Thread on hiring...

I recall telling myself in the early days of Groupon India, "I do not want to hire the way other companies do."

1. Nothing started without the resume
2. Over dependence on recruitment agencies
3. Massive time investment in interviewing

So we set out to build a new process...

We were not a brand of choice, we didn't have money to splurge.

So we decided to play the long haul game.
Build a presence online, where our potential talent used to hang out.

In 2012, I came across Quora.
And for some reason, a lot of smart Indians were hanging around on it...

So I started spending time there
Engaging
With brutal honesty

Why is our website so bad? https://qr.ae/pNKOhs 
Am I an awful manager? https://qr.ae/pNKOho 
My love life! https://qr.ae/pNKOhB 
Have I ever hacked anything? https://qr.ae/pNKOts 

between 2013-17...

I was consistently ranked in the top 100 most followed people globally, on Quora.

How did that help?
During this time, we got over (sit down first!) 12,000 job applications from Quora!

We cracked the playbook of being there, were our talent was, in a manner that wasn't salesy.

I hated the fact that everyone, including us, starts from the resume.
And I hated the fact that we were meeting people who turned out to be not a fit at all.

So we changed the process 180 degrees.

When anyone applied, we sent them a list of 20 questions...

These questions had nothing to do with the skills of the individuals.
They were to allow us to know them, as humans, as individuals.

What happened?
If we sent these questions to 100 people, only 27 replied!

WOW!

If they didn't care about answering these questions for, forget us, themselves,
we definitely didn't care about meeting them!

Overnight, our bandwidth required to interview dropped.

We hadn't even looked at the resume. And we knew so much about them.

There are no right answers and hence there were no eliminations at this stage.
We accepted all.

All we cared about what the effort they had taken to respond to these questions.

To the 27% who applied, we now gave them a test. A GMAT-like test. With 3 sections.
Analytical ability (Class 9 level)
General Awareness
Verbal Reasoning (Class 9 English)

What was different about this test, from all others that exist?

Everyone in the company had taken this test already (we took it once a year).
Basis which, the mean, median and Std. Deviations of all functions were calculated for all 3 sections.

And we would NOT meet anyone, who wasn't above the average of the function they were applying for

This was our replica of Amazon's famous "Bar Raisers" program.

Can anyone who comes in, be in some way, raising our bar?

Fun fact: Postmortem, we found a 79% R2 correlation between the test grades and yearly performance ratings.

Of the 27%, we had 70% clearing the test.
So around 20% of all applicants made it through these 2 rounds.

That is for the first time, we looked at their resume!
Again, not for an elimination.

All of them were then invited for an interview.

You can imagine, when we sat down F2F, the conversations were richer, a lot more focused on the technical skills needed and we had by now deep understanding of the individual.

This was also when we were able to identify gaps in the person and their responses to the questions.

This process worked like a charm.

Interviews were immensely effective.
Time spent on screening was dramatically reduced.
And we were getting the right set of individuals, through a culture-first approach, rather than a resume-first approach.

Another happy outcome of this process was, we created brand ambassadors of even the ones who couldn't make it.

Almost all of the loved the process and spoke about it with their friends and peers.

We now had a referral flow not just from employees but even candidates!

Since 2013, we have never worked with a recruitment agency.

We have hired over 1,000 people in the past 7 years (new and replacements), all managed internally with a team of never more than 3.

Till date, I get emails from people saying, "I am not applying for any role, but here are my answers to these 20 questions, because they were just so interesting to answer."

And that tells me, we may have done something right.

In this journey of creating a unique recruitment process that works for us, I realized a few important lessons...

Treat the HR function as a product company.
Not a services company.

What do product companies do?
They listen to their customers constantly
They ship features and resolve bugs every 2 weeks
They don't wait for instructions. They are proactive.

Attitude >> Experience >> Education

Hire for attitude.
Train for skill.

The resume is a document of wins.
Its the outcome document.
Not the input document.

Recruiting is about finding the input document.
What went/goes into making the individual who they are?

People are always willing to share.
They are just never asked.
They are just never made to feel heard.

When you ask, when you make them feel heard, they will share.
They will forget they are sitting for an interview.
They will not pretend.
They will be real.
They will be them.

How people think and behave in their lives, is the single biggest determinant of whether they will be successful in your company or not.

Every company is an individual. With values. And a worldview.
If those values match, you become friends and make each other a better version.

I remain a passionate student of people.
And am constantly drawn to how powerful the HR function in a company is and how critical and necessary it is to the company's success.

Would love to hear from others on great practices they have encountered or shipped, around hiring

Fin.

I should absolutely acknowledge the leading ladies who helped me tremendously in executing this.

Teena. One of the best things to happen to nearbuy.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/teena-chablani-436ba08/

Neha. Short but very impactful stint. Set the foundation.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/neha-mantoo-0830a324/

Some folks asked for it - here is an old version of the GMAT like test
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XdBonAwi3bFSSQ-USqNHmaAJtNAy8_1u/view?usp=sharing

For any queries, please DM - more than happy to address any questions around this process.