We select interviewers based on their skills as interviewers and relevancy to the work/job. Our interviewers should represent the diversity and inclusion we seek—different backgrounds, styles, ethnicities, genders, etc. You're more likely to recruit candidates from different backgrounds if they see themselves represented in the interviewing team.
  3. Interviewers use clearly defined hiring criteria and assigned focus areas to consistently and fairly evaluate candidates.
    • We want to hire people we can get along with, but hiring based on gut feeling, hiring someone you can be friends with, and interviewing for "personality" introduces biases into the process. This usually leads to a more homogeneous workplace that lacks diversity.
  4. We evaluate candidates using evidence of performance, not pedigree, to predict success.
    • We interview in alignment with our values, using evidence-based behavioural and situational interviewing. We evaluate a candidate against two key areas:
      1. The "What": skills and knowledge, technical/functional abilities and achievements and
      2. The "How": behaviours and motivators that can predict on-the-job-success.
  5. Every interviewee goes through a fair and consistent interviewing process.
    • No exemptions for referrals or internals. Candidates should describe our interviews as consistent, fair, and deep, and our interviewers as smart, friendly, authentic, and prepared.
  6. We treat all candidates the way we’d treat our customers.
    • Top candidates are interviewing us as much as we’re interviewing them, and our employment brand—our reputation as an employer—is built one candidate interaction at a time. We want every candidate to receive an exceptionally positive experience! Selling is everyone’s job, and every candidate deserves a great experience and a realistic job preview, whether they are hired or not.

How we make decisions

  1. We take smart risks on candidates.
    • Candidates do not need to be perfect to be hired; every hire involves some risk. We don't take risks on candidates who aren't aligned with our behaviours and values.
    • We believe in the growth-mindset. When making a trade-off, we take risks on people who need help developing technical skills or gaining experiences that are easily obtained on-the-job; these are teachable.
  2. We make quality, consultative hiring decisions, quickly.
    • Consensus is not required—ultimately, the hiring manager makes the final decision with input from the interviewers. Closed or anonymous feedback decision-making processes open the door for bias and discrimination. We conduct live discussion debriefs to make hiring decisions so that interviewers can calibrate and learn from each other’s feedback. It’s everyone’s job to ensure we make fair, quality hiring decisions, so if we see bias or discrimination, we say something. We strive to make hiring decisions within two business days of a candidate’s final interview, as we know that top talent have other opportunities and expect quick decisions.

Comments