The Hiring Process

I’m in the middle of the hiring process for the new Customer Success Manager position that I opened two weeks ago. I’ve already received close to 100 applications, and the interest in the position has been nothing short of overwhelming.

Thank you so much for all the interest and to everyone who’s helped share the open position with their network.

There are many very qualified candidates already. The position is open for new applications until Oct 15th, but I’m already confident that I’ll find and land a deal with an exceptional candidate.

In this post, I want to share a bit about how I designed the hiring process.

Preparations

Hiring is probably the only project in Herodesk where I do not prioritise speed, but instead want to do things as close to 100% right as possible. Who you bring on has a huge impact on whether you’ll make it or break it. Especially when you’re with a very small company like I am.

Some of the things I’ve thought about:

• What is the job exactly? Make a very thorough description of exactly what you expect the candidate to do daily, weekly and in-between.
• I’m only hiring A-players. Highly intelligent people with a natural bias towards getting shit done. I’d rather not hire anyone than bring on B or C-players.
• What type of personality, skills and talents would you need to succeed in this position?
• The person who gets this job will be the first full-time employee at Herodesk and work super closely with me, so there must be good chemistry.

The point about personality and talents can be a bit abstract, so I’ve teamed up with Kenneth Bo Jensen and his team at TalentX . Together, we’ve created a “success profile” where we’ve identified the talents we believe must be present in a person to succeed. Based on that, we've designed the job description to attract people who are matching.

The hiring process

On the one hand, I didn’t expect so many applicants. On the other, I prepared for it. I asked everyone who wanted to apply to send me an e-mail with their application.

I recently implemented ClickUp for project management (more on that later) and created a list for this open position. In this, each applicant is represented as an item that can move between the different stages of the hiring process:

• Received - initial placeholder
• Screening. I’m going through each application. Most are rejected here, but the most promising are invited to the 1st interview.
• 1st interview. It’s a 30-40 min online interview that deep-dives on the job and the candidate.
• Talent test. I’ve bought four tests with TalentX, so the four best candidates from the 1st interview are invited to a talent test.
• 2nd interview. This will (probably) be an in-person interview where we talk about the talent test, and I gather the details I need to make a final decision.
• Reference call. I always do reference calls on final candidates.
• To be rejected
• Rejected
• Offer

Finally, I will select the candidate among the last four who I believe is the best for the job and extend an offer.

Screening resumes and applications is super difficult. I always ask for a cover letter. This is the applicant's chance to shine through. I’m looking for personality, relevance, and motivation. Give me those three, and you’ll likely go to the next round.

I always discuss salary and compensation during the first interview. I’d hate to go all the way with a candidate only to find that we’re 10k apart on salary, so it’s always a part of the first interview. It’s just easier for everyone this way.

Before the second interview, I'll meet with the specialists from TalentX, where we go through each candidate's talent test. This is partly so they can give me insights into each candidate they’ve found and partly to prepare me for the next interviews.

During reference calls, I always ask the same opening question: “If you had the opportunity to hire X again, would you do it, and why?” Depending on the answer, the call goes in various directions. I’m basically looking for whether the candidate was a good person and employee in their last job.

I reject candidates continuously through the process as I become confident they won’t proceed to the next round.

If there is more than one candidate that I’d like to hire at the end, but I only have one open position, I prioritize them and extend an offer to the first one. If he/she, for whatever reason, declines, I’ll extend an offer to the next one. This may sound brutal, but it is what it is. I’m trying to find the best candidate possible.

Hiring like this is so tough. I hate rejecting people, but it’s part of the job. I’m still in the middle of the process, but if all goes well, I’ll have an agreement with a new top-motivated person at the end of the month to begin working with me as soon as possible after that!