We (Ambra Health) a few years ago decided our "typical" multi-hour multi-week interview process was a lot of effort for pretty mixed outcomes. We realized an interview can't really answer the most important questions: how a candidate works, and what's it like to work together.
So we added an option to interview by way of a paid trial period (work part-time nights/weekends for a few weeks with the hiring team). Figured maybe some people might prefer that, but probably wouldn't be feasible for most.
Every candidate since has chosen that route, with very good outcomes - so far, everyone who did well in the trial period has been a good hire. Some of our best hires did not interview well (and would not have been hired under our old process), but were outstanding in the trial period. And, a couple candidates interviewed so well we almost skipped the trial period, but they struggled to complete even simple tasks during the trial.
We've now optimized interviews for that process, where the decision is primarily about whether it's worth moving to a trial period. That usually only takes a short screening call and a 1-hour call with the team (we're a remote team, even before quarantines).
I do think this is really the best way to "interview"... it's weird how hard it is to correctly evaluate somebody in two hours of talking to them and yet how easy it is to evaluate somebody in even two days of working with them.
I'm sure you get good outcomes from this, but I'd be willing to bet you are completely weeding out whole classes of people. For example, most parents or caregivers (single or otherwise) don't necessarily have the time for this. Senior engineers are less likely to want to go through this.
I would guess that most of your hires are single young people. And you are already kind of teaching them to work nights and weekends, which sounds like you are, again, choosing people who would not have a problem with a bad work life balance.
I also wouldn't be surprised if your process isn't teetering on the illegal side. Not on purpose, but it might be accidentally favoring or disfavoring a race/gender. Probably not enough to get you in trouble though, because those things are hard to spot. And unless your company is really big, probably nobody cares.
I think I'd like this even if I were married, as long as the trial period isn't too long and interview experience indicates that I should have a good chance of landing the job.
Contrast with the alternative: I'm a senior, considering switching jobs, but I have no real way to evaluate the potential new employer beyond word-of-mouth and interview experience. What if it turns out to be a place I don't like and I just gave up my former position for something worse?
Working a few evenings & weekends (and getting a little extra $$) to evaluate the new company sounds like a superb way to gain the confidence and jump ship without regrets. In best case, I get a new job I like. In best case, I get some extra money and keep my old job which is better than the new one proved to be. Win/win? What's the worst that could happen?
When we offer the trial option, this is the #1 reason most people are interested in it. They are just as concerned about evaluating us, as we are about evaluating them.
Not to say you’re wrong, but, as one data point, I’m a parent and would be very game for this. I’ve actually done things only slightly short of it. I’d rather go full bore working with the team than do these multi day projects in isolation or with just occasional contact with the hiring manager. Basically I find at a certain level (often reached by the time you have kids) all hiring processes tend to be time consuming.
We don't require the trial period - it is offered as an option - we're not going to jeopardize a good candidate if they can't do a trial period.
Everyone we have offered the option has taken it, and they're usually pretty enthusiastic about it vs traditional interview process. We're working with them a lot during the trial period, and after if they get hired - lots of opportunity to find out how they're doing, and so far no negative feedback.
At the point where we move to the trial, we don't usually know age (because we haven't even seen the candidate) or family status. From what I've picked up, it's a mix of ages (usually a bit older - we've found some experience is necessary to be successful as remote-only), and mix of single, married, and families.
For those who have ended up hired - I think most are parents with younger families.
Other than the trial period, nobody usually works nights or weekends.
> I also wouldn't be surprised if your process isn't teetering on the illegal side. Not on purpose, but it might be accidentally favoring or disfavoring a race/gender.
Almost all processes do (though in this case, family status is probably the more relevant protected class it biases on.) That's not illegal, if it's sufficiently connected to the actual needs of the job, and they seem to have at least tried to evaluate that for their hiring process more than most places do, so they are probably less at risk of disparate impact discrimination than most hiring processes in tech.
Also, lots of companies have clauses against this in their employment contracts, or close enough, that candidates wouldn't risk it. Anti-moonlighting clauses and clauses about IP ownership, specifically.
This one is big and so often ignored. I am breaking my employment contract if I code for money or if I write code that will be used for anything. I have to get written approval for contributing to open source. Do you, as a potential employer, want to start our relationship with me violating employment contracts?
We wouldn't want someone to violate any obligation. When we offer the trial period option, we always have a discussion about whether that's something they're able to do, and comfortable doing - work-wise, family-wise, etc.
That sounds way better than stressing people out with inane whiteboard questions. It wouldn't work for me since I won't take a gig that doesn't lock down cash flow for at least six months. I do love take home tests that are directly applicable to the stack I'll be working in. Following up with a code review style interview is great, too. This way more closely emulates the actual engineering workflow of pulling a ticket, cranking, then submitting a PR.
Since it is happening on weekends, and pretty much everywhere a new person needs on-boarding. Does that mean your existing team needs to be also available over the weekend so it can answer any question the new candidate might have?
Wow, if you say so, but that seems weird to me: every job I've ever had (and everybody else I've ever seen hired at any job I've ever had) it's taken quite a while before I was really able to contribute much productively. Just getting acquainted with the codebase, figuring out the deploy process, and learning all the unwritten rules about the company culture takes a non-negligible amount of time.
Excellent candidates can and do find ways to deliver value in their first week and more in their second. Even if it’s demonstrating the ability to learn how the product it deployed and how the team work, that ability to learn quickly and communicate with the team is valuable.
As someone who's worked in over 20 companies as a technical consultant, I mostly agree. However, some companies are better than others at onboarding new engineers. My rule of thumb is to make a meaningful PR within the first week, and do whatever is necessary to make that happen. That sometimes involves bugging the crap out of people with questions, but I try to make up for it with a fast ramp and prodigious output.
Yes, we've had to tweak our on-boarding process for the trial period.
Most candidates have a local dev environment up and running in the first couple of days, and complete their first task (from our real backlog) in the first week. Within the 2-3 week trial period, most are able to finish several meaningful tasks.
Have you written down some kind of instructions for how you do it? What tasks to select, preparations for both sides etc.
Also, do you give them tasks on your actual code base? If yes, you are likely biased towards people already familiar with your tech stack (getting really productive with an unfamiliar tech stack takes more than a week, but short enough to make hiring somebody from a different background still worthwhile).
Any thoughts on this? (I realize that some amount of bias in the process is OK)
We actually treat the trial period very similar to a new employee starting, with a few tweaks.
We do a subset of on-boarding, just enough to get them running a local dev environment and able to push commits and connect with the team.
We pick real tasks from the backlog that don't require a lot of ramp-up to complete.
We assign someone to work with them during the trial period, help get their environment going and orient them to the tasks, help them if they get stuck.
Someone with experience with the technologies (Java, C#, Javascript, Linux) used in our stack can usually get up and running and complete a simpler task in the 1st week. Over 2-3 weeks, most people accomplish several tasks of increasing difficulty.
We discuss with the candidate how things are going each week, how they're feeling about things and how we think things are going. Usually by the 2nd week it becomes pretty clear if it's a good fit.
Since we are remote-only, candidates have to be capable of figuring things out mostly on their own - technically and organizationally, so we look for more experienced people - who probably are more likely to be successful with this kind of interview process.
Oh, that changes a lot. I think it would be a lot easier for people to log in a couple hours here and there as part of a trial than to commute to an office and spend an entire day.
I actually like this a lot, thank you for posting. Maybe the COVID-19 situation provides companies around the world with enough experience on remote work to make this kind of remote trial more attractive.
This is very much the contract to hire route. I honestly think this is a mostly sane route, but it does leave the person to be hired in perhaps an awkward position. I have a family now, working nights and weekends is almost impossible.
So we added an option to interview by way of a paid trial period (work part-time nights/weekends for a few weeks with the hiring team). Figured maybe some people might prefer that, but probably wouldn't be feasible for most.
Every candidate since has chosen that route, with very good outcomes - so far, everyone who did well in the trial period has been a good hire. Some of our best hires did not interview well (and would not have been hired under our old process), but were outstanding in the trial period. And, a couple candidates interviewed so well we almost skipped the trial period, but they struggled to complete even simple tasks during the trial.
We've now optimized interviews for that process, where the decision is primarily about whether it's worth moving to a trial period. That usually only takes a short screening call and a 1-hour call with the team (we're a remote team, even before quarantines).
BTW, if you'd like to experience this first-hand, we're hiring - https://hackernews.hn/item?id=22753515