A Recruitment Process that Honors Our Candidates

Posted by Vaishnavi|Published on

6 min read

Treat job candidates with respect.

Most companies profess some type of message like this but it's one thing to promise, putting this philosophy into practice is entirely different.

At Appsmith it’s more than just words and I'm proud to be responsible for Appsmith upholding our commitment to respect in recruitment and hiring.

We genuinely and sincerely respect our candidates, both during and after the hiring process. Whether we end up making an offer or not, people who apply for jobs throughout our company are valued and supported at all stages of our interview and hiring operations.

To prove the point, I’ll walk through how the Appsmith recruitment process works and explain what sets it apart from the experience candidates encounter at the typical company.

Our recruitment process, in a nutshell

For starters, we have a well-defined, consistent interview process that reflects a lot of thought and intention — not just to meet our talent needs, but also about creating a great candidate experience.

The process starts with an introductory phone call to prospective hires. The purpose of the call isn't to conduct a formal interview, but rather to provide candidates with an overview of the company, what our growth potential and values are, and what the next stages of the interview process will look like, should they choose to continue.

This means that, instead of starting out by grilling candidates or making them feel like we're trying to "weed out" people we don't want to hire, we begin the engagement with a friendly, low-stakes conversation that sets the tone for the rest of our hiring process. The purpose here is to help candidates feel confident their choice to continue to interview with us and to help enable them to perform their best during subsequent interviews.

Candidates who move on to the next steps typically undergo three actual interviews. For engineers, these include technical interviews where we ask applicants to show off their expertise.

But unlike some tech companies, we're not singularly fixated on technical stuff. Our interviews for all candidates also include chats with our CEO to discuss the company values, our approach to work and growth potential. It is also a chance for our team to gain a sense of applicants' enthusiasm and passion for what they do as well as which role they can play at Appsmith.

We also make sure during the interview process to give candidates a deep understanding of what working at Appsmith looks like day-to-day. This is critical because we've been a fully remote organization from the start. We want prospective hires to know what it's like working as part of a distributed team.

We also want them to know about the resources available to them when they need help, so they never feel isolated or on their own, even if they’re not physically sitting alongside their team members.

We also have a policy to get back to all candidates within 24 hours of every interview. We don’t believe in leaving people hanging, not knowing whether — or even if — they can expect to hear back from us.

After the formal interviews are complete, we have a team of diverse stakeholders from within Appsmith review each candidate. I bring in a mix of managers, engineers, and non-technical staff to help determine how well a candidate aligns with the needs of the role, how likely they are to thrive in our remote work setting and whether we can offer the candidate the right level of challenges and growth.

Finally, when we make an offer, we accompany it with more than compensation and benefits information. The beginning of the new hire’s journey with us is critical and our wrap-around onboarding service is a critical continuation of our efforts to provide the best possible candidate experience.

We also give new hires an Amazon Kindle, because it’s the start of a rapid learning journey — and it's important to us that we provide an actual avenue for doing those things, rather than just telling folks to read books.

We let candidates know, too, that if they accept an offer from us, they'll receive a laptop as well as funding to support the setup of a home office.

What sets Appsmith hiring apart

That's how our interview process works. Now, let's talk about what makes it different, and how we build genuine respect for candidates into each stage.

One key differentiator is that we strive to make the interview process as convenient as possible for candidates. Instead of telling them that if they want a job with us, they need to bend to meet our schedule, we make sure that we set up meetings at times that work for them. The last thing I want to do is barge into people's time.

We also place a lot of emphasis on guiding candidates along as the interview process proceeds. When you apply for a job at Appsmith, you'll never be thrown for a loop or left wondering what comes next. We explain each stage of the process in advance, and we are transparent about telling candidates the purpose of every interaction with us. We're not out to trick people or leave them in the dark about our goals.

The fact that we go out of our way to articulate what Appsmith does and how it does it is a key factor, too. Most companies give candidates the elevator pitch about what they do, but we go far beyond. We explain Appsmith's growth strategy in detail — down to how we're growing revenue and what our funding model looks like — because we want prospects to feel confident about the company and their role in it.

We never want anyone to take a job because they like the compensation but not the company.

Speaking of compensation, we approach that delicate topic with flexibility and an open mind. We never rule out candidates because of compensation expectations. We instead treat the compensation discussion as a way to drill down into how prospects see themselves fitting into Appsmith and what Appsmith can offer to them salary-wise to make them feel valued, respected and supported over the long term.

The bottom line? It’s not about the bottom line

Critics might say that the Appsmith recruitment process leaves money on the table, from the company's perspective, and they'd probably be right. We could probably save a bit of our staff's time and lower our employee compensation a little if we obsessed over making the hiring process as brutally efficient as possible in order to acquire the talent we need at the lowest cost.

But that's not what we're about. We'd much rather build a team of engaged, enthusiastic employees. Doing so starts with ensuring that prospective team members feel respected and supported from their very first engagements with us — this is the Appsmith way.

Feel the respect!