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Transcript
Nate: [00:00:30] Hey, Josh.
Josh: [00:00:31] Hey Nate, how are
you?
Nate: [00:00:33] I’m doing pretty good. How are you?
Josh: [00:00:35] I’m doing all right. Having a, having a good week. So far summers officially kicked off school
is out for the kids
for us
here.
Nate: [00:00:44] nice. Yeah, and the weather’s warming up time for more outdoor activities.
Josh: [00:00:49] Yeah, there’s definitely been a lot of
pool. I don’t know if I’ve
told you I’m on the pool board and that’s
just a whole stressful mess of obligation. But,
I was actually on it last
year with when the coronavirus and the pandemic stuff hit and it was a lot of, a lot of meetings. Like
Nate: [00:01:07] Oh, yeah.
Josh: [00:01:09] like
Nate: [00:01:09] Yup. It’s like every, every community association effort. Right.
Josh: [00:01:14] Yeah, bad year to be my
first year on a pool board. It was, it was bad. I’m kind of burnt out
already on it,
but we’ll make do
Nate: [00:01:21] Yeah, sounds good. I saw on Twitter today, you’re talking about setting up, for Q3 and that’s objectives and key results for people who aren’t familiar with that.
Josh: [00:01:31] Yeah, Yeah. We’ve been doing that for, I don’t know, probably at least two years or so. Maybe a little longer, but
found it to be. Pretty effective, especially once you have multiple teams on your, in your, in your company.
Nate: [00:01:46] Yeah. So you’re getting the jump on it for for the next quarter and ready to go.
Josh: [00:01:50] Yeah. End of quarter times for us get a little stressful,
just because of that. Like, because normally we’re doing end of month types of wrap-ups and things like that. Retros, each team has retros, stuff like that, but
the. Okay. Our ones
get
set every quarter and then they’re reviewed. So there’s just a log jam of a bunch of stuff that goes on on the, on the quarter crossover team.
Nate: [00:02:14] Yeah, Yeah. Huh. Well, actually I think our topics, they kind of relates a bit to okay. Cars and stuff like that. We were hoping to talk to you about, hiring. And I feel like that’s something that you’ve got a bunch of experience with So I’m hoping that.
You can share your knowledge with, with the rest of us.
Josh: [00:02:29] sure.
Always. Yeah. Always happy to talk about
hiring a big piece of the kind of company company building phase of a business.
Nate: [00:02:39] Yeah. So is that something you’ve done in the last little while or like how long ago was your last hire?
Josh: [00:02:43] I’d say our last hire. I’m trying to even think we actually haven’t hired anyone new for probably the past two, three months or so. So the last cycle of starting a hiring process was probably about
like four, four months ago.
Nate: [00:03:01] nice. So this is pretty fresh for you then it’s not too far back.
Josh: [00:03:05] If anything it’s been a break. Like we were probably on a clip for the
past few years where there was always a hiring cycle going
on in different
teams. Like it wasn’t just all like, like, you know, you’ll hear VC backed or other ones like yeah, we need to hire, we need to
double head count this
year or we need more SDRs or Hey, we’re really ramping up.
Yeah. You know, product team and need more developers, things like that. So, so for us having a steady clip of usually like
always one or two going on you know, is, was pretty normal for the past few years. So
Nate: [00:03:39] So are you kind of in the camp then of, you know, we’re always hiring if the right person comes along type of thing, or is this more like you’re, you’re consistently needing more people and you just keep looking for those people.
Josh: [00:03:51] I’d say it’s gone through different phases. I am definitely of the notion that
I am kind of always looking for
the right people. We do leave certain recs open all the time for roles that you kind of almost always need to sort of fill the queue, so to speak like frontline types of roles customer success or sales.
Those are ones that we’ll keep open. So we’ll get applicants and We’re not necessarily always actively
interviewing, but I’ll kind of leave those, those roles open per se.
Nate: [00:04:25] rarely if at least have your neck kind of spread. So that way, if something good falls in here, you’re good to go.
Josh: [00:04:30] Yeah. I’d say we operate
in different phases. One just kind of that open net mentality. and then
then there’s like active searching and then there’s there’s like hunting where you’re actually really need to fill a role because. Your team is stressed and you need, you need to backfill because someone laughed or things like that.
And, and those are one, we probably start, go into a different type of hiring motion.
Nate: [00:04:57] Yeah, so that’s, that’s kind of, that’ll be interesting. Cause I was going to ask you next about your process. Like how do. you kind of, how do you kind of work through that at a high level? And I guess maybe what the urgent ones let’s talk about that first.
Josh: [00:05:09] Sure. Actually my, it might be easier to go from the lower one because I think it builds on itself kind of like a, like a, like a set of blocks. So in that earlier phase of just having out,
so obviously having a job
rec out there which
I do feel
Nate: [00:05:25] what’s a, what’s a, what’s a wreck.
Josh: [00:05:27] Okay. Like like a job, I guess. I don’t know, actually, what is that?
I don’t even know what the accurate or, and it’s not an acronym. It’s a shorthand. Is it not required? Is it a requirement or a request? I don’t, I don’t actually know.
Nate: [00:05:38] yeah, I don’t know.
I’ve heard of job postings. Like maybe that’s what you mean.
Josh: [00:05:42] Okay. Hmm. I bet. It might be a bigger company term that I don’t not even that just has transpired, like you put a
request to get a higher, like maybe that’s
it where it needs to be internally approved for
a
big company. Like here’s a job rec or like a
Nate: [00:05:59] Oh, I see. So like, I, I have a hole over here and so I need a person who’s able to do, like, if it’s customer support, I need a person who’s able to talk on the phone. I need a person who is able to like that
kind of thing.
Josh: [00:06:09] Yeah. like so it might be it
might stand for. A request because if a hiring manager wants like budget approval, it’s like, I don’t know. I’ve just so
ingrained with that term, like a, job rec from an internal
standpoint. So
Nate: [00:06:27] Okay. So it starts with a wreck then what?
Josh: [00:06:29] I think it also does include that always does include, you know, a job description, roles and
responsibility, essentially, like requirement’s, which you’re looking for. So I think that’s. Oftentimes it starts internally, but it’s also an externally
facing document that would be in a job posting.
Right. and then,
Nate: [00:06:48] Gotcha.
Josh: [00:06:50] so so having back first and then whether
it’s actively being
posted
somewhere, like you’re, if you’re, you know, there’s, there’s two sides kind of
like sales, there’s the inbound side, which
is like you post these jobs so that
people apply. Right. So, and job boards, things like that. And then on the flip side, if you’re
more actively hunting, then it becomes more of like, you’re doing outreach sort of like outbound.
So whether you’re you might have a posting, but then you’re also searching through resume banks and reaching out to
people.
Nate: [00:07:22] Yeah, yeah. Using your network a bit too. Maybe for that.
Josh: [00:07:25] yeah, I think net your network possibly using a recruiter, which we’ve never done.
Maybe I’m too cheap, cheap to think about that, that way. So.
Nate: [00:07:34] Yeah. Okay. So. you’ve got a rec and then you’ve got your posting and then what, what kind of happens?
Josh: [00:07:37] So the, once the posting, so if I start, if I group it into those three phases, like having it out there, so we might have postings that are just out there, like I said, for sales and support are kind of always just hanging around. And then if we are in the more active mode of searching. Have some more paid posting.
So that’s where it will pay to have it on like a remote job board. For instance is somewhere we will actively look.
I’ve kinda gotten to know the pockets of where to post, what types of jobs for us. You know, like a developer job you might post somewhere
else.
Nate: [00:08:13] right. yeah. Like there’s like, if you’re going to look for a support person, you might not post that.
on stack overflow. You might put that on some other job board.
Josh: [00:08:21] Right, correct. Yep.
Nate: [00:08:23] Yeah.
So this is like
Josh: [00:08:25] go ahead. No, go ahead.
Nate: [00:08:26] I was going to say, So this is like a resume gathering exercise. Is that kind of the idea here or what are you getting out of this, this.
Josh: [00:08:33] so what we do is we don’t what we do is oh, sorry to, along, alongside with our job posting, we create a a form for people to fill out. So, which includes. You know, uploading your resume. It has a couple of questions, so it’s essentially just like a like a screening kind of form. We do take a lot of time with those and we leave some open-ended
questions.
We get the idea of how,
You know, so we can add it at a,
at a deeper glance, understand the candidates that
are actually actively applying. So we have.
That posting that might go in different places. And then we are sending anyone that responds to that posting to this, I guess it’s more like a job application,
but it’s a form online that we’ll do.
And
that’s
where our hiring managers will look at those
Nate: [00:09:22] Gotcha. so you’re getting that extra information so you can kind of help screen when you as opposed to just, you know, looking at their resume and taking that at face value.
Josh: [00:09:30] Right. Yeah. And, and that, and that’s where like those three phases of. Putting it out there actively searching. And then like what I called, like hunting and the hunting is where you go, where you’re seeding through the people’s resumes or your reaching out we’ve used. Indeed before I had like a pretty good database and you can search for, and definitely some nice little things, knowing how active people are on the platform.
So you’re not reaching out to someone that isn’t actually like looking for a job. Things like that. So that gets into the act of hunting. Like, Hey, we need to fill this role quickly type of phase
Nate: [00:10:06] Yeah. Yeah. So you got all these people then, I guess they’ve all submitted your, your form, like your internal form. What kind of happens after.
Josh: [00:10:13] So that’s where we are screening those internally. So that would be a hiring manager would be able to look through those. I’m often taking a part of it, but I would say, yeah,
Have have included myself in different phases sometimes for some hiring managers. They don’t necessarily enjoy like looking through all the applicants.
Nate: [00:10:33] Okay. Do you have a, do you have a hiring manager or do you do all that?
Josh: [00:10:36] oh, Abby I’ve what I mean is that the person that the person, the person, the new person is going to report to. So.
Nate: [00:10:46] Oh, okay.
Josh: [00:10:47] No, but we don’t have an official
like HR department or anyone that does like,
handles all the recruiting per se. We have some people that are
better
at it than other like managers in the company, and sometimes they
will help out other ones.
Because actually we do have someone on our team that’s really good that used to do, used to work in recruiting and things like that. So she kind of just can lock in any time and, and. Has a good, has a good lens for it.
Nate: [00:11:15] Yeah. So with that screening process, is there anything particular that you’re looking for that like, that makes someone kind of jump out to you?
Josh: [00:11:24] Sure. I, and that’s where probably the form comes in. So each one of those
applications have a very specific set of questions that are role-based. So that is a we’re that that’s where the development of that application form, what people will fill out.
Basically, we’re reading that before we’re reading any resumes.
So it ends, and there’s some basic questions in there. We even oftentimes include like the salary general salary range that we’re looking at. Just we’re very budget conscious being self-funded. So if someone comes in and is looking for an exorbitant salary
that is outside our range, where it gives us an idea of the expectations, we know that that might be a non-starter for us.
Nate: [00:12:08] right.
Josh: [00:12:09] So we’ll look at that. We’ll leave definitely
some
open-ended questions. So like once, for example, for a
developer, you
know, or we’ll we might ask about an experience with you know, web applications or things like that, or write about a project that you’ve worked on recently. You know that’s a web, you know, describe a web application project.
So that actually seeds out a lot, right? Like you get, instead of getting a back-end developer or instead of getting a backend person or a person, you know, we specifically we’ll say an asp.net thing. So then we get a person that responds with Java stuff or realizes we’re looking for that. And they actually might not even complete the forum, which is good.
It feels, it filters out from both sides.
Nate: [00:12:52] Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Okay. That’s really cool. So you’re filtering out all the people based on like, traits, like, like what they’re looking for and then also like, what’s your, what’s your take on, you know, my open-ended question.
Josh: [00:13:05] right. And there’ll be a project based question. There’ll be, I could probably find some other better samples and there’s some things like better, a little more. What’s the word? A
more qualitative So to speak. So there might be things like, you know, like what, what, you know, describe a project that you really enjoyed or something like that, or, you know, tell us about a manager that you, you know, we try not to get too in depth, but we try to make sure that there’s only a couple open-ended questions.
So it’s not this super long form that you’re
going to scare people off from. And we try to use dropdowns and
check boxes as much as possible for certain things. So like, Customer success role for
us
since we do a
lot of integrations with marketing and sales software will be like, check the ones you have
experience
with Salesforce, Marquetto
HubSpot, whatever.
So that again gives us the idea of if they know what they’re doing. Or, and they fit even the job description that we put out there because you’ll probably be surprised at how many people apply to jobs that they’re really not necessarily a fit for it.
Nate: [00:14:10] Yeah. And I guess this kind of brings up an interesting thing is like how much do you hire for their personality traits and their ability to learn versus the skills that they already have? Because at this stage, you know, if you filter out everybody who hasn’t had experience with Marketo, you know, maybe you’re throwing out people who actually would be really good.
How do you, how do you kind of balance that out?
Josh: [00:14:31] I think that also goes into the thought process of how we’re. Building that form. So if, if for example, if they checked something else, like active campaign or some other similar type of software or Eloqua or something else, like I’ll be like, okay, they understand MarTech or they understand CRM types of things and different job roles may like, if it’s a more, if we’re looking for a person.
To round out the team that is
going to be more technical. Then we’ll on the, on
like the customer success or customer support team. That definitely becomes a requirement. So we’re not
yeah. And your roles, we might look for
more of
potential and there could be like a baseline. So if they didn’t check those off, but it’s, it’s,
it becomes like a nice to have
if they have that technical experience But if we are high, no, we’re hiring for a
more junior. Yeah. We will definitely look between the lines
on more of could there just be more potential? What have they learned that type of thing, but for the large part, we don’t really hire people without any experience. Mostly because it’s really hard, especially as a remote company to all of a sudden like, Hey, your job is behind the computer where you’re not going to get the benefit of like being in a work environment.
Nate: [00:15:47] right. You don’t have people close by. Yeah. So you kind of have this screening layer. And then what happens.
Josh: [00:15:55] after the screening layer. So we’ll go through those and then we will reach out to applicants that, you know, look interesting enough to have a call with. So then we’ll set up a screening call and we’ll require that it’s on zoom. We’ll require that it’s with video because again, remote and doing remote for a very long time, even pre pandemic want to make sure people are comfortable, you know, doing video things like that.
So, we’ll and we’ll have a 15 minute screening call, so we’ll have, that’ll usually be done by the hiring
manager, so they might have their own sets of
questions. Again, to just add another filter layer of let’s get comfortable with this person. Let’s ask them about their past experience.
Let’s ask them about describing their jobs.
So you could
do get a little bit more detail and resolution than other things that you’re not getting from the form and just the resume.
Nate: [00:16:49] right. So you’re kind of using this as a way to fill out your view of this person. Like kind of fill in the blanks that the resume. leaves or that the, the questions that you asked before were, we’re kind of leaving.
Josh: [00:16:59] right. And, and I would say we, we don’t, you know, for I’m trying to think of, I don’t know what the percentage rate is. We don’t really look at that. I know some people will track that. Like how many applicants versus how many do you actually interview? I mean, at that point, we’re just kind of picking out of the ones that apply the ones that are just, Hey, this looks interesting enough, right?
We don’t get our. Hopes up too much, but we’re like, okay, this is worth a screening call. It gives us an easy out. It gives them an easy out. And during that call, we also are oftentimes explaining our hiring process to them as well. So they know what to expect,
Nate: [00:17:32] Right, right, right. Okay. So this is like it’s, it’s getting to know each other. and like, You know, if it doesn’t, if, if we, if we don’t want to
go forward.
from this point, it’s a really easy cut-off point for either side to kind of say, okay, I’m not really interested in this and this anymore.
Josh: [00:17:46] Right. Right. And just, just, from a point of like a lot of people talk about how to
treat applicants. And I know, you know, a lot of the buzz out there obviously is just like, you know, people get upset when they don’t get call backs and things like that. You know, whether it’s right or wrong, where we’ve drawn.
The line essentially is we don’t respond to every applicant from the, that applies to the job posting, where they submit their resume and things like that. But we do, if we do have a call, we will always follow up whether they’re a good fit or not. We’d
like to close that loop now that you’ve actually invested a little bit more time and arguably they’ve invested some
time in filling out the form, but at that point,
We haven’t, we haven’t gone that extra
mile
of, you know, responding to everyone that
has at least applied.
So I know some people like to do
that, but, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
Nate: [00:18:40] Yeah. And you probably feel like you’ve, you’ve formed a bit of a relationship with this, person. Right? So having some closure is probably helpful for them. Cool. So after you’ve gone through this this over zoom call what’s what’s next step.
Josh: [00:18:53] Typically there’s a project of some sort. So that is like a take home type of thing. Where, depending on the role oftentimes if it’s a, like a salesman and support or a customer success role, we do have like a standard project which may include, like, let’s say you applied Nate and it’d be like, Hey Nate, here’s, you know, we’re going to give you a project afterwards.
Okay. usually includes like using our software. It may, if it’s from a sales side, it might
be like learning enough about the product and you set, set up a fake company to use a referral program, and then, you know, you can come back and present it. We might have some requirements,
you have to set up a, B and
C just to kind of get
invested in it.
And can you explain it to us? Things like that. So the follow-up to the
project of any of the projects. Yeah. They would submit it and then we’d have a followup call where they get to kind of explain it and have a more just a conversation about it. And oftentimes that’s really, you get to understand how much they’re investing in.
Did they really get excited about our space? Are they excited about our product? What have they picked up in a rather fast time? How much time have they committed? How much they haven’t. So you’re kind of gauging all these different meters of, of interest and.
Nate: [00:20:11] right. Interesting scope. And then I guess probably like what’s really obvious to you maybe is like the it’s like, can they actually, can they do something? Can they contribute in some small way already without knowing a whole lot about our.
Josh: [00:20:25] right. Cause like, like resumes and, you know, someone could have written their job posting, you know, descriptions and stuff for them. I don’t think that really happens, but
Nate: [00:20:34] but are also there, maybe they’re a really nice person, but they aren’t very good at doing the particular role that you’re looking for. And this will give you a small indication of that.
Wow.
Josh: [00:20:43] Yeah. And I would say probably about 20% or so we’ll get through that next step. So to speak in terms of like,
once you’ve talked to them And you were interested enough, maybe only 20%
were even asking if they will, you know, take the next step and do do a project. And depending on the roll, we,
we might depend depending on the role and the
scope of the project.
Cause like,
a developer
might get a very different project. Obviously it usually involves code. But depending on how big the project is and the role you know, we’ll, we’ll offer to pay them a flat flat rate
for it. So and also the seniority. you know, I’m going to ask a more senior developer
to do a more in-depth project, but it’s not something that they could do in like two hours.
Cause that’s not even
going to tell us enough, but it might be like, oh, code against this API and build
a quick UI around ABC. And it does all these things, but we know that’s going to be like a 10 plus hour investment and we’ll just say, Hey, well, we’ll pay you 500 bucks as a flat rate when you complete the project.
Nate: [00:21:46] right. Yeah. That’s I think that’s a great idea because I know a lot of companies will give you projects as part of the hiring process and just be like, yep, you have to do this like 30 hour project. you know, good luck to you. And if you don’t make it through then, you know, too bad,
Josh: [00:21:58] and some of them might even do them in a different order. Right. They might do it in that first phase where they made even know if they like you or not. So we try to at least like, you know, invest enough that we’re both investing a similar amount. And committing in a similar way. So no one feels like burned at the end on either front
Nate: [00:22:18] Yeah, totally. And I think that’s really fair because the point of this is to get to know each other. Right. And I think that’s really well thought out on your, your side there. So you do the project and you kind of see the results from that, or they present their results in you’re on that call. What kind of happens if you like what you see and you’re ready to move.
Josh: [00:22:35] So. Depending on the role, there might be some other smaller
steps. Like I think the developer role, we might have a there might be a coding challenge, like a live
coding
challenge with that is before the project, again, kind of on that, how much you’re investing in, how much time you’re putting in, but after any candidate in any role is through the project phase. There’s that follow up call that’s a review of that. And sometimes we’ll bring in an additional person. So imagine it was the hiring manager first And
they might bring in, say like another lead person on the team to kind of get another sense of that. And that’s that person would only come in and hear the review
of
the project.
Hear the, hear the new candidate kind of
defend their project or explain. Can give the opportunity for another person to get like a gut feel on the culture fit and some other things
Nate: [00:23:27] Get a second. Get a second opinion. Yeah. That makes.
Josh: [00:23:30] And then there’s one more call. Like if you could get through that and everything seems to be like locked in and a good fit and all of these types of things. Then oftentimes that’s when I will come in and have a kind of final call with the person it may be just me and I might have some of the information and kind of, you know, have the notes and have other things that I got briefed on by the other team members.
And at this point there. They liked that person enough. And they might either want a second opinion or they just need my sign off type of thing. And oftentimes I’m asking more of like culture fit questions. I’m often filling in the gaps of anything that
we were like looking for, that they might’ve
been unsure on.
Which reminds me, we do have like oftentimes we build like a scorecard of like part of those.
The job rec and the posting. And then we also kind of have strengths and weaknesses and things we’re specifically looking for bef for every role. And then part of that is all the people that talk to the candidate beforehand kind of give their weigh in on the score.
And some of them might be like, I think it’s this, but I’ve kind of have a question mark. So if you can dig more into ABC and try to find out and have a level of comfort with that trait or that skill set, that would be help.
Nate: [00:24:46] right. And it’s probably easy to, if you can quantify it a little bit, like in terms of numbers, then that probably helps with your decision a little bit too. If you’ve got like, you know, 10 people then you can kind of help to narrow it down a bit.
Josh: [00:24:57] yeah, by the time it gets there, we’re usually down to like two people. And in, in the cycle, we’re, we’re rarely Le it really goes that far. Like I said, Chop it down pretty big by only having maybe about 20% usually get the project and get through those piece. So by the time we’re committing to that, we’re have a pretty high level of confidence.
And then yeah, so it’s usually not too many by the time we’re down to that like final interview stage. So I might only have. For, for a normal role where you might be looking
for, I might only have like two or three of those and obviously if one gets through and we’re like, good we might say, if there’s another really strong candidate, we might like be in a holding pattern and might want
to, get one more to kind of pick between, you know, candidates.
Nate: [00:25:42] Yeah. Cool. Cool. So then that’s kind of the end of it Then you give an offer at that point, or how does that.
Josh: [00:25:49] Yeah, so I think, I think part of my last call is like just getting all the ducks in a row. So like I said, culture fit, filling in gaps between any other assessments or scoring that the team would like to know. Question marks, things like that. I’m also kind of upselling them at that point, you know, telling a little bit more of our backstory about how we are as a company, how we treat employees, how might have questions about potential benefits or just like that’s where it kind of can become more casual, like, okay, this is the final interview.
It’s also just getting me an idea of, of the, I will also like ring back to them about their
salary range and also bring back to them or expect like our, our budget for those things. So then
At that point, everyone’s heard the same things multiple times, I think,
you know, through the stages. So there’s, there’s no, there shouldn’t be any surprises there.
So when I do come back with an offer later on you know, following up and I’ll be like, yeah, I’m, you know, we’re going to, I’m going to discuss more with the team and you know, w you look, you’ll look to hear from us, you know, within the next couple business days, and I will let you know one way or another, and what’s how we always kind of end those things.
More than likely they’re getting an offer in at least I have a firm idea in my mind of what, where that meets and if they’re that again, that no one gets surprised.
Nate: [00:27:09] Right? right. Everyone’s on the same page and you’re, you’re moving forward. Cool. So like, that’s, that’s a pretty long process you got there.
Josh: [00:27:19] Yeah. I guess so.
Nate: [00:27:21] Like, what do you, what do you think it costs you to get one person in a chair doing a job
Josh: [00:27:26] Ooh, like costs us in time. I mean, just
that, well, we’ll see that that’s the funny part is the more, you know, as we viewed the more, the more time and preparation we’re doing upfront know that the better chance they have for success, because the bigger cost I feel like is not necessarily on all this time upfront, you’re putting, it’s painful to do, because it’s like, you just, usually when you want to hire, you just want someone in
the chair and you want to get going so to speak.
So it’s like dating and stuff. You gotta be careful. You’re not just like, oh yeah, come on
in.
Nate: [00:28:00] Yeah.
Josh: [00:28:01] but I think the bigger
risk of
not doing that. Once they’re on the boat and in, in, in the house, so
to speak, it’s Like, the, the challenge of getting them
onboarded and the time wasting. And then now you’re
involving multiple people in the company that the effect that can have on the other, other people on the team, if this person isn’t working out, I mean, it’s a big drag on everyone if it doesn’t work out.
So that’s almost the scenario you almost have to pitch is like, thinking about. What is going to cost you, if you don’t get this, if you don’t get this right. Because it’s, it’s very, it’s also more stressful to like, be worried about, Hey, is Nate going to work out? Like, Hey, he hasn’t, he hasn’t checked his code in.
And he’s we given him in a relatively easy project to start with. It’s not going well, or he keeps calling out sick and it’s like, we want to give him the benefit of the doubt to start. But after three weeks and like, you’re, you’re like having trouble coming up with your first design that, you know, you’re supposed to be a more senior person in and you get it.
We try again, we try to give him the benefit of doubt and to have that person go and then eventually not work out. That’s probably like a two month time after they’ve hired to give them a fair shake.
Yeah. And like I said, you have to be aware of the effect on the team. Cause if let’s say you come in in a week and I’m like, Nate, you’re not cutting it.
You’re you’re gone. Like
my whole team now is also like. Oh, man. He just likes slices fast. Could, that could happen to me like it. So you have to think of all the residual effects of that. So if you can front load as much as possible it’s before they meet other people on the team, until they’re introduced to everyone, payroll, all these other obviously overhead types of things.
Nate: [00:29:50] right, So it’s not, it’s not only the overhead of having to go through the process and onboard and whatnot. It’s also the effect on your team and the morale and stuff like that, that you’re considering.
Josh: [00:29:59] right, because I would think it’s almost that. What is the is it like an ounce of prevention or some.
Nate: [00:30:05] this is worth a pound of cure.
Josh: [00:30:06] Right. So it’s, it’s definitely that side of thing. Once you’ve realized that cure pain and how hard that is, you’re like, let me front load as much of this as possible and really make sure we get our, so I’m not even thinking about the cost of that.
That’s just the cost of like, trying to make sure that I’m not going to, we’re not going to suffer and we’ll still get it wrong. Right. There’s things. We’ve had anomalies where we’re like, I wouldn’t have changed anything. And there’s times where you’re like, okay, You know what let’s add a project to
the process.
Let’s add this, or, Hey, we shirked on, you know what let’s add.
At least for this role, we’re going to do a reference check. Cause we don’t always do that. But, but that,
that’s kind of how the process ended up getting, being built a little longer. Mostly because of the like, you know, course correction we’ve learned from that cure side.
Nate: [00:30:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So maybe just finally here, is there any any sort of mistakes that you’ve made or particular things that you would want to share with people about hiring that could help them avoid mistakes?
Josh: [00:31:06] I mean, number one obviously was that preparation, knowing your process and not kind of like going to the grocery store, hungry type of metaphor, like where I think, cause if you have that need to hire someone you’re right. You might act irrationally or you might be like, want to skip the process, skip steps, do different things.
We’re not even create those. Like I’ve seen people not even have a job rec, you know, and it’s just like, oh, I kind of know what I’m looking for. I need this type of developer. And you know, if they
took a little bit more time, like
building a requirement, I’m sorry. Sometimes that just has to be done. That, like I said, until you get burned on the other side,
Even if you had a good hire that made it through that way.
And that’s how I always do it. It’s like you might’ve gotten lucky and that’s okay. But now we’re, we’re trying to kind of not have it just be by luck. So that’s definitely one, I think we’ve covered that, at nauseum. The other one is.
Especially early on. It’s probably advice that’s counterintuitive because you’re often hiring for pain or sometimes you’re hiring for weaknesses.
Like I need someone to round me out, like, Hey, you’re a developer. I need a marketer and I need to hire for that.
Nate: [00:32:13] Yeah,
Josh: [00:32:14] and I could say that that’s, that’s really dangerous actually. Especially for an entrepreneur. I know we’re talking to them.
Founders and early, early business people. I have learned to hire for strengths, like hire for the things, you know, how to do that.
You know, how to onboard and train. You actually could write the job description to very granularly, tell you exactly what the person is going to be doing, because that’s also going to be a person easier for you to manage easier to know if they’ve gone off the rails. Like if I didn’t have a dev background and I’m hiring an engineer, I’m sorry for all you people that have that role, but it’s hard, right?
Like how would you know if that person’s there, if they’re not be asking you about, oh, I couldn’t check this in. Cause the repo was down and blah, blah, blah. And yeah. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t be as if you know what you’re doing. Right.
Nate: [00:33:07] Yeah, exactly.
Josh: [00:33:07] So that’s it mostly all in the preparation and the, and the hiring for strengths for multiple reasons.
One, you can manage them too. You’ll know what exactly you’re looking at. And yeah. That’s, that’s probably the biggest ones for me.
Nate: [00:33:20] great. Well, this, this has been really helpful and insightful for me to learn about this stuff. Thanks for sure.
Josh: [00:33:26] Yeah. Yeah, we could definitely go more on onboarding. That’s probably a whole nother topic on terms of like building onboarding out for different roles. But I think we’re probably at a good amount of time, but it was a good topic. Thanks for bringing it up today.
Nate: [00:33:40] All right. we’ll see you later.
Josh: [00:33:41] All right. Thanks everyone.
Nate: [00:33:43] Bye.