#  Hiring

#  Interviews

When a candidate applied they'll have at least two interviews with two different interviewers before an offer is extended to them. One interview will investigate the fit on values. The second will be a competency based interview.

When interviewing to hire new team members, optimize for value-fit over culture-fit. Hiring for value-fit allows others to add to culture and thus fosters diversity and inclusivity.

#  STAR interviews

Using the STAR framework candidates will be interviewed to describe their experiences in the past. Through their actions we hope to be able to predict their performance in the future.

For the interviewer a template is available with the STAR questions to make a copy of.

#  Extending an offer

When a candidate goes through the full hiring process an offer might be extended to them. At such a time it's good to understand that the offer at that time is conditional on background checks. If the offer includes an equity component, this part is conditional on board approval of such a grant. Be sure to be explicit about these conditions.

Please use this template to stage an email.

#  After an offer is accepted

Onboarding on our EOR provider, Deel, takes at least 3 to 4 weeks. The start date for a new employee should be at least 3 to 4 weeks out. When a conditional offer has been accepted you should immediately:

  1. Create an onboarding issue on the admin GitHub project
  2. Update the internal team overview spreadsheet
  3. Add their stock options to the stock option request spreadsheets

#  Tax Residency

During the onboarding process on our EOR provider platform, candidates must either be citizens of the country where they will be working or possess a valid visa. Any requests for changes in tax residency should be communicated to the HR department and CEO at least 2 months in advance.

#  Onboarding

Just before your first day of work at FlowForge, you will receive an email requesting your GitHub username and preferred company email address. An issue will be created on our internal issue tracker with steps for you and the team to complete once you start.

On the day you start, a message will be sent to your personal email address to grant you access to your FlowForge email address.

After setting up your password, you must turn on the 2-Step Verification. Otherwise, after a few days, you will be locked out of your account and will need an admin's help to log back in.

Once your FlowForge email is set up, you will have access to invitations to other services and platforms, including 1Password. Set this up as soon as possible to add a security layer to all your FlowForge accounts.

On your first day, after your email and 1Password accounts are set up, you should prioritize gaining access to Slack, the FlowForge GitHub organization, and completing your onboarding issue. Your manager will also assign work for you to start on in the first week.

#  Greenhouse

#  Opening a Job

When opening a job post, you'll need a couple of things:

  1. A draft Job Description
  2. Approved role availability
  3. Support for a PeopleOps Manager to setup the role in Greenhouse

Once these are in place a pipeline needs to be designeed by the PeopleOps manager.

#  Pipeline design

A pipeline needs to be designed, meaning; you'll need to define all stages of the hiring process.

#  Accepting applications

Applicants for a job must provide their resume. Optionally a cover letter could be supplied. Furthermore, it's recommended to include one or two acceptance questions to filter applicants. These questions should be related to the position being opened. For example; for a developer you might ask what happens if someone types https://flowforge.com in their browser, after they press enter. Aim to be thought provoking with the question, though the answer shouldn't take over a minute or two to think of and type for a skilled candidate.

#  Initial Review

The initial review will check the aforementioned question for validity, the resume, and the cover letter. Check for:

  1. Alignment to Values
  2. Capabilities align with the requirements for the role
  3. Previous retention at companies
    • We'd like people to join the company for the long term, if their previous roles suggest the candidate will not join for the long term please reject them

For each candidate we'd like to move forward with, a scorecard needs to be filled out based on the available information so the interviewer for the next stage can prepare and focus if the strengths are indeed strong, and the same for weaknesses or uncertainties.

The resume review should reject over 50% of all candidates.

#  Screening Call

The initial screening call is intended as an additional filter for FlowForge, but also for the candidate. Screening calls are held on a video call, and the candidate should have plenty of time to ask question and understand if this role is right for them. During this call FlowForge should understand:

  1. Alignment to Values
  2. The candidate is enthusiastic about the company and the open role
  3. Compensation range for the candidate
  4. Notice period, or time from offer to start

For all candidates that are moved on the next stage a scorecard needs to be filled out.

After this stage no more than 25% of the total number of candidates should remain.

#  Skills assessment

For each role a skills assessment will be performed. This stage will be different for most roles. This is the main stage to asses the capabilities.

This round will again result in a scorecard, but also an indication what level this candidate would suit in. For example intermediate vs senior for developers.

When in doubt, reject the candidate.

#  STAR interview

After the skills assessment, the last round includes a behaviour interview. STAR interviews are aimed at discussing the candidates past performance in certain situations, and hopefully predict the way they acted is in line with FlowForge expectations.

Again, a scoresheet will be filled out.

#  Offer stage

First, read about extending offers.

At the offer stage all scorecards will be re-evaluated to understand what the candidate strengths and challenges are. Before the peopleops team extends an offer, explicit approval is required from:

  1. A peopleops manager
    • Check we hire in their location
    • Notice period aligns with internal processes
    • Total compensation is in FlowForge's range
  2. The new manager of the candidate
  3. CEO

When a candidate accepted an offer, proceed to onboard them.

#  Closing a job

As soon as there's a pipeline that would support at least three strong candidates for the open position, take the job posting offline. Candidates applying for a job that's no longer available is a waste of their time and a bad experience with FlowForge and hurts our reputation.