
How Stripe thinks about recruiting - gdb
http://gigaom.com/2012/04/28/6-secrets-for-building-a-super-team/
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gergles
They don't think it's very important, apparently, as they completely ignored
my application for a _recruiting engineer_ they advertised _here_.

An automated courtesy email is the bare minimum of acceptable, and when they
can't even get that right, platitudes of "only hire someone you'd hang out
with on Sunday" ring hollow. I wouldn't hang out on Sunday with someone who
completely ignores job applicants.

~~~
trefn
As someone who filters resumes, this is something I haven't figured out how to
handle and am quite curious about.

If the company can tell from your resume + cover letter that you aren't a good
fit for the position, what would you want to hear back? Brutal honesty? Lame
corporate speak? Silence?

~~~
furyofantares
Honesty.

~~~
j_baker
Unfortunately, honesty is the last thing Silicon Valley's hiring system is set
up for. Employers expect you to tell you what they want to hear, not the
honest truth. This means that the people they tend to hire will either be
someone who either is lucky enough to think just like them or is willing to
tell them everything they want to hear. And God forbid you express any
opinions that would make you a "bad cultural fit". Companies give people they
don't hire polite platitudes to avoid hurt feelings and legal issues.

In short, if you expect honesty in a job search, you'll be disappointed.

~~~
furyofantares
Where I work, we put a lot of effort into giving honest, actionable feedback
to anyone we interview or phone screen. (We don't do it if we choose not to
phone screen someone, though.)

We tell you why we didn't proceed and what we think you could do to make a
difference if you choose to try again in a few years.

This is for our own benefit as much as the job seeker's. We don't want to
leave a sour or even neutral taste in someone's mouth just because it didn't
work out. Someone who is a bad fit now might be a good fit in the future, as
they change or as we change, or we might be wrong that they are a bad fit now.

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spitfire
I like that they use feminine "she" and "her" regarding their future
employees.

Knowing that they're actively trying to build a balanced, healthy culture is
very attractive.

~~~
tomjen3
I don't. I didn't have a high idea of Stripe to begin with, but I certainly
can't respect a company that won't acknowledge that they are going to be
hiring a lot more males than females and that most of the females they will be
hiring will not be for developer positions but for support roles and maybe
design.

There are properly more transgendered people involved in development than
there are females. So they should stop lying and be honest about it.

~~~
sheena
I'm a woman and a developer at Stripe. I don't see how welcoming women as well
as men into the engineering -- and every other -- team at our company can
reasonably be called "lying" or "dishonest." No, we can't singlehandedly
change the gender ratios in the valley, but we can and will try to make our
hiring process as good and fair as possible.

~~~
tomjen3
I don't think Stripes hiring process is anything but fair. Given that, the
next developer they will hire is likely to be male and there are more likely
to be a higher percentage of females in the non-dev roles than in the dev
roles.

What I find dishonest is that they pretend this is not the case. They pretend
that they are most likely to hire females.

Which is wrong.

~~~
adrianhoward
It's not pretending. It's signalling.

They're sending a strong signal that female applicants are going to be treated
fairly - not that the next hire is likely to be female.

To use a non-sex based example.

My partner is wheelchair bound some of the time. Despite the theoretical legal
requirements access to many places is a complete PITA. Having to phone up
every time to find out whether you can get in or not, or whether we can
actually sit together if we can get in, gets frustrating. When you get to the
Nth occasion of visiting somewhere to discover that you can't get in because
of some step or narrow door that nobody has considered it gets _very_
annoying.

Now - some venues have things like pictures of people in wheelchairs at the
venue, or strong visible inclusivity statements, or some other strong signal
that there is going to be zero problem with access.

Guess which places we're more likely to visit - even if there are many other
locations that are theoretically accessible, but don't signal it as well.

What Stripe have nicely done is signal to every smart female developer that
"we are open to hiring you". Judging by the interview experiences of my female
friends this strikes me as a rather clever move. It's going to get them a
stack of applications from talented women who might not otherwise apply.

I'm sure that will more than outweigh the loss of any folk who see this as
political correctness gone mad ;-)

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ch
I often wonder if posting messages like this actually defeats the purpose of
your hiring requirements.

What I mean is you have set a standard, in your case 'the Sunday test,' by
which you measure a candidate. Now by letting candidates be aware of this
fact, some percentage of them are bound to game the system. Leaving you with
the task of having to let them go since they don't measure up, which is less
desirable than dismissing them outright.

If instead you kept this measure internal, even never giving it a name (this
candidate has je ne sais quoi), would you still be able to build a team with
the same desirable character? Would that team be able to identify new member
with the same character as well?

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dkrich
C'mon, you really think you can assess whether you would want to hang out with
somebody from a couple of short, isolated interactions? Most of my good
friends only became so after extended periods of time and learning the nuances
of each others' behavior, strengths, and weaknesses. In many cases, I realized
that many people whom I thought were huge tools were extremely smart and fun
to hang out with, but just had unique personalities.

Now there are times you meet somebody and they are a complete turnoff from the
beginning, but I don't think there is anything unique to Stripe about not
hiring those people. But in the gray area, this can't really be a major
factor.

~~~
gdb
It's definitely not an easy problem. But it's also not easy to assess how well
someone is able to solve technical problems. Recruiting is about recognizing
what you find most important in employees, and then trying to find ways of
measuring those properties. We'll always be imperfect and make mistakes in
both personal and technical assessments, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't
try.

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prophetjohn
Sounds great if you're still able to find as many engineers as your need. But
#1 essentially says, "we don't hire people who are shy or socially awkward,"
which seems to me like it would be screwing the pooch for most companies
looking for talented engineers. I'm also highly interested to see how that
strategy scales.

~~~
j_baker
I don't think that's necessarily true. I can think of a number of socially
awkward, shy people I'd enjoy spending a Sunday with. I can also think of a
(probably larger) group of gregarious, outgoing people persons who I'd rather
not work with at all.

I think the biggest problem with the Sunday test is that there seems to be
little accounting for the fact that you can't (neè shouldn't) expect everyone
to get along all the time. Sure, I want to work with someone I get along with.
But I also want someone who's willing to be difficult to get along with when
I'm about to drive the car off a cliff.

~~~
prophetjohn
That may be true and maybe I'm taking a biased point-of-view as someone who is
shy/socially awkward, but I'm pretty sure that people who fit that description
are going to have a hard time distinguishing themselves in an interview as
someone who is going to draw a crowd on a Sunday. Unless the kind of folks you
like to hang out with on a Sunday are the kind who are quiet, keep to
themselves and can help you debug your code. But if that's the case, then
you're just looking for good engineers who aren't jerks. That's not how I read
#1.

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j_baker
I'm not sure how I feel about everyone getting a veto. It sounds like a
surefire way to ensure only the least offensive candidates who are unlikely to
challenge the status quo get hired.

~~~
jusben1369
Yes, when you add in the "Sunday test" it seems as though an unintended
consequence of this approach over time is a lack of diversity (in thought, not
biological or cultural) and healthy tension.

~~~
gdb
I think that's definitely a danger, but by being very cognizant of the peril
you can work hard to make sure that candidates you reject are being rejected
for the right reasons. We work very actively to recruit a diversity of
backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, and I feel that this has been
extremely valuable to us to date.

~~~
jusben1369
Well I applaude you gdb - Stripe is a very well regarded startup so you're
doing a lot of things right. Doesn't your "Veto" though negate the ability to
ensure they're rejected for the right reasons? If you feel as though a Veto is
for the wrong reason do you challenge the "Vetoer" and get it overturned etc?

~~~
gdb
The latter. By veto, we mean that we won't hire someone over a current
employee's strong objections. But we always debate and push back on those
objections, and more than once we've had people change their minds after this
kind of discussion.

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andrewljohnson
It's tough for me to stomach #1, because you clearly have to pass on a lot of
brilliant people. I can see how this would generate the other advantage he
describes though.

Overall, great article - gives me a lot to consider at this particular time in
our company's life.

~~~
stanleydrew
Speaking from my experience doing a fair bit of interviewing and hiring at
Twilio, I think #1 becomes less important as a company grows. He is absolutely
right that for a team the size of Stripe's, enjoying working with every other
team member is critical. But I'm interested in his thoughts on that
requirement after they have 100 engineers, which they surely will. Perhaps at
that scale, the Sunday test only applies to the smaller team or project group
the candidate will be joining.

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DTrejo
Had a phone screen with them at one point — I was surprised they took the time
to talk on the phone when they hadn't even looked over my github or website.

Ended up being a waste of both my time and theirs, and their follow-up email
was very strange.

~~~
softbuilder
This is depressingly common. No one seems to take interviewing as seriously as
they should.

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scottbruin
What strikes me is how similar these guidelines are to what we practiced for
my fraternity's recruitment in its best days.

