Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
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.
00:47:00 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:47:00] S0: Who runs point on this sort of experience? Is it a recruiter or is it the hiring manager? [00:47:05] S1: I would say I think it's the recruiter primarily as the quarterback, but they're pulling lots of levers. And so the hiring manager is probably going to have the most insight into some of those people. Our recruiting coordinators are tremendous and I think we probably, and they do a lot of this hosting with us as well. And so our recruiting course of course do some scheduling, but they're probably doing more of this candidate shepherding. So imagine a candidate who's with us for a day or two. There's lots of moving pieces and helping them move from a workstation where they might be doing a project into lunch back to that, helping them get their environment set up. So there's a lot of people in play. We ask our recruiter to be the quarterback, but a lot of the insight is coming from hiring managers and execution with the coordinator too. [00:47:57] S0: It's interesting just how much of the experience and process changes with this worldview of every person we are talking to is very special and they're very rare and these are the best for this role. And so it's clear how much of it trickles down into thinking deeply about every touchpoint along the journey versus the typical journey.
00:47:57 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:47:57] S0: It's interesting just how much of the experience and process changes with this worldview of every person we are talking to is very special and they're very rare and these are the best for this role. And so it's clear how much of it trickles down into thinking deeply about every touchpoint along the journey versus the typical journey. [00:48:17] S1: And imagine that you have teams and employee base who understand that well, they went through it. So you get over this tipping point moment with a company where they had that experience. So they recognize, acknowledge it. Now they're part of how fun is that? They had a great experience. Now they get to help deliver that for this next batch of people. [00:48:17] S0: It's recursive. [00:48:40] S1: So you kind of create this flywheel opportunity once you get over that initial hump. [00:48:45] S0: I just remembered actually, I had a friend applying for a job at Cursor and he said it was the best candidate experience he's ever had. Just remember that.