I find it a bit disconcerting that you write about the costs to the org, but not the costs to the applicants. Ie. applicant puts a lot of work into applying for a role and then you decide that that one is the one you won’t fill. It may very well be that the trade is still worth it and that the negative effect on candidates can be mitigated. But lacking even a single sentence in this direction seems callous. (I’m writing this as someone who spends more time on the side of hiring people than on the side of applying for jobs.)
I was thinking that this process changes little for applicants, and we’ve actually tried to design the process with their experience in mind.
First, a general note on the process itself (happy to have feedback on this too): the full process takes around 6 hours across 4 steps: a written application (30 min), practical exercises (1h30), a coworking session (1h30), and a final interview (1h). Only 15% of applicants pass step 2, so most people invest no more than 2 hours before getting a clear answer. Our rejection emails include specific feedback on each exercise, which we hope makes the time feel less wasted regardless of outcome. We also tried to design the exercises to be intellectually engaging, connected to real effective giving work, and useful for candidates to assess their own fit for this kind of role.
On the specific concern about opening multiple roles: from an applicant’s perspective, we don’t think this changes much, and having four broad roles rather than two narrow ones may offer more people the opportunity to find a role that fits them, and could reduce exclusion based on specific backgrounds.
When we open any hiring process, even for a single role, there are two reasons we reject someone: either no one passed the bar and no one was hired, or someone else was judged better suited to our mission.
The role a candidate applies for should not change how they are judged. We try to run the process this way. If you are not hired because someone outperformed you, it shouldn’t matter whether that person applied for the exact same role or a different one. And in our case, the role titles are not even fully fixed: they will be adapted to the person we hire. Someone better than you might end up in a role that is a blend of two or three of the ones we listed.
For candidates who reach the final round and are ultimately not selected, I will tell them specifically where they underperformed: on the task exercises, on conscientiousness, on value alignment, or on the interview, depending on what the key determining factors were.
The asymmetry of effort in hiring is real, but we don’t think opening four roles makes it meaningfully worse. Happy to push back!
I find it a bit disconcerting that you write about the costs to the org, but not the costs to the applicants. Ie. applicant puts a lot of work into applying for a role and then you decide that that one is the one you won’t fill. It may very well be that the trade is still worth it and that the negative effect on candidates can be mitigated. But lacking even a single sentence in this direction seems callous. (I’m writing this as someone who spends more time on the side of hiring people than on the side of applying for jobs.)
Hello Richard, thanks for raising this point.
I was thinking that this process changes little for applicants, and we’ve actually tried to design the process with their experience in mind.
First, a general note on the process itself (happy to have feedback on this too): the full process takes around 6 hours across 4 steps: a written application (30 min), practical exercises (1h30), a coworking session (1h30), and a final interview (1h). Only 15% of applicants pass step 2, so most people invest no more than 2 hours before getting a clear answer. Our rejection emails include specific feedback on each exercise, which we hope makes the time feel less wasted regardless of outcome. We also tried to design the exercises to be intellectually engaging, connected to real effective giving work, and useful for candidates to assess their own fit for this kind of role.
On the specific concern about opening multiple roles: from an applicant’s perspective, we don’t think this changes much, and having four broad roles rather than two narrow ones may offer more people the opportunity to find a role that fits them, and could reduce exclusion based on specific backgrounds.
When we open any hiring process, even for a single role, there are two reasons we reject someone: either no one passed the bar and no one was hired, or someone else was judged better suited to our mission.
The role a candidate applies for should not change how they are judged. We try to run the process this way. If you are not hired because someone outperformed you, it shouldn’t matter whether that person applied for the exact same role or a different one. And in our case, the role titles are not even fully fixed: they will be adapted to the person we hire. Someone better than you might end up in a role that is a blend of two or three of the ones we listed.
For candidates who reach the final round and are ultimately not selected, I will tell them specifically where they underperformed: on the task exercises, on conscientiousness, on value alignment, or on the interview, depending on what the key determining factors were.
The asymmetry of effort in hiring is real, but we don’t think opening four roles makes it meaningfully worse. Happy to push back!