Recruiting Process
Table of Contents
Purpose
To transparently define a replicable recruiting process for the Countable team.
Scope
Covers the hiring process all the way up to onboarding.
Recruiting for Staff Contractors
Countable has two “tracks” for our team members: outside consultants and staff contractors.
This page is about hiring staff contractors who work a set number of hours, ideally 40 hours per week. We highly prioritize hiring full-time staff contractors who exemplify a strong sense of commitment and wholeheartedly dedicate themselves to their tasks.
The former category are for more specialized professionals, often with existing consulting businesses, and there’s no process for working with them currently but they are typically hired based on a quote for a specific deliverable.
Everything that follows is for Staff Contractors, not outside consultants.
Recruiting Process
We aim to communicate clearly and openly about our team, our norms, and our expectations.
Review our Recruiting Strategy for more on this.
Another goal is to always try to screen people earlier. The first stages of the screening process are cheaper, so we want to avoid letting anyone into phase 2 if we can somehow tell they’ll be rejected there in phase 1, etc.
Recruitment Stages
The recruitment process consists of the following stages:
- First Response
- Initial Screening
- Pre-interview Screening
- Initial Interview
- Technical Test
- Final Interview
- Contract Signing
- Onboarding
First response
If the candidate didn’t correctly format their cover letter, there’s no need to respond as it’s likely a mass/automated application.
Otherwise, when you receive an application:
Thanks for applying. We will be in touch if you're short-listed for an interview!
Initial Screening
For candidates that passed the automated elements of initial screening, return to do a quick, quantitative evaluation of their initial outreach using the following point system.
Point System
This is far from perfect, but early screening is optimized to avoid “type 2 errors” not “type 1 errors”.
Awarding half points is fine. Use your best judgement.
- 1 point for communication. No point awarded to candidates who miss the cover letter formatting requirement, or make other basic mistakes that waste the reviewer’s time.
- 1 point for writing ability. Reject if you see poor English, grammar errors, spelling mistakes in the cover letter, or have trouble understanding the person.
- 1 point for having 2 or more years of technical experience in all requested domains/technologies. Or, 1 year and a relevant bachelor’s degree or higher.
- 1 point for a well designed/formatted resume that is easy to read and highlights relevant information.
- 1 point for portfolio links. Candidate should have at least one link to good quality content they built, which looks professional, intuitive and has a good user experience. This can be on a platform like Dribbble, Behance, GitHub.
- 1 point for the person having been vetted by a reputable 3rd party. Examples that provide some objective measurement could include:
- increasing company revenue or another metric at their previous job,
- a trusted referral,
- an open source project or contributions (GitHub stars),
- a well-developed professional profile that’s been curated with care such as Dribbble,
- going to a top school and receiving academic honours,
- having worked somewhere with a stringent screening like Google.
- Other accomplishments you can identify count as well, but these may be more difficult to measure quickly.
Candidates with less than 4 points are rejected outright.
In addition to the information provided above, we employ a customized scoring system for each unique open role, considering the specific skills and technologies required for each position. However, due to the ever-evolving nature of these requirements and technologies, we are unable to disclose the exact details of the scoring system.
Pre-interview screening
Send a form with key questions that can be answered offline to save time during the interview. The applicant screening form comprises questions related to the working environment, preference for full-time role, and communication skills both in writing and speaking. If a candidate scores a minimum of 4 points, they will be eligible to proceed to the initial interview.
Inviting to Interview
Ask the candidate to meet you on Whereby, and to schedule the time with you using Calendly.
The candidate must manage to meet you (the interviewer) without exchanging more than 3 messages on each side.
If they don’t know how to write an email with all the information necessary to proceed, they will waste our team’s time, and unfortunately should not be interviewed.
Interview Evaluation
Chat with the candidate and rate their communication ability.
We are marking their ability to create clarity, and to give and respond to “belonging cues”.
- 1 point if the candidate maintains eye contact at least 50% of the time, AND you feel they’re constructively working to see if there’s a fit.
- 1 point if the English (written and spoken) is perfect or near perfect. Neither side should need to repeat themselves, and communication is very clear. You know what the person means when they speak.
- 1 point if the conversation flows fluidly with both sides speaking and the speaker switches frequently. The candidate asks questions on their own to facilitate this.
- 1 point if the candidate answers questions clearly and understands what’s been asked.
- 1 point if the candidate demonstrates alignment with the company’s culture and values.
The candidate must have at least 5 points to be eligible to proceed to the technical test
Technical Test
The technical screening consists of a simulation of the actual work we expect them to be able to do very effectively.
If any of these criteria are missed, reject the candidate.
- The technical test should be performed with a 90% score.
- The technical test represents baseline work and should be completed effortlessly by the candidate.
- If the candidate wastes any time of their own or the interviewer’s time with unnecessary or unclear communication, they will be rejected.
Final Interview
If the technical test is completed with at least a 90% score, the candidate will receive a video interview with the leader of the team they’re applying for, and with the director of our company.
The selection criteria at this point are for very promising candidates, and are specific to each team. The guideline for advancement:
- Interview questions are not open-sourced here, because it would give too much advantage to the people who happen to see this page.
- If in doubt, reject the candidate. Hiring the wrong person results in a type 2 error.
- Consider that “before you make an offer to someone, think about whether you’d like to have 10 times as many people like them in your company.”
Non-Acceptance Letter
If someone is interviewed but not accepted, respond as follows (subject: We've Decided On Other Candidates) :
Hello, and thanks again for your application.
We want to notify you that we won't be moving you to the next step in our selection process.
We have an extremely selective process and less than 1% of candidates are selected so you've
done well to make it to this point. We wish you great luck in future job applications.
If the Candidate has made it to the Technical Test stage, the lead of the team they’re applying for should also write a personal note with an explanation of scoring, how to do better next time, and if they have a 80% or better score, that we will consider them for future positions.
Contract signature
- Once selected a candidate, your supervisor should proceed with the contract signature by using a EverSign template, that provides legally binding electronic signatures.
- Once everything is prepared at EverSign, send the document to the signature to your candidate’s email.
- Once your contract is signed, ask your candidate for a national ID document.
- Confirm if the provided document name matches with what was inserted into the contract.
Onboarding
- After you’ve successfully completed the previous step and collected the candidate documents, send it to your supervisor.
- Our Ops coordinator proceeds to onboard the new person, with the help of their supervisor.
Referrals
Our Employee Referral Program is open to all members of the company and it offers rewards to employees who successfully refer qualified candidates.
- We will regularly post our job openings on Slack, ensuring the team is always up-to-date.
- When making a referral, please send Cat the CV of the qualified candidate along with a brief note outlining your connection with them and explaining why you believe they are a suitable candidate for the position.
- Referred candidates will go through the standard application and evaluation process, just like any other candidate.
- The referring employee becomes eligible for the referral reward once the referred candidate is hired and successfully completes a specified period of employment (90 days).
- $120 - When the employee starts
- $120 - 90 days after Start Date
- The referral reward will be disbursed on the next payout schedule.
- There is no limit to the number of referrals an employee can make. Each successful referral will be considered for a separate reward.
Important things to consider:
- For anyone who gives us a referral, ask “would you vouch that this person is a good fit and good performer?”.
- We need to make sure referrals are given on this basis, and not just trying to help a friend get a job.
- When making a referral, the referrer must consider it a great fit for both sides.