First Who. Then What.

“People are not your most important asset. The right people are.” – Jim Collins

I've probably been involved in the hiring of more than 500 professionals across my headhunting, RPO, and internal recruitment experience and I can't stress enough the importance of hiring the right people. You should already know how a wrong hire can undermine your business objectives and tarnish your company culture.

First who, then what. This is one of the most important principles you as an HR professional, or a Hiring Manager must embrace if you are to successfully take your company or team forward. Remember, the right ingredients are the first step to a good dish.

Hiring doesn't end with filling the position. The common pitfall of recruitment is that they're heavily focused on closing their requisition on time so they can move to the next urgent and important vacancy, and then they leave the problem of maintaining and managing the newbie to the manager or the HR Ops or HR Business Partners. You can only consider the hiring has ended when your hire has successfully passed their probation period, has transitioned from a learner to a contributor, and has embraced the company's culture and values through their words and action.

This is what makes talent acquisition in Canva very successful. Our Talent Acquisition Partners make sure the candidates know what they're signing up for. Nothing is hidden to the candidate. The job is illustrated through the challenge we ask the candidates to do as part of the assessment, allowing the candidate to see and feel what the job looks like if they get hired. A series of situational questions are then presented to see how the candidate thinks, acts, and talks in varying scenarios. Once in, the team keeps tab of their hires' journey throughout their first six months by checking with our HR Ops team on how they answered our pulse surveys during their first few months, as well as with Canva University, on how they are doing while in training. Calibrations with our Specialty teams are done regularly too to assess if the quality of hires is still meeting their business needs, and then perform realignment when needed.

We all know that there's still a long waiting period from the day the newbie signs their offer from their first day at work. Once a candidate myself, I spend those days mostly doing turn-over and transition plans and I don't get to hear from my future employer until a few days before my start date. Not Canva.

We believe the onboarding experience begins way before someone starts and the feeling of being welcomed to Canva must grow stronger the closer you are to day 1. The HR Operations under Team Happiness takes the lead by setting up several emails that are sent to you in different stages of your notice period to give you some reading materials to brush up on Canva's history and culture. Links to videos soon pop up in your inbox so you can watch what awaits you when you finally step inside the office. Access to tools will be given soon after so you start receiving emails, alerts and Slack messages right at the get-go so you'll never miss out on anything. User accounts will then be set up after you submit all your requirements so you can hit the ground running. All these happen before day 1 because, on their first day, candidates are too busy to do any of these things.

Yup, you heard that right. Newbies are already busy on day 1! We actually enroll them in a boot camp that runs for the entire first week they're with us. The boot camp is designed to immerse newbies into Canva's culture and it starts with a series of getting-to-know talks from the different specialties and groups they'll be working with. They'll also be given an orientation on our internal processes, and a deep-dive into our culture and values. Then they'll have a dedicated session with our country manager to give them a 360-degree view of what Canva Manila's business is so they can understand how important they are and the role they have in achieving our goals. After the talks, they will also go on coffee-runs organized by the OPS team together with the Vibe team. Coffee runs are essentially coffee dates newbies have with different people inside and outside their immediate team so they can speak with people outside their cohort (we call newbie batches cohorts) and get familiar with more faces around the office. The coffee runs allow newbies to ask questions like "how's life at Canva?" or "what do you like most about Canva?". They can also ask them for tips to help them transition into Canva better.

By this time, newbies know Canva better now and are very eager to start learning what they have to do. This is why the Specialty onboarding comes right after boot camp. Here they are assigned their respective mentors within their Specialty to get their learning journey started. Together with the Canva University team, the newbies' next few months are filled with craft-centric education to help them excel in their role, and a good amount of strategic and communication training to make sure they are collaborating with their peers well. Goals are set for them by their mentor and coach and regular cadences will be scheduled to make sure they're guided every step of the way. They also receive numerous check-points during your 3rd, 4th, and 5th month to make sure they're truly ready for the journey ahead. Recovery programs are on stand-by should a newbie stumble but they don't have to worry because their mentor and coach (we call our managers coaches by the way) should be on top of it the moment they see their mentees having some difficulty. By this time, newbies have grown quite comfortable with their mentors too so it's not a surprise for us when we see newbies take the proactive approach and consult with their mentors for help by scheduling 1:1s with them throughout their probation period.

As we approach the newbie's regularization, its a celebration for the People team. The concentrated efforts of the Talent Acquisition Team, Canva University, Team Happiness, and the Vibe Team culminate as we see a newbie transform into a bonafide, value-driving, culture-adding Canvanaut -- someone who will help empower the world to design. So much effort goes into every single hire which is why we focus on the who, before the what.

As we take Canva Manila to 400 employees and beyond, we need more like-minded people who will help the People group to attract, hire, train, and sustain future Canvanauts. We also need more people to share our mission and be part of our amazing journey. If you wish to learn more about how to be part of the People Group, visit our careers page today!

Cheers,

Vanson