THE CANDIDATE EXPERIENCE BREAKDOWN

INTRO

When I’m evaluating a company to determine if they’ll be a good client / fit for my business, I really have two boxes that need to be checked:

? Will my candidates want to work here?

? Will they provide a good candidate experience during the interview process?

Very early on, I realized that my brand in the market will be directly linked to how I make people feel when they work with me. ??

I strongly believe that the interview process is an accurate reflection of what it will feel like to work for that company.

Therefore, it’s crucial to treat people right when hiring, from start to finish, and provide a candidate experience that promotes respect and professionalism into the community. ???

WHAT DO CANDIDATES WANT?

While engaged in an interview process, we need to recognize that there will always be an element of vulnerability, hyper-sensitivity, insecurity, and anxiety from the candidate's side. ??

Why? The hiring team is in a position to pass judgment on their skills and character, discuss anything questionable with mutual connections in their network, and of course, are in complete control of the outcome. ??

Given the dynamic, it’s only natural that candidates need to feel respected, acknowledged, and understood. ??

Achieving this is not overly complicated, and will have a massive impact on how your name is spoken on in these streets.

At the end of the day, it comes down to empathy and communication.

For this reason, I strongly suggest that companies screen for this when hiring an internal recruiter by asking them, “How do you reject candidates?”

Remember, candidates can’t show up to an interview unless YOU have invited them. If you chose to meet an applicant, then they, at very least, should be worthy of proper treatment and consideration. If not, then we have identified your first mistake…

HOW IT’S DONE RIGHT

There’s no “one right way” to run an interview process. Based on the people and culture of the company, each will represent themselves differently to potential hires.

Some of my clients operate in a structured and formal manner, while others are more casual and fluid. ????

Some use telegram group chats and calendly links, while others communicate via email or applicant tracking systems.

Some include take-home assignments, coding tests, or panel presentations. I even had a family office fly a candidate out to Santorini to stay with them for two weeks. ??

To be clear, I take no issue with any of these tactics, and encourage all of my clients to use whatever screening methods are most effective for them. I’m always happy to make suggestions, but recognize it’s not my place to tell anyone how to run their process. If communication is open, and the candidate is treated with respect, you can’t go wrong. ??

HOW IT’S DONE WRONG

Truth be told, I was inspired to write this piece after I received two separate messages from industry friends that were venting about how they were treated by the same company during their interview processes.???

To be clear, the point of me sharing this is NOT to shame, bash, or bully anyone. The company in question has done a lot to move the space forward, and employs many high quality individuals that I know and respect. ????

However, these are the stories we don’t hear about because candidates feel embarrassed, hurt, angry, and upset.

We need to have the conversation so that we can support each other, and inspire positive change.

The experience we deliver to candidates should be a reflection of, not only the principles of the company, but the values of our industry as a whole.

“I've been on 8 interview calls with them for multiple roles and was offered an operations role, but got rescinded after. They kept blaming budget issues, but we had verbally agreed on numbers, and I even mentioned I had more room to be flexible. Through it all, I showed nothing but respect and humility for the people I interacted with.

I even did a 15-page paper outlining strategic goals and how they could be achieved, and spent a full week working for them while I was getting paperwork sorted. I never got an acknowledgement of the work, was never paid, and I never got feedback on how to do better. I kept getting ghosted by the person who was supposed to be my manager, should the job happen.

I've been disappointed by multiple individuals throughout the process who couldn't show me basic human decency - and made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Maybe it's me over-reading the entire thing.?

…I feel like at some point I become just a desperate candidate, while all I did was try to prove value in the most tactful way and with EQ.”

In this example, there are many obvious red flags. To me, it’s not about the excessive number of calls, extensive assignment, or even the unpaid work. What stands out in my mind are the broken promises, unrealistic expectations, and lack of communication. Hearing this story makes me feel like the company has no heart or soul, and does not care about people, period. When anecdotes like this are left to freely float around the ecosystem, it really does leave a significant stain on their reputation in the market. ??

7 SIGNALS YOU CAN TRACK IN AN INTERVIEW PROCESS

Through my experience supporting hiring across the entire industry, I can say with confidence that the actions and behaviors of a company during an interview process are strong signals on how they operate more broadly.

Here are some examples of signals that can be tracked during this engagement:

CULTURE

• I have one client that will literally only speak to candidates from top 15 schools with GPA’s of at least 4.0. We sent him the President of the UC-Davis Blockchain Club, who has a Masters in CS with a 3.68 GPA for a junior dev role, and got a hard pass. ??
• On the other hand, we have a new client that puts a heavy weight on the extracurricular activities, which he uses to determine if they share common interests outside of work. ????

Which culture would you rather be a part of?

EGO

• One of my OG clients is a massive TradFi Hedge Fund that is building out a crypto team. We had a candidate who was running up against a deadline with an existing offer, and reached out directly to the hiring manager, who is the Head of Digital Assets, to set expectations and try to move the needle forward. While HR was profusely apologizing to him for this extra email in his inbox, and annoyed with me for allowing this to happen, his response was, “Why wouldn’t I want him to reach out? I’m glad he wants this job.” Sounds like a low-ego, reasonable guy that I wouldn’t mind working for, and I respect that he said this to HR. ???? ??
• We used to work with a start-up that refused to speak to any devs until after they completed a coding test. The company does not have name-brand recognition, or any notable success in the market. Why would you ask top tier devs to invest time and energy in doing a project when you won’t spend 15 minutes on the phone with them to assess synergy outside of the quality of code?????

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

• It goes without saying that in larger organizations, there are more layers of approvals and complexities that smaller teams don’t have to deal with. However, this is no excuse for a lack of communication. In fact, it’s the reason why communication needs to be even more streamlined internally, to navigate through the structure and maintain a reasonable pace with the candidate. Setting upfront expectations is extremely important here. But at the end of the day, if the message is consistently “we’re still waiting to hear back from the other guy,” just imagine how difficult it will be to get things done once you’re hired? ??

ABILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS

• From my own experience of growing Up Top from 1 to 10 people, I recognize the heavy impact of a decision to bring a new person onboard. However, it’s my responsibility as a business owner to know, or at least figure out along the way, what I am looking for. One client comes to mind that has been trying to hire for a few low-touch, junior positions. Every time we get to the finish line, there seems to be a random hold-up. “We need more reference checks, or, we like this person, but need at least 3 others to compare against.” Ultimately, we keep losing the candidates to other opportunities they are interviewing for, which leads me to question how this indecisiveness will manifest in other parts of their business. ???? ♀?

ABILITY TO ‘READ THE ROOM’

• I’m really loving working with Fractal so far, and have been impressed with how I’ve seen the team operate. They are building infrastructure for institutional-grade trading on-chain, but don’t actually trade themselves, and needed a quant to work on their risk engine. They totally understood that the top tier quants will likely be more interested in working in a high-frequency trading environment, where they have a more direct impact on PnL, and therefore be rewarded with a higher compensation package. Reasonable expectations were set, and we were able to swiftly deliver them someone from Google who was excited about the mission, and highly capable of getting the job done. This experience makes me confident that the Fractal team will be able to overcome the next challenge just as gracefully.???

BRAND MANAGEMENT

• One thing I’ve become acutely aware of since starting my business, is the tight relationship between branding and hiring in web3. At this time, while the space is still so small, reputation has a high impact in acquiring customers, partnerships, investors, LPs, and of course, talent. Candidates are attracted to the big names that people speak highly of, such as Aave or Uniswap, and conversely, in many cases, it’s the people working at these companies that define the brand. If an organization is not concerned or aware about how their hiring behavior is affecting how others perceive them in the market, that is a huge red flag to me. ??

FLEXIBILITY

• Anyone who has been following me already knows how I feel about the team at Berachain. When Smokey told us he wants all his new hires to sit in their Toronto office, I set up a call and was ready to light him up (??). He explained the logic, but also said that he would not let this get in the way of accomplishing his goals and building a top tier team. If the candidates check enough boxes, he may be flexible on location for certain roles. I really appreciate that he has a vision for success, but is not afraid to deviate slightly when necessary. I’m sure that this will translate well into how he manages other parts of the business. ??