Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:37:24 · Adam Ward, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:37:24] S1: And hopefully we're building relationships with dozens of other of those that could be... So when you talk about this being slow, we're planting seeds, planting seeds, we're planting seeds. And I think the other thing that often happens when you get into this funnel of doom mentality is I think you become overly consistent in your hiring approach. And we are very comfortable with bespoke and ad hoc hiring. That doesn't mean we don't have similar stages for... But who that next conversation is, what they might focus on, I think we get a little robotic sometimes in recruiting with that. So a lot of companies, as they get into higher volume hiring, they might like, "Hey, we have a pool of these interviewers who can do this type of interview." And they just let fate decide. They let availability decide who has that next conversation. But the savvy recruiter or the savvy hiring manager is like, "Ooh, they mentioned this thing. Who on our team has that shared interest in that pool? Can we be a little bit more prescriptive? And can we orchestrate a much better candidate experience by taking the extra thoughtful step of who might have a better conversation together?" [00:38:34] S0: It's so interesting hearing just how important that initial contact is for the rest of the process and how much of this is for future seed planting versus even immediately.
00:38:34 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:38:34] S0: It's so interesting hearing just how important that initial contact is for the rest of the process and how much of this is for future seed planting versus even immediately. [00:38:42] S1: Yeah, I feel like we put so much energy to the onsite interview, which I totally get. But honestly, the most important one is that hiring manager first conversation. And so it feels like this 50/50 like, "Hey, half the people you talk to hiring manager should come out." And I think we underestimate the importance of it because this is who you're going to work with. This person's going to make the hiring decisions. And so they should be asking the most important questions. They should be pulling out the most important motivators from that candidate. And I feel like we sometimes maybe, we put it into a 30-minute thing often. It's 30 minutes, and it feels so important to the rest of that process. [00:39:20] S0: Especially if instead of, we just need this funnel and work through a bunch of people. This is one of the 50 in the world that could be the best for this. [00:39:26] S1: You might meet three times. You might meet four times as a hiring manager before that person actually is fully in process. [00:39:33] S0: The way Brie described this in her piece is that you treat hiring as... the atomic unit of hiring as the person, not the job spec and not the role.
00:39:33 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:39:33] S0: The way Brie described this in her piece is that you treat hiring as... the atomic unit of hiring as the person, not the job spec and not the role. [00:39:41] S1: Correct. And I think that makes it incredibly frustrating, imagine for my team, because you're like, "Oh, what's the..." And you're like, "Well..." It's almost like a decision tree. It could go many different ways based off of this conversation. But when you are not caught into the numbers game, it feels a little bit less scary when you're really focused on how do we get that person here versus are they the right person for that job? [00:40:08] S0: And because they're on this list, they're innately very popular and in demand. Is there anything else that works for getting them excited to talk and interested other than soft, the warm intro, things you've shared?
00:40:20 · Adam Ward
[00:40:20] S1: Yeah. I mean, we've done lots of tactics, I think, to get them involved. I mean, one thing I just love is breaking bread. Having a meal with someone is one of the most human and leveling things that you can do. Sharing a meal across the table is just a disarming act and a joining act that I think is just so important. So that could be a coffee, it could be a lunch. It doesn't need to be super formal, but I just think it is a humanizing activity that I think is really important. So we try to center around food and drink as much as possible. I think we've done other things I think are very useful, which is if they are one of these 50 people, they might be somewhat famous or well-respected. They probably have an expertise. Having them come in and give a talk to the team, having them come in and do a fun side project. These people, they love to share and learn and they're curious. But also it demonstrates increased interactivity between the two teams around quality and gives them this realistic preview of being there. We try to play home games as much as we can, bringing them into the office. But we also understand some of the folks early on might want to go to a neutral site of a coffee shop or something too. But we try to play home games when we can because you have the power of the team. You have the power... And so, one analogy I think about is sometimes when some people are considering university early in their lives, you walk onto a campus and you get that feel in your gut. And you can't really describe, but it's just like, "Ooh, this feels like home." We want people to feel that when they walk into the offices of Cursor and that is a priceless moment. And by the way, it can be a defining... It also could not hit. And it's good to suss that out early too. But for a lot of people, it does hit and we like that moment.
00:42:21 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:42:21] S0: This resonates so deeply with early days Airbnb. I remember Joe Gebbia had the saying, "Just get them in the elevator." And this is because the office was on the second floor of this building. You had to go in this elevator to get in. And that was the whole strategy, "Just get them in the elevator." [00:42:36] S1: Yeah. Yeah. That was more than half the battle. [00:42:40] S0: Along these lines of breaking bread in home court, I know this might be one of the reasons you guys have a Cafe Cursor right there near the office, and now it's happening all over the world. I think Ben leads this work- [00:42:52] S1: Yeah. [00:42:52] S0: ... but there's all these cafes popping up all over the world. [00:42:54] S1: Yeah, I think it's been an interesting... Obviously, it's very much focused on the product and the user, but he and that team have done a really good job of taking that vibe and putting into a moment. And if you've been in the Cursor offices, it almost feels like you're in a Hogwarts Library. It's very warm and soft, but cafes bring that energy as well. And so we've tried to lift that and drop that in really around the world. [00:43:26] S0: And there's also a lot of chalkboards at the office.
00:43:28 · Adam Ward
[00:43:28] S1: A lot of chalkboards. It's, again, this disarming, warm feel that I think really exudes our Midwest vibes. That is sometimes how I describe Cursor. Very hardworking, very ambitious, but at the same time, the work speaks for itself and understated as well. And so I think a lot of our office helps evoke those vibes too. Yeah, some of it's a little fundamental, which is research has shown that work samples are the highest predictor of success at a company, but yet most companies are still spending a lot of time doing one-to-one across the table assessments. And so I think we are famously known for doing long onsite experiences for some of our roles where they do a project and they get work to side by side. So that gives us a very strong signal. It also gives them the candidate tremendous signal. And so I think this is where most companies get it wrong on the onsite. They're almost always buying. ... On the onsite, they're almost always buying. This is like we are assessing, we're extracting information. We're not giving much back to the candidate. And I'm a big fan of the power of self-selection. And really good self-selection serves really good inputs and data. And so we want that experience with a candidate to feel more two-way than most. So we really think about crafting that onsite experience through who they might meet. We talked about that. We really clear handpicking who they might meet for those interviews. We do a lot of work sample and project type of work to give us good signal, but we also really curate who's greeting them, who's sitting beside them for lunch. We always try to put it around a meal, a dinner or lunch or a breakfast. And everything is really curated to make that as high quality experience for them and get them the data, but also us getting data from people that we feel like are most going to connect with that person.