Optimizing the hiring pipeline
The interview is the bottleneck of the hiring process. Plus, at a startup, productive time is the biggest constraint.
Hi, I’m Russell. This is issue #2 of Russell’s Index, where I write about the lessons I’ve learned—and continue to learn—as a founding employee at SharpestMinds.
Time as the biggest constraint
In last week’s index, I talked about bottlenecks (or constraints). The key takeaway: optimizing anything but the bottleneck of a process is a waste of time. In software development, for example, code review is a bottleneck. Investing in automated linting and testing saves time in the long run because it reduces the load at the bottleneck.
This point about bottlenecks is a big generalization, so it is bound to break down in specific situations. For example, in a small startup, a major constraint is the time available to the founders and early employees. Everyone has a part to play in many different processes. Their time is demanded by an endless list of tasks and projects. In this case, increasing the efficiency of the non-bottlenecks of some processes can free up time to work on the bottlenecks of others.
But it’s not just the time available, it’s the productive time available that is the biggest constraint. This has the nice side-effect of encouraging healthier habits like sleeping more and eating healthier. These have direct effects on the constraints of the startup because a healthy, well-rested person can be much more productive. An all-nighter might buy you more time, but a good night’s sleep will help you reach max capacity.
Optimizing the hiring pipeline
We’re hiring again at SharpestMinds—the second hire since I joined 3.5 years ago. This time, for a software developer. The founders did a lot of coding in the early days but it’s just been me writing all our software for the last couple of years. I’m very excited to double our engineering team from 1 to 2.
As CTO, I took the lead on hiring—writing and sharing the posting, screening and interviewing candidates. [1] This will be an important and frequent duty of mine as SharpestMinds continues to grow. Developing an efficient and effective hiring pipeline will be crucial to our future success.
Like any process, the first step to optimizing is to find the bottlenecks. For hiring, it’s the interview—a time consuming, but necessary, step. You can only do so many interviews in a day.
In The Goal, which I talked about last week, some of the gains in throughput on the factory flow were achieved by reducing the load at the heat treatment machine (the bottleneck). Some parts were being heat-treated that didn’t need to be. Since QA was being done after heat-treatment, broken parts were only found at the end of the process. By moving QA earlier in the funnel and catching defects early, the load at the bottleneck was reduced.
Interviewing can suffer from a similar problem. The capacity is limited, so gains in throughput have to come from reducing the load. This means pre-screening and filtering candidates before they get to the interview stage. The point is to reduce the number of “pointless” interviews by finding red flags and deal-breakers early.
We did this with three steps: a resume screen, a phone screen, and a take-home assignment—a fairly common pipeline for technical hires. The resume (and LinkedIn) screen involved a quick scan for informative signals. [2] If they were obviously not a good fit—if they lacked any relevant experience or they were in a different country—then there was no need to go further.
The phone screen, which I tried to keep under 15 minutes, was meant to unearth deal-breakers—on both sides. I would be as blunt as I could about the role and my expectations then leave some room for questions. If there was something about the role that was a deal-breaker for the candidate, it was best to know it early. Having transparency around compensation saved a lot of time. Compensation was a deal-breaker for a few candidates. It was good to know that before interviewing them and sending an offer!
The phone screen also served as a good test to determine who actually wanted to work at SharpestMinds and who just wanted a job. Basically, I was screening for genuine interest and passion—critical traits for an early employee. This was a subjective judgment but it was clear, for example, when no research had been done on our company. [3]
Finally, there was a take-home assignment. We rely heavily on a culture of writing—all our decisions and meetings are mostly done in writing. The candidates that passed the phone screen were given a small writing assignment to pitch a new feature for SharpetMinds. [4] Here is a problem we want solved, propose a solution. What are the must-haves? The nice-to-haves? Which parts of the solution have the most uncertainty and risk?
Writing well requires clear thinking—it’s not easy to fake it. Some of the submissions really blew us away and some were underwhelming. It was a good test of each candidate’s problem-solving ability, communication style, and thought process. I think I’ll use a similar test for the next hire.
[1] Of course, I had help from my teammates. They shared the posting with their networks, helped me assess take-home assignments, and held more interviews once a candidate passed my technical screen(s).
[2] I have a lot more to say about these signals. Look for it in next week’s index.
[3] A note to job-seekers. Always research the company before an interview—even informational interviews and phone screens. Have some questions prepared. It’s a good signal that you actually care.
[4] We use a process inspired by Shape Up to decide on what to build next. Any significant new features must be fully shaped and pitched before we devote resources to it. A good topic for a future post.
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