What 410 people across 59 countries taught us about recruitment in 2021

We've moved to a fully distributed team in April. When we've recruited for a new Senior Android Developer (180 applications over 3 weeks) and Junior JavaScript Developer Intern (230 applications over 2 weeks in parallel) last month, it really hit home what a massive, MASSIVE unlock that has been for a small tech startup like us. And what it means to handle 410 applicants from 59 countries.

Our most recent job post outlined how we expect an unpaid gig with us to prepare for a permanent, paid position on our team after 3 months. Within 2 weeks, we've received 230 applications from across the world. I have mixed feelings there, and a ton of lessons for next year. Here my top 3 for fellow entrepreneurs, recruiters and team builders.

More countries. More stereotypes.

I'm a German, married to a Swiss-Italian with our daughter born in the UK where we live. My Co-Founders are Dutch and English, I've travelled much and met great people in many countries. Our team operates across 6 countries. I dare say, I'm pretty open-minded when it comes to global culture and diversity.

The irony here is that the more diverse the applications are, the easier it is to experience biases. For our last role, only 12% of internship applicants where from the UK. Contrast that with e.g 18% from Africa. While half of all applicants came from just 5 countries, the other half came from 50 different other countries. So I've had plenty of opportunity to proof to myself that I do in fact apply stereotypes all-the-time. Appearances and personal backgrounds all trigger impressions that have nothing to do with a fact based application review. I don't believe it's helpful to pretend those stereotypes don't exist or wonder if they should exist. They're just there. And we can't wish biases away, no matter how many #hashtags we throw at them.

Those mental shortcuts served an evolutionary purpose once, but now they're getting in the way of a more inclusive, diversity friendly recruitment - I thought. Until I've discovered that my biases also sparked a curiosity in me that made recruitment more fun. I'm not saying enjoy your discrimination, but rather explore your stereotypes. I've had some of the most memorable, interesting candidate engagements with people that either totally destroyed my impression of a country or enriched national clichés with some intriguing anecdotes. Are stereotypes relevant for a 100% fact-based candidate assessment? No. But we're not just hiring another headcount to fill a human resource gap, we are also getting to know another person. If you start to attract applications from many more countries and backgrounds, then lean in our your stereotypes with curiosity - and ignore your own biases about them.

Look for a needle. Ignore the haystack.

For every 100 applications we receive, around 15 are invited to submit a very short introduction video: a new recruitment feature LinkedIn recently released for recruiters that I highly recommend! Of those, 5-8 make it to some form of technical review. Everyone else is getting a polite decline within 2 days, and a reason why we don't progress. Takes 10 seconds. I used to spend more time on each application, trying to see if it's a viable candidate - trying to find that diamond in the rough, chasing up on everyone in case they've missed my earlier message or just forgot to reply.

But we've never seen a finalist candidate who repels emails, a magical underdog candidate appearing in the finals, or someone who made a poor first impression to then be most-liked in the final interview. And we've learned that it's actually just finalists we're looking for. That means we're now aiming to remove many candidates quickly to see what's left, instead of evaluating the potential of all candidates to see what could be there. If you open yourself up to hundreds of applications, it's not about deciding what a needle looks like in an oversized haystack - it's about ignoring the haystack altogether and see what's left over. Then find the best needle among other needles - much easier. And faster for everyone.

Be controversial: Unpaid Internships

Unpaid internship roles are controversial, in some countries even illegal. And I get it, unpaid jobs are ripe for exploitation. We're not in that category of employment bullies. Internship vacancies are also confusing to navigate for employers: in the UK for example we have traineeships, apprenticeships, internships, volunteering, observing and a KickStart scheme - each with its own set of rules, credits and funding.

For junior roles, we find amazing, talented people who are not quite at the level we need them to be and train them up over 3 months (unpaid) so they can join the team permanently (paid). That's one of the roles we've advertised for last month. It's about working towards something together instead of hiring a "ready to go" developer with more experience. That gives us an edge by tapping into a talent pool that's otherwise ignored, and as a startup the cashflow advantage of trading cost of salary vs cost of training. It also gives someone early in their career that foot in the door to enter the job market, instead of just moving people around between companies.

Recap

We've built a team from 3 to 12 people over the past 12 months on a shoestring budget, including the 400+ applications we've seen last month. I sincerely hope those insights are useful especially for small teams and technology startups that make use of the "new normal" with distributed teams.

Top 3 recruitment tips for 2021

1. Embrace your stereotypes with curiosity
2. Ignore the haystack
3. Leverage unpaid internships

If you found this article interesting or helpful, please share it with others. To keep up to date with Droplet, including job vacancies and product launch, do follow us here on LinkedIn.

Keep well!

Sikander.

Sikander Hauser, CEO & Founder at Droplet

A note on unpaid internships above: with interns living in the UK, unpaid internships are illegal and we do pay the national minimum wage during their internship (first 3 months, probation) and increase that salary after that. We're controversial, not outlaws. But that law is still little known to most UK startups. Shout out here to SeedLegals who make it easier to spot such blind spots (we manage all employment contracts on their platform).