It's Your Turn to Interview Us

"Thanks for the offer! (But I still don't know what y'all do...)”

Have you ever found yourself asking this question as you’re considering joining a new team? I definitely have and I don’t think I’m alone here.

The reality is candidates spend 70-100% of the interview process answering questions (as opposed to asking them). Even when given the opportunity to ask questions, there often isn’t enough time or the candidate may not feel comfortable asking the tough questions.

I realized that this was an issue through my past experiences and decided to standardize a step to our interview process to help each candidate feel empowered to get all the information they need to make a decision.

We call it the Reverse Interview.

The Reverse Interview comes after we’ve determined we will make an offer to a candidate. We call the candidate with the good news and invite them back to interview us. The conversation goes a little something like this…

Hi [candidate name here]. Great news! The interview team debriefed and decided that we’d like to move forward to the offer stage with you.

[insert all positive and constructive feedback from each interviewer here]

How do you think the interview went? How are you feeling about the opportunity?

(Given that it was also positive on the candidate’s end)

While we are working through the offer numbers, we want to invite you back into the office to interview us. We recognize that we spent a lot of time asking you questions and you may still have outstanding things you’d like to learn.

Now that you know we want you to join our team, this is your chance to really dig in to make sure no rocks are left unturned in your mind about the opportunity. We want you to feel as good about us as we feel about you.

If that’s something you’re interested in, please take some time to think about who you’d like to spend more time with and/or what area(s) you’d like to explore further. You have full access to anyone in the company--our CEO, investors, board members, current and previous employees, hiring manager, etc. Let me know and I’ll set you up with people to make sure you get all your questions answered.

This additional step has helped candidates feel more confident about their decision to join (or not join) the team. Fortunately for us, it’s mostly been for the better. Since implementing this step, our offer acceptance rate has been 96%.

Increasing our offer acceptance rate was an awesome side effect to the reverse interview, but our intention is to continually improve our candidate and new employee experience.

It is important to us that our candidate experience and interview process are a reflection of our employee experience: transparent, fair, and a place where everyone is generous with their time and knowledge. We want to make sure everyone has a framework and the information needed to be successful.