Recruitment process

Define need and role expectations

Outreach

Screening

Interview

Decide

Hire

 

Define need and role expectations

Before we kick off a recruitment cycle we need to clearly define why a role is needed and what the expectations of the person are.  

The hiring manager(s) should answer the following questions to company leaders and HR:

  • What problem is this role solving? i.e. replacement, increased workload, new project etc.
  • Is the role/work critical to business success? Why? You should be able to clearly explain how this role contributes to achieving our goals
  • Do we have internal resources to cover this role? i.e. could/have we look internally before bringing in new people?
  • What exactly will this person be working on? a list of day to day tasks and overall responsibilities, the clearer the better
  • What criteria will candidates be judged against?This must be clear and can not just be ‘good experience in java’, i.e. must have 2 years commercial experience using java on a web based product. You may split criteria into 'minimum requirements' and ‘desirable’ parts
  • What is the salary range you expect for this role? HR can help you gather data if informed before meeting

Company Leaders should sign off:

  • Do we have available budget to fill this role? 
  • Salary bracket
  • Recruitment budget - for channels such as agency, job boards

 

 

Outreach

Once the role is confirmed and the specs have been clarified, we will start to reach out to candidates. This includes advertising the role on free job boards, our website and spread the word amongst our team members. If budget allows, we will also hand the role to trusted recruiters.

HR will directly source via LinkedIN and other social networks where possible.

 

Screening

Incoming applications have to be screened for their suitability. This is the first stage of contact and worth keeping an open mind in terms of what role the candidate may fill. 

 

We use the following steps in order to determine a role for the candidate:

  • Review application - CV, LinkedIN, covering letter

          HR will review all candidates applications and look for matching skills and criteria against the job spec. It   is important that HR has tangible data in the job spec to fairly assess applications and filter out candidates.

  • 30 minute phone conversation with HR 

          The phone call is an initial conversation about who bitposter is and what we stand for. This is an important chance to sell our vision to the candidate. We’ll also cover the role and go through the tangible criteria to verify that this is suitable for both parties. 

  • Remote test (for engineering roles) - purpose: measure a candidates exposure to/and absence of well known best practices, ability to find answers discuss a brief (vision, prototype idea, requirements, coding standards, submission), marking guide and aim of outcomes 

 

Interview

The candidate is invited to our offices for an hour to meet with Hiring Manager and HR. In this time we will cover:

  • Intro to Bitposter and its Tech - We briefly describe what we do and what the role looks like and offer to ask any questions about bitposter to break the ice. 
  • Candidates experience - We want to know how the candidate has got to where they are now. We’ll probe into examples of challenges, what their process looked like and how it differs from their ideal process. We are looking for strong indications that the candidate:
    • can meet our expectations for the role
    • can grow with us
    • is proactive and a problem solver 
    • takes responsibility for past failings rather than blame others
  • For Engineers - problem solving exercise? May involve a developer? Pair Programming? 
  • Questions - We’ll take time answering any questions the candidate has

 

Final Interview

For shortlisted candidates there will be a final interview, in most cases, with the Co-Founders of the business and potentially another employee for an unbiased opinion about their fit for the role. 

 

Etiquette for interviewers:

DO

Be prepared - read candidates CV’s before the interview please

Be on time!

Ask for concrete examples and probe, probe, probe (i.e. give me an example of)

Use very similar questions for all candidates so we can compare better

Make the candidate comfortable and be friendly 

 

DON’T

Ask personal or discriminatory questions (race, colour, sex, religion etc)

Interrupt the candidate repeatedly  

Be distracted or distracting (fiddling with items) 

 

Decide 

All interviewers should gather and discuss the final candidates profiles and interview feedback as a group. The group should be very open about their concerns and feedback but ultimately, the decision should be made by the hiring manager. 

We will hire the person we feel has given the strongest indication, based on their experience and interviews, of being able to fulfil our expectations. 

 

Hire

HR will arrange to offer the role to the best candidate as decided by the Hiring Manager by sending an offer letter and contract out as soon as possible. Once accepted, HR will continue with the on boarding process.