The Ultimate Guide on Technical Recruiting — Part 3
In case you’re joining us late, here are the links to the previous two sections.
Part 1 — Philosophy & Planning
Part 2 — Process & Structure
SECTION 3: SOURCING, CLOSING, CALIBRATING
With the structure set up, we can now lay out the bricks. Execution essentially boils down to engaging with passive/active candidates, guiding them through the process and persuading them that this fits their decision framework and motivations.
SOURCING
What: Identifying, Strategizing, Outreach, Engagement. This is the lifeblood that enables the rest of recruiting to happen.
Easy to do but hard to do well, consistently. Everyone can send out an email but not everyone can do it in a human-centered, efficient and effective approach over a long period of time. Putting the time and effort upfront simplifies conversions the rest of the way.
Doing it wrong (email spam blasts, not understanding the profile deep enough, etc) can lead to wasted time, dollars and moral for interviewers, hiring managers, recruiters and the rest of the team.
Everything starts with sourcing!
STRATEGY
Think of sourcing as a collective of data points that someone can utilize to match the right person to the right role.
Data points could include…
Keywords from job description
Keywords from current employees within the same role (what’s on their resume? Linkedin that matches or stands out from the job description?)
Keywords from the initial intake meeting that manager pointed out (are there specific repo’s, companies, teams, projects, labs, research that we can target?)
Less discrete data points like job titles, degrees, spelling of a tool (systemC vs system-c), the spelling of a responsibility / role (architected, validated, integrated, etc.)
Helpful tips:
Start broad with your boolean string, then narrow down to around 100. Do an initial scrub to spot check accuracy of string then modify from there.
Stay curious. If you see a niche item that fits what the profile, write it down and perform a new search around that, (I.e, Candidate X worked at a Cryptography Research lab. Maybe I can look into that lab and see if there are other candidates like it)
Start from the back of list to front. There are some dimes hidden in the back results that the algorithms don’t catch sometimes
Keep organized. Keep track of what strings yielded results, which ones didn’t. Modify incrementally.
NOT searches can be just as powerful. (I.e, candidates NOT at Google or, NOT working on an overused keyword, etc)
Resources:
Glen Cathey’s blog. Incredible content!
Slides from Mark Tortorici
https://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=mark+tortorici
ENGAGEMENT
How do we elicit a response and persuade candidates to interview?
Here are the main communication avenues:
60–70% — OUTREACH via email, InMail. This is where the bulk of the sourcing efforts will go as the old adage that great candidates are passive and are already content
Key things to know with Outreach:
Be human and personalize some aspect of the initial outreach. So, don’t email blast cause that’s a waste of time and effort and honestly just makes the brand/recruiter look bad
Follow-up. This goes without saying. People are busy and almost never have time to respond right away to your first, second or even third email.
Utilize your managers and directors for golden tier candidates
Consider sending candidates a text (if you have access to their number) if 3rd or 4th follow-up doesn’t work. This works especially well with Millenials.
Be systematic. Track your outreaches, track conversion ratios for open/response rate. Make incremental tweaks to the template and test!
Stay up-to-date with the latest tools and trends. This guide from Gem is a must-read.
Common Tools for Outreach:
Linkedin Recruiter
X-Ray Searches, you can use sites like these with pre-built boolean.
Google Custom Search Engine, here’s a good one from Mark Tortorici
Next tier of ‘AI’ tools like Hiretual, Entelo, Gem, Outreach.io, etc can be helpful in surfacing leads.
5–10% — REFERRALS. As the team grows, the opportunities for referrals grow as well.
Great engineers know other great engineers. Our job is to simply inform and help uncover as recruiting isn’t always top of mind for the team.
Couple things to remember:
Incentivize. Cash bonus? Swag? A trip to Hawaii? Leverage Founders/Directors to create a culture of referrals.
Host referral parties. Book a room, order pizza and have everyone come together to look through Linkedin and find referrals
1–5% — EVENTS
Events are a great way to engage passive candidates or emotionally trigger them to at least consider exploring more. If anything, events plants seeds that might open up months later when the timing does align.
Types of events:
Intimate Dinners — Works great for technically niche or leadership roles. Should always aim to have a larger % focused on under-represented minorities attend events. More control on list and potentially higher short term ROI.
Happy Hours — Casual, non-abrasive way for the community to meet each other and talk about common topic (ML, front-end, etc). Less control but potentially higher long term ROI.
Networking + Panel + Demo — Combination of the two with speakers chosen from the team to present. Medium control on list and could potentially have high ROI both short and long term.
1–5% CONFERENCES
Attendee, booth or both.
Good for very narrow technologies like Computer Vision, Graphics, Silicon, Gaming.. Or new grads at career fairs and branding in general.
CLOSING
What: The finish line! Guiding, counseling and persuading the candidate to join your company. It takes a village to close.
Quick Tips:
Closing starts at the first call, sustained by a great candidate experience and ramps up towards the end with setting right expectations, triggering emotions and matching motivations.
Pre-closing and setting expectations is key. Start the conversation throughout the interview process, well before an official offer is made. Gather and re-visit key pieces of information (decision framework, compensation expectations, hesitations about your company, etc) throughout the process and not at the end. Build a complete narrative!
Do not extend any verbal / written offer until approvals are done
Work with the compensation team to understand your bands. Benchmark against FAANG companies who have deep pockets.
UNCOVERING MOTIVATIONS:
Make sure to do this after the phone interview and once again after the onsite. Decision frameworks are fluid and almost always changes / re-prioritizes.
Why are they spending time to interview with us?
What’s missing in their current situation that they want more of?
If you had multiple offers with similar compensation, what factors are you going to use to make a decision?
Where does X Company rank against the other opportunities now?
What are you expecting with compensation? Base? Total compensation?
Who is making this decision with you?
How important is work-life balance to you right now?
Capture everything! You, your hiring manager and any one else involved in the closing process will benefit from understanding the motivations which can change at each stage.
COMPENSATION:
Ask first. Get their number or range first before sharing anything on your end, otherwise you are flying blind and could completely under or overshoot it. See strategies below if they are clamming up.
Know your bands. What are the minimum and maximum ranges? What cases are exceptions made?
Suggest hypothetical scenarios. NEVER guarantee that you can X amount for candidate. If they ask, give them a range on the lower to middle areas of the band. NEVER give them your ceiling as you lose all your leverage.
Anchor (aka, respectfully low-balling). Harder to do if you have no idea what they are expecting. Never anchor at the high point.
Use objective evidence in negotiating with the compensation team (competing offers, specialized education or domain expertise, school, years of experience, interview performance, current compensation if they voluntarily shared, etc)
Push and pull — Don’t fall into the trap of getting bossed around. There has to be an exchange. If I can get X for you, I need you to make a decision by X date, etc.
TRIGGERING EMOTIONS:
Sales is an emotional game. If you can trigger something within that helps candidates feel wanted, loved, excited and respected, you are one step closer. However, the opposite feelings of feeling unwanted, un-inspired, unsafe about risks ring true as well (if not even more!)
Here are some ways to get points in the first category:
Personal congratulations call (or email) from hiring manager, interviewing team and recruiter — Share highlights from the onsite. Share enthusiasm for opportunity to work with them
Sell Call or in-person meeting with hiring manager, director, VP, etc — Same as above but the goal is to share vision, spark inspiration and assuage any concerns they have about moving forward
Happy Hour, Team Lunch, Dinner with the team — Gives the candidate an opportunity to meet potential team members and get a feel for the office environment and culture
Demo of product — Give them a taste of the end product and what their impact will look like
SWAG / Branded gift — Let them know they are thought of. Send it early in the process so they have something to visually remind them each day
Calls/Meetings with Employee Resource Group leaders (may not be applicable for startups but especially important for diverse, underrepresented minorities)
Share links to videos, articles, interviews, testimonials of end users and company’s mission.
Connect candidates with investors who can share their vision for the startup, the path towards 10x growth and why they took a risk and invested
SELL CALLS (FOR HIRING MANAGERS)
Pre-work: Read the packet, connect with recruiters to understand decision framework
Break the ice: Their story, state your intention/goal for the call, answer any initial questions
Listen/Build Trust: Tie things to personal perspective, be detailed, honest and candid
Understand decision framework: Share own framework, dig into the ‘Why’s, help them understand theirs and how Facebook would fit
WAYS TO GAIN LEVERAGE:
More leverage typically means the scales of ‘whose more desperate’ tips your way. The party that is less desperate has more control over how decisions are made which is where we want to be.
When the candidate has multiple offers but is open to interviewing with your company.
When the candidate reveals that they are ‘leaning’ towards your company
When the candidate reveals that they don’t have any other offers on the table and are only considering your company
When the candidate gives you a ‘magical’ number that they’d be keen on signing the offer at
Having multiple candidates that could be a good fit at the offer stage
Setting a deadline for a one time compensation increase
FLAGS FOR POTENTIAL DECLINE
Unresponsive to emails, texts, calls. “Ghosted”
What to do: Ask your hiring manager to reach out. Be straightforward and label the situation. You’ve been unresponsive, are you still interested?
Lack of engagement during prep, post-onsite and sell calls — Typically seen from extremely passive candidates who were already relectuant in interviewing seriously
What do To: Check motivations after technical screen to see how serious they are in the opportunity.
Offer Letter past signage date — Offer letter should only be sent after a verbal agreement is given. If the candidate is delaying in signing, there’s most likely a competing and counter offer that’s come up.
What to do:
Work with the hiring manager to meet the candidate in person or on the phone to overcome any reservations they have.
Work with compensation to get a new ceiling approved just in case it’s absolutely needed to close.
Remind the candidate how far they’ve already invested in interviewing, the decision framework they used that led to a verbal acceptance and the urgency for the candidate to make a decision given where other processes (assuming this is true).
COMMON CLOSING CHALLENGES:
This is a short list of scenarios I’ve experienced with very passive and sought-after candidates.
Not revelating any information on competing offers, current or expected compensation
Label everything — “I understand you’re hesitant about revealing numbers first but it’s important for us to build trust and transparency as we work together here.”
Remind them of your role as a conduit between the two parties (candidate and compensation team/company). “Whatever information you’re willing to disclose with me will only benefit you as we negotiate.”
Push and pull — “It’s fine if you don’t want to share, I can’t and won’t ever force anything out of you. BUT unfortunately that gives me less leverage and power to help as I’m flying blind. You can expect an offer that’s still competitive but don’t be offended/surprised if it’s far from your expectations.
Call out hypothetical numbers. “If I don’t have information, I’ll unfortunately have to assume. Based on your experience, I’m assuming you’re making around X to X (aim for lower range), does that sound about right?
Candidate is asking for compensation outside of max ranges
Are they leaning towards your company?
If you anchored correctly then hopefully you have some wiggle room. Bring down their expectations to your max and set up a hypothetical scenario. “If we’re able to get to this number, would you be willing to commit?” Only proceed until they say yes. If not, see steps below.
Play hardball. Tell them honestly that this is the max that we can go and that’ll have to make a difficult decision that’s based on other factors
Encourage them to think about the longer term plan. Often times, candidates get caught up on the short term differences
Walk through their decision framework. Typically there’s at least 1 other factor that’s close to compensation. Focus on that.
Unsure if they’re leaning or may be interested in other opportunities?
Ask how they arrived at that expected number. Have them walk you through their exact research / evidence finding
Talk through initial motivations. How important is compensation compared to the other factors?
Be upfront in sharing that compensation won’t be the winning factor here. “If we do well, compensation will follow. We want people who are motivated by the right reasons and believe in the vision that the rest of us does too.”
Use one of the emotional triggering strategies to paint a different perspective that’s not so focused on compensation
Talk to them about the long term strategy
Talk to them about the mission
Candidate has higher offers
If their highest offer is within your maximum, set up hypothetical situations to understand where they are leaning. “If compensation was the same, what company would you decide on?” “What if the compensation was slightly improved at X number. Would you be willing to commit if we could get to that number?” If they are not budging on sharing where they are leaning, be firm with them and tell them that you won’t be negotiating until there’s more information. Say, “I don’t want to get into a bidding war. I need to see something from you before I go back to the table again.”
Candide does not have higher offers
If you’ve anchored correctly, then set up hypothetical situations like above to understand what it’ll take for them to sign with you. Make sure you get the maximum pre-approved and get the candidate’s commitment before assuring them that you will go back to negotiate for more. There is more leverage and flexibility here if you know their offers are lower.
Candidate unable to meet verbal deadline
Talk with them on the phone to understand why there’s delays and where your company stack ranks against other opportunities. Dig into the main motivations for why they haven’t committed to your company yet (comp, uncertainty about the future, culture, team?) and resolve it with the expectation that they’ll meet your deadline. “We can connect you with our VP for a 30min call but we expect you to meet our deadline at X date. Can you commit to this?”
Candidate continues to push verbal deadline out
Same as last scenario, dig and understand. If this is the 2nd extension, let them know that you’ll be rescinding the offer if they can’t meet the date. Offer any last calls, face-to-face meetings as well. This is the only leverage you have as the candidate is most likely buying time to finish processes with other opportunities that are higher in their preference.
Candidate is ultra conservative with growth projections
Explain the market size, the revenue/traction of the team, run-rate, assurances from the founders, comparisons from other competitors with fundraising / numbers.
Reverse the question on them. “Why do you think this will be successful?”
Connect the candidate with founder, director, investors — anyone who can speak fluently and inspirationally about future projections
Candidate has expiring offers but your company is lagging (aka — how to stall?)
If the candidate has been responsive and has shown genuine enthusiasm about your company, that’s usually a good sign that they are prioritizing your company or have you in their top choices. In that case, encourage the candidate to push out deadlines. Explain to them how unlikely companies are to rescind offers given how much engineering hours are invested in interviewing. Help them understand how important this decision is for their long term career and what they could be missing out on if they simply could wait a week or two.
The candidate could also buy time for setting up lunches, happy hours to ‘get to know the team’ better, ask to have conversations with directors/founders, ERG (employee resource groups) leaders or if there are immigration issues, have a consultation with their lawyers before committing to anything
Candidate accepts offer but declines after receiving counteroffer
Set up a call or in-person meeting to understand their motivations behind accepting their counteroffer. Share research with them on the percentage of employees who end up staying at their company after receiving a counteroffer. Ask them why they decided to interview in the first place and if that one or two things that they were unhappy about is worth the extra compensation that they are receiving
Have your hiring manager reach out to have a conversation
Work with your compensation team to see what exceptions can be made to beat the counteroffer
Candidate hesitant to accept because of relocation
Consider flying the candidate (and their family) out to your city. Give them a tour of office and offer suggestions for potential neighborhoods they could live in
Offer a one pager on living costs comparisons, employment opportunities and other highlights of the city
Connect the candidate with other employees who have recently relocated to share their experience
Candidate feels under-leveled
Explain to the candidates what the expectations are for their level and what signals we saw from the interview process to confirm that
Connect the hiring manager directly with the candidate to help educate and provide assurances for their management style and desire to help promote
If needed, connect the candidate with an employee that has seen success in their promotions cycle.
Explain the importance of setting them up for success, what their potential path to promotions will look like and what the 4 year plan looks like for their career
Get a feel for how important this is. Will this be a dealbreaker for the candidate?
Does the candidate have other offers in hand that are at a higher level? Talk to your hiring manager to see if it makes sense to do a follow-up interview.
If the candidate just feels like they are under-leveled without any other evidence, try some of the above strategies to help educate the candidate and point them back to their decision framework.
Last Tips:
It takes a village to close in a candidate-driven, competitive market. The role of the recruiter almost becomes a project manager to gather information, set expectations and bring in others who can speak to the narrative being presented
Anchoring — never start at the top! Candidates will almost always ask for more no matter where you start. Always leave enough wiggle room so you can negotiate and close at ceiling.
Ask open-ended questions and just listen. Sometimes candidates just need a patient, understanding listening board to sort through all the thoughts going through their head. Engineers are very rational, analytically minded so be the bridge that matches their factors to what your company can offer.
Breathe — like, literally. Things can easily get emotional and even heated when there’s conflicting ideas on what should be. The more calm and leveled your voice is, the more calm the candidate will be in hearing your perspectives. Focus on the situation at hand and never allow things to get personal.
Push and pull — Don’t just become a ‘Yes’ recruiter. There’s power in saying no (maybe not so literally) but more in the sense of, “no, I will not go back and ask for more compensation if you’re not meeting me halfway in your commitment level, etc.” If the candidate wants to push on something, you need to pull something back. It’s a two way street.
METRICS
What: Source of objective truth on how successful (or unsuccessful) recruiting operations are going. Like any systems that rely on data, be sure the data is clean and that it helps tell the story, not necessarily the sole driver for how decisions are made.
FUNNEL MATH:
Metrics from top to bottom of funnel. Industry standard is a good starting point but every company and pipeline will have slightly different numbers. Establish a baseline and measure from there.
Reachout:Response — Industry Standard* (IS) — 10–20%
Above IS — Are you A/B-testing your templates? What changes did you make it (if any) that resulted in a higher response rate? Subject line? Body? Call to action? Was there a particular company, team that was targeted?
Below IS — Same as above, try different strategies. Partner with your hiring manager to help with reachout for top-tiered candidates. Do you have enough follow-ups scheduled? Have you tried creative tactics like texting candidates (if you have number
Response : Prescreen — 65–75%
Above IS — Great! Your message is compelling enough to create action, keep it up.
Below IS — What has been the main reasons why candidates aren’t open to having a conversation? What’s your call to action (do you have one?)? What has past data shown with seasonality?
Prescreen:Technical Assessment — 75–85%
Above IS — great, keep it up
Below IS — How are you selling the opportunity? Are you following up in a timely manner to push for next steps? Are you providing helpful prep material that’ll take out any uneasy-ness from passive candidates? Are you following up on past candidates that responded?
Technical Assessment : Onsite — 30–40%
Above IS — Do a quick month review of the candidates that’s come in. Tag and keep track of how these candidates do on the onsite and track for false positives. If they end up converting to offer, keep up the sourcing and questions asked
Below IS — See if there are any obvious trends with resumes, questions being asked, preparation materials and if right expectations are being set to study/prepare
Onsite : Offer Extend — 30–50%
Above IS — same as above stage. Track for false positives in performance reviews. Otherwise, keep up the great work
Below IS — Analyze onsite results -
Are there any emerging trends with negative feedback that can fixed at phone interview stage? (i.e, consistent poor coding, increase phone interview bar to weed out outliers)
Pay close attention to onsites with all no-hires — were there any flags that was already brought up at the phone interview? How does their resume read? What can be fixed when sourcing for candidates? Are there certain companies or teams that have continually shown poor interviewing signal that can be avoided?
What is the construction of the interview panel? Are we using calibrated interviewers? Are they burnt out and unmotivated? Are there any interviewers that have consistently given no-hire feedback — do they understand the rubric and criteria?
Are we doing the same things like sending out a pre-brief? Providing an exceptional candidate experience? Preparing them well before their onsite date, providing resources and sample questions and emphasizing the importance of studying/prep?
Offer Extend : Offer Accept — 70–80%
Above IS — Keep it up, you are a closing master. Be mindful of their motivations, are there any common trends that emerge that the team can drill deeper on in closing? Ask your candidates what they enjoyed most about their interview process
Below IS — What are the decline reasons? How well did the team speak and sell to the decision framework that the candidate used? How is the team competing against compensation? Go through each decline with your hiring manager to see what could have been differently in closing that was not compensation related.
OTHER USEFUL METRICS:
In addition to funnel math, these metrics will give a snapshot into emerging trends that will be important to keep on top of.
Cost of hire — From a high level, how many engineering, recruiting hours was spent to make 1 hire? Bottom up analysis using your conversion % ‘s X number of hours spent at each stage x cost of hour of engineering + recruiter. See some examples here.
Tip: Average cost per hire is ~$30-$50,000. If you could improve the onsite conversion even 5%, it will have a multi-thousand dollar cost of savings
Time to hire — How long does it take across each stage to convert? Your ATS should have built in analytic that can be used to tell that story. Just remember — Time kills deals in an ultra competitive market!
Tip: Pay especially close attention to onsite to offer stage as many hours and other resources have already been invested by that point. Create SLA’s, set expectations in the beginning and emphasize the cost of delays.
Source of Hire — Where are our offers coming from? Online, sourced, applied, referred, agency, elsewhere? Where do more resources need to be invested in based on the data?
Decline reasons — Why are candidates declining? Where are candidates going? What can be learned and changed (if anything at all?) to prevent future cases to happen? Here are some common reasons — higher compensation and/or level, better project/team, commute, cultural fit, unable to relocate, personal/family.
Don’t over index! This will take time to accumulate but be wary of any obvious trends (i.e, 1 of last 3 declines are because of compensation. What were the delta’s? Were they all corporate companies? Work with hiring managers, compensation and even leaders to present data and make decisions.
Last tips:
Use metrics help tell a story, strengthen a point and action change. Metrics alone are not entirely useful. Metrics + action+ measurement = improvements.
Cadence — Depending on the volume, funnel math can be checked on a bi-weekly and monthly monthly cadence at the most. There is no need to overcheck it! The other metrics can be done from reflectively on a quarterly basis and semi-annual basis to see what helpful and harmful trends might be arising.
Resources:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-cost-of-recruiting-an-engineer-in-Silicon-Valley
TEAM PLANNING
What: As the team grows from its initial members, VP’s and their directs typically have a similar format on managing it’s organizational structure.
To start, a hands-on technical leader is hired to build out the skeleton/framework/architecture for their group.
A search for a more formal people manager is in the works as the team plans to grow to 4+
A team of senior engineers who are comfortable with design/architecture as much as the implementation is hired. (4–5). This initial group are typically strong problem solvers and generalists (no tied to a specific domain)
With a team of 6+ (tech lead, manager, IC’s), the team can consider more jr/mid level IC’s who can help implementation and contribute to higher level discussions (4–5+)
With a team of 10+ with continual plans to grow, promotions are given to initial senior engineers who can lead a small team of 3–4.
The team starts a search for another manager (will depend if vertical / groups are available. I.e, one manager to own graphics, one manager to own computer vision, etc)
Same process repeats
Team grows to 20+ with 2+ managers with plans for continued grow. New search starts to find a Director who can manage the managers.
The group continues to specialize and break out with new directors, managers, VP’s. Re-orgs happen to align productivity, symbiosis and collaboration.
That’s a wrap!
Talent acquisition is a team sport. It takes collaboration across multiple leaders and teams to create the most effective and efficient process that finds, engages, interviews and closes the best matched candidates.
Talent acquisition takes time. It takes planning, execution and continuous improvements that’s backed by data. If done poorly, it can be huge time, energy and financial suck. If done correctly, it can mean the difference in the success of a company. Every great product is built by great people!
Perhaps Jim Collins said it best,
“People are not your most important asset. The right people are. Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” No matter what kind of business you are in, having the right people determines success or failure.
ADDITIONAL READING MATERIAL
https://medium.engineering/mediums-engineering-interview-process-b8d6b67927c4
https://www.khoslaventures.com/the-art-science-and-labor-of-recruiting
https://hbr.org/2016/04/how-to-take-the-bias-out-of-interviews
https://firstround.com/review/my-lessons-from-interviewing-400-engineers-over-three-startups/
https://triplebyte.com/blog/how-to-interview-engineers
https://www.holloway.com/s/trh-what-i-learned-from-conducting-500-technical-interviews-part-1
