During the next few weeks as we encourage all staff to work from home, we'll be trying out a new "final stage" of the hiring process.
Typically, we'd invite the candidate to the office to meet members of the engineering team in person, have lunch, and chat with the hiring manager.
The hard part (technical testing) is over and the focus is on getting to know each other. As such, our remote version of this process should focus on:
- Social activities.
- Letting the candidate see us working in-situ.
- Getting to know more about the candidate on a personal level.
- Have the candidate join a pairing session for 1 hour as an observer so they virtually look over our shoulder.
- Have the candidate join a 15-30 minute social chat with the whole backend team (or as many as possible). We should introduce ourselves, maybe do some ice breakers, try not to overwhelm them!
- Schedule a short chat with someone who is in engineering but outside the backend team.
- A virtual lunch at our desks.
- A show & tell with some object in each person's home.
- A short game we can all play together remotely.
As normal, the process should also involve a 1:1 chat with the hiring manager.
A typical office visit is for 3-4 hours, so let's devise how we could fill that time with the above activities!
- Quick welcome hangout with the hiring manager, explain the plan. Let them know if they need a quick break at any point they only have to ask. Answer questions etc
- 1-2 hours with two members of the team pairing as an observer. Guided tour of the code and tooling, plus time on an actual ticket.
- 30-60 minutes virtual lunch social with the team (and anyone else in #dev who wants to join the conversation).
- Quick intros around the table.
- Ice breakers: hobbies, show & tell, etc
- 30 minutes 1:1 chat with hiring manager to wrap up