Forem: beatrizatfidel

Open, Honest, Equal: How we hire at Fidel

beatrizatfidel — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 16:08:28 +0000

When you have great recruitment practices, good things come. The right talent can directly support a companies’ prospects, but it influences the experience of your customers, too. We like to think that, here at Fidel, we’ve taken that message to heart.

We believe that a great hiring process has to be both agile and scalable. However, we take it a step further. For a hiring process to deliver that exponential value, it really should cover more than that, taking into account diversity and carefully considering the candidate experience.

In this article, we’re going to explore how we hire at Fidel, the core values of our process and - when we’re popping those champagne corks to celebrate another hire - that our new joiners are supported and can support us in achieving positive growth that sets us on the path for positive exponential growth as a company. Also, the talent team just really likes Champagne.

Diversity in Hiring 🌈

This one goes without saying but, at Fidel, we believe that all candidates should be considered, regardless of who they are, be it gender, age, race, religion, or sexual orientation. In order to put this into practice, we've put a few measures in place.

Job board diversity: When it comes to hiring and maintaining a diverse team that distances from any discriminatory biases, in the first place, we work to ensure that we’re posting our open positions on a diverse range of job boards that make it possible to attract talent from a variety of different backgrounds and locations.

Neutral job adverts: Every job advert is entirely neutral and assumes absolutely nothing about the candidates’ background. At Fidel, we believe that in an equal workplace and that needs to stand since the moment we post jobs, so everyone feels welcome regardless of gender.

Anonymous mode: All Fidel applications are reviewed in an anonymous mode within our Applicant Tracking System (ATS). This means that when reviewing organic applications, the reviewer has no access to the candidates' personal information such as name, photo, location, or age, for example. This helps us to scout talent-based entirely on skillset and character, without unconscious bias.

Interview training: All training areas are important. Hiring is no exception. In order to provide the best candidate experience and conduct interviews fairly, we have regular training organized by our Talent Team, as well as resources always available in our knowledge-based tool. Those resources include detailed templates, instructions on how to provide feedback, guidelines on how to conduct interviews, questions that should be avoided, and more information regarding implicit bias.

The Candidate Experience 🗣

Hiring is a two-way street. We take measures to guarantee high-quality hiring processes in all the different departments of Fidel. However, we also have guidelines in place to guarantee an exceptional experience for our candidates as well.

Transparent hiring process: In order to manage candidates' expectations, we always share what the hiring process will look like, providing guidance for the candidates to prepare. That way, candidates will have insights into how long the process will take and can consider their next steps better.

Timely response: When application volume is high, it can be a real struggle to answer all applications quickly. However, we commit to answering a candidates’ first application within a maximum of a week’s time.

We provide feedback: Regardless of whether a candidate is a match or not, we always aim to provide constructive feedback to candidates. We believe that being honest when it comes to hiring can not only help refine our hiring process but also supports our candidates in their job-hunt.

Candidate feedback: It’s a two-way street, remember? We have space for candidates to review our hiring process by requesting a Net Promoter Score (NPS) and an opportunity to give us comments on their experience. Being open to feedback is core to Fidel, and it motivates us to improve our processes, whilst giving a voice to our community.

The Hiring Process ✍️

Screening Interviews

If the application matches the requirements of the job role, firstly: Yay! Once we’ve finished high-fiving we proceed to invite the candidate for their first screening interview. All screening interviews at Fidel are managed by our Talent Team. The main goal is to get to know the candidate's background better and provide context on the team here and the job itself.

For technical roles like Engineering or Developer positions, if the team believes the candidate might be a good fit, we’ll usually invite the candidate for a technical assessment to make sure they’re comfortable with the particular stack we use. If the candidate isn't familiar with our stack, this can also a great opportunity to test their adaptability skills.

Team Interviews

Team Interviews can vary between roles, however, they’re super important for every job role we hire for.

When it comes to commercial roles, if the screening interview goes well, we have two more additional steps with the team. One is a Hiring Manager call - a chance to ask more specific questions about the job and the team but also to be asked about previous experience and motivations. The other step is a skills-based Interview where we expect the candidates to prepare a very short presentation on a defined topic they’re confident with and discuss it with the panel, often the team they’re interviewing to join.

When it comes to Engineering roles, if the technical assessment goes well, this is followed by the technical interview. For this, two of our senior Engineers will conduct a retrospective of the technical assessment and ask questions. It's a great opportunity for candidates to get a bit more detail on Fidel engineering practices and our product roadmap.

Final Steps 🤝

The final step is usually a founders’ interview. We’ll invite candidates for a final meeting with our founders, where they can gain a holistic view of the company and learn a bit about Fidel’s founding philosophies. Candidates also get a chance to discuss their own experiences and industry knowledge.

In Summary

Current challenges have meant some candidates don't get the chance to experience the office atmosphere and meet other team members in person. We’re happy to add extra meetings to provide these candidates with the chance to meet more of us. The same applies for management roles, it's mandatory for those candidates to have a round table with their new teams.

When we think about scaling a company, we immediately think about growing the workforce. That workforce shall be aligned with the values of the company but also with its needs. A strong hiring process makes it possible to not only target the needed talent but to build a team that shares the same vision and values.

With quality, scalable, and agile hiring, we can set more ambitious goals for ourselves, too.

We see the hiring process as the first stage of planting a seed. Without putting in the time and attention, you won’t ever see the flowers at the end. Thanks to our multi-step process we can find talent wherever it might be, nurture that talent and set up both the employee and employer for longer-term success. We want people to choose to stay with Fidel for a long time, too - that’s why we invest in each of our people from day one of hiring, so they want to invest in us right back.

Bringing in the best people is never just a talent team mission because when we find the right person for the job, everyone benefits - and that’s what Fidel is all about. *Champagne corks pop in background*🍾

Node at Fidel

beatrizatfidel — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 12:16:16 +0000

Hi everyone! At Fidel, we are looking for a Senior Back-end Engineer to join us.

Our current stack is mostly Node.js, AWS, and DynamoDB. Does that ring a bell? Just DM, happy to tell you more about our Team.😊

What's it like to start a new job during a Pandemic? We asked our new starters

beatrizatfidel — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 10:04:50 +0000

If you saw the Talent team’s last post, you’ll know Fidel hasn't slowed down on hiring during Covid-19.

But we are doing things differently. For obvious reasons, we’re conducting our hiring and onboarding processes fully remotely. That doesn't mean we've changed our focus, though. We're still committed to growing a world-class team while providing a great candidate experience.

That’s not possible unless we collect feedback in the process and learn from it. The current situation is new to all of us, and most of us have probably never interviewed fully remotely either. But changed circumstances are no reason to let our standards slip, and we want to make sure we’re providing the best experience we can.

What we asked

To help us with our direction, we asked our new starters how they’d found their onboarding experience. We wanted to know:

What motivated you to apply to Fidel during the Pandemic?
Did our team make you feel safe and clear about the stability of our company and your role?
Were we well-enough prepared to conduct our hiring 100% remotely?
Did we communicate well with you?
How did you manage to build your understanding of the team, culture and office?
What do you think could have improved your hiring experience?

What we did well

1. Maintain an agile and fast-paced hiring process

100% of our new starters said our remote hiring process worked really well. They said it was not only fast, but efficient and well-adjusted to a remote setting.

What the team said:

“YES! It felt like the team had experience with a remote environment which also implies that team communication is generally good”.

Marcia M., QA Engineer, Lisbon

How we did it:

We’re proud of this one! Even before Covid-19 struck, we made a point of being fast-paced and agile in our processes. We try to give constructive feedback to candidates as fast as we can, and are flexible around time-zones when it comes to the scheduling of interviews. Now more than ever, we make sure we’re paying attention to the specific needs or situations of our candidates.

2. Give candidates the chance to get to know Fidel's culture

We asked our new starters if not having the chance to be in the office during the hiring process concerned them when assessing our culture. 100% of them said it didn’t.

What the team said:

“Not at all. Obviously I would like to have been to the office and met everyone in person, but I don't feel like the lockdown is any detriment to sharing the company culture that everyone absolutely lives by."

Carlos F., QA Engineer, Lisbon

How we did it:

We encouraged everyone involved in the hiring process to share their honest feelings about what it’s like to work at Fidel. We made a point of talking candidates through our company values so they understood what we care about as individuals and as professionals (even if they couldn’t experience it in person).

3. Collect feedback from candidates

When we asked our new starters what captivated them about Fidel, the answer was pretty much unanimous:

What the team said:

“The funding, the people, and the product. All best-in-class!”

Simon B., Business Development Manager, London

How we did it:

The best way to improve any process is by looking for feedback. During our hiring processes we send NPS surveys to our candidates to give them a chance to provide us with sincere feedback. After they’ve joined, we ask them to answer a few questions (like these ones!) on how their hiring and onboarding process was.

What we could do better

Starting to request feedback from our new starters has been a great learning experience for us. It’s really encouraging to see that most of the feedback we received is aligned with our focus on candidate experience.

But not everything is rainbows and we also received feedback on the areas where there’s room for improvement.

1. Share more about what we’re doing:

What the team said:

“I remember speaking to Kat and Les about this as the website isn't the most comprehensive in my opinion. The most useful part for me was the case studies. The culture was easy to understand through glassdoor and speaking to individuals.”

Simon B., Business Development Manager, London

How we’re addressing it:

A key piece of feedback from our new starters was how important it was to get to know our culture early on – even before they spoke with any team members. 70% of our new starters said that they relied mostly on Glassdoor reviews to understand our culture, rather than on materials created by the company. Some of the ideas for how we can improve that included a "meet the team” page, a more culture-oriented section in our blog, or even more team updates on Linkedin. To make our culture more visible, we’ve started this blog series and have some changes to our careers page underway. Watch this space!

2. Introduce candidates to more team members:

What the team said:

“Depending on the office we're hiring for, I would definitely recommend connecting candidates with 'culture carriers' even if not directly involved in day-to-day responsibilities. i.e. interacting with Anna was really helpful for me to gauge culture”

Pat N., VP Strategic Initiatives, New York

How we’re addressing it:

During the Pandemic, we’re making sure that candidates get the chance to meet more team members than usual. But the people the talk to in the hiring process are usually those who they’d be working most closely with. We’re now looking into ways for newbies to meet team members from completely different departments, giving them a more holistic view of the company culture. We’ve also started posting team-member spotlight posts on our instagram.

3. Give more reassurance about the Pandemic:

What the team said:

“I mentioned my concern about the current financial situation/pandemic. Although everyone was really helpful in answering my questions, I suppose it would have been good to have some really concrete resources explaining the drive for more recruitment despite the situation just to ease any initial concern without needing to request the extra detail. I think it would be a massive reassurance to a prospective new hire.”

Tom K., Copywriter, London

How we’re addressing it:

In such uncertain times, we’ve been conscious of the need to share more about the outlook of the company. 40% of our new starters said they would have appreciated a more detailed explanation of the current financial situation of the company. We realised that simply asking team members to speak about it during the hiring process might not be enough. Now, we’ve created an internal strategy to allow our top management to share more detail with the team and have formally added it into our interview guidelines.

Thanks to the feedback from our superstar new joiners, we now feel informed and empowered enough to make the right improvements to our hiring process. We’re ready to take it to the next level. To see what it looks like for yourself, why not apply for one of our open roles?

See our open roles