Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
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.
00:48:45 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[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. [00:48:54] S1: So by definition, we though about doing a lot of scoping of really great people. Not all of them are going to be a fit for us by their choice or ours, but every one of them can walk away as a net promoter. And again, by definition, they're some of the best. Those promoters weigh more and count more than others because they're influential, they're great, they're known to be good. And so they may never come back to us, but they might tell you who now tells this audience or they might tell you who then you mentioned something at a barbecue and now it becomes this ground swell and you start to build a little stronger magnet. And that activation becomes a little bit less hard if you do that well. [00:49:35] S0: Absolutely. The work trial piece, I saw an interview with Michael Truell talking about this, and he said how they tried to get rid of it because it obviously adds a lot of load and some people don't want to be doing these things. And he said that it just totally tanked their signal and they had to bring it back.
00:49:35 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:49:35] S0: Absolutely. The work trial piece, I saw an interview with Michael Truell talking about this, and he said how they tried to get rid of it because it obviously adds a lot of load and some people don't want to be doing these things. And he said that it just totally tanked their signal and they had to bring it back. [00:49:52] S1: Yeah, it's a huge commitment you can imagine of time. But if talent is your number one thing, then that is a good investment of time to do it. We all have a role to play in recruiting at the company. Not everyone is carved out or best to do trial work, but some are. But some can do the lunch, some could do the greet. So there's lots of different ways that people can play a role. But yeah, when we ran that experiment, because it is quite expensive, it is also a big ask of candidates. We really struggled to have confidence in our decision. Again, this is a confidence building function, and so we are excited to bring it back. [00:50:36] S0: So a good learning there is it's like if you are not doing this, you are lacking significant signal. [00:50:42] S1: Possibly. Yeah, I think so. And I don't think there's a lot of maxims or absolutes in this business, but I think for a lot of companies, it's hard to think of a better way than doing side-by-side real work to get those signals. Obviously some of it in this case is a technical signal, but imagine the amount of core values and collaboration and other signals you get over a stretch of time that could be arguably more important than the specific technical skill.