We have a good thing going at work. We have an
amazing team and together they have built a really great work environment. One
thing we are particularly proud of is that we do not have any jerks in the
company, you know the
guys who ruin the atmosphere for others.
People who have visited our office have often said that it
is clear that people seem to be having fun here and have asked us to share the
secret.
1. We make an effort to speak with every single applicant. We
do not believe in making shortlists on the basis of keywords on CVs. There are a lot of
smart people out there who have had a bad run in with academic scores and the big
companies miss out on hiring them because HR has a policy to short list people with a CGPA of X and above. Their loss, our gain.
2. We do not put artificial constraints on ourselves like, “We
need to hire at least 5 people at this college,” nor “We can extend a maximum
of 2 offers today.” Good people are hard to find and when we find them we want
to extend an offer.
3. We have a stringent process – one group interaction followed
by at least 3 interviews and a spreadsheet based test that looks at how problems are structured and solved. On the other hand, we try very hard to help
candidates succeed through the process. We offer to do an Excel workshop and
during the pre-placement talk, we will tell people how to ace our interview
process. For lateral recruitment, we send an email out to the candidates
telling them how to prepare for our process.
4. We are extremely transparent about the kind of work they
will be doing when we go recruiting at the
Engineering colleges and Business schools. This would seem to be the obvious
and fair thing to do, but we are surprised at how little information new engineers
or MBAs seem to be given about the jobs they are applying for. During the
pre-placement talk, we make it a point to tell them that an analytics job is
not for everyone. “If you don’t enjoy solving quant problems on a spreadsheet
for 8-10 hours a day, this is probably not the place for you.”
5. We know exactly what we are looking for. The three must-have
traits we seek in our recruits are that they be (i) Driven, (ii) Curious and (iii) Fun to be with. The last is extremely important to us. Before the final offer
is extended, the panel members ask each other of every finalist, “Will you give
him/her the seat next to yours in the office?” If the answer is a negative,
then we are willing to pass up an Einstein. The No-***hole rule rules.
6.This last one is contentious. I would like to believe that we
have managed to bring in some great people and have fostered a great work
culture because we don’t have an HR department. A few of our people are actually thrilled with the fact that they do not have to deal with an HR department. Others are beginning to wonder
if this is sustainable going forward. Their argument is valid. Not having an HR department worked
when we were 20 people. Now that we are a hundred strong and going on two
hundred, can we really continue without a dedicated team for HR?
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