Fixing Interviews
"This is something we think a lot about at PocketRN and we've come up with some strategies that we've found successful and you may as well:
You have to change your definition of valued candidates. The top tech companies define their candidates a particular way: they hire top of class from top universities, they are really good at answering technical coding interview questions, they have had positions at top tech companies, and they've scaled the corporate ladder quickly. These are all fine rubrics, but when everyone is using the same measuring stick, you're all competing for the same supply. Change your rubric to look for candidates outside of these criteria and suddenly you find a wealth of great talent that is largely untapped. What are some criteria you can use that the big tech companies don't? That's largely determined by the company you're hiring into, but here are some ways we go about it:
Drop the pedigree, especially for non-senior/manager positions. It doesn't matter what school they came from, their education level, or what companies they worked for. Focus purely on the skills they bring and not their journey. You'd be surprised how many great applicants are never even given a chance because their resume was thrown away by all these tech companies that all calibrate based on pedigree.
Especially for software engineers, stop asking interview questions that calibrate for individuals really good at interviewing but not necessarily good at their actual job. Caring about how charismatic/personable they are is probably not relevant to the job (unless they are a leader). Asking them a 45-minute coding question isn't going to give you a good sense of how well they architect, design, test, and develop on their own time and environment rather than the short, stressful environment of an interview. We removed both of these types of questions in favor of 5+ hour (sometimes 10+ hour) take home coding assignments to a problem much closer to the kind of development they'd be doing if they were hired. They have all the time they want to complete it, access to us to ask any questions or get more guidance, and the prompt is always pretty open-ended so they can come up with their own creative solution. If they fulfill the prompt, we guarantee an interview with them (regardless of their resume). If they don't do the assignment, we very very likely do not interview them. That works wonders for us, and most of our hires are incredible engineers that failed time and time again on standard technical interviews.
As you already pointed out, people are not as enticed by money, shallow benefits (ping pong tables, free lunch, cool office, etc.), or other conventional carrots. Nowadays, people are being very reflective about working somewhere that matches their core values and balances home, health, and work. People will often compromise financial benefits for a more satisfying work environment. At PocketRN, we have a 100% flexible schedule (you work whenever you want, we don't care), we're fully remote, and we are very mission/positive-force-in-the-world driven. We've poached some incredible individuals who sacrificed good money to join a company they know they would be happy working at. We also recognize that our values and culture don't fit everyone (for example, we will never secure people that WANT an office) and that's okay: we just don't target those individuals. What kind of deeper benefits/values can you provide that is unique to your company(s)?"
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