Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
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.
00:50:42 · Adam Ward, Lenny Rachitsky
[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. [00:51:15] S0: What do you do for PMs or, I don't know, go-to-market or ops people? Is there something like that? [00:51:19] S1: We have a version of this across. And so the go-to-market team does a challenge where they work through a challenge together, a challenging customer, things like that. And that's often one-to-one with a hiring manager. Product does a similar project type together as well. So we have versions of that that I feel like are titrated to the function, but also the role and things like that as well. So we try not to be uniform across this because these functions are very different. [00:51:50] S0: One of the classic criticisms with the work trial is you're doing work for the company and it's like, "Oh, we're just solving problems for you for free." What's the philosophy on the problem they tackle, say engineering or PM?
00:51:50 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:51:50] S0: One of the classic criticisms with the work trial is you're doing work for the company and it's like, "Oh, we're just solving problems for you for free." What's the philosophy on the problem they tackle, say engineering or PM? [00:52:00] S1: Yeah, there's a set of problems they can choose from. And so they feel like they have some direction and discretion. We also are very open to right sizing it for them based on where they are and their availability and time too, up to a certain extent. So we try to be flexible and understanding around that. And we also will sometimes use Saturdays too. So we understand it can be hard to take time away on a work week or a traditional work week. And so we totally get it. It's a big ask, a big commitment. We think it's worth it, but we're also willing to schedule that when that works for them. So there's this conflict around a lot of time and effort that could feel slow, but when they're ready to go, we are fast. We make up that time. So if you and I were having an initial screen, you're like, "Yeah, okay, I'll be open to talking to hiring manager." Open up your calendar. I have their calendar. Great. You're going to talk to them in an hour. So once they're ready to go, you got to capitalize on that. You can't create openings for them to have second guessing. So when we go, we go, but it might take a lot of time to get up to that moment.
00:52:00 · Adam Ward, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:52:00] S1: Yeah, there's a set of problems they can choose from. And so they feel like they have some direction and discretion. We also are very open to right sizing it for them based on where they are and their availability and time too, up to a certain extent. So we try to be flexible and understanding around that. And we also will sometimes use Saturdays too. So we understand it can be hard to take time away on a work week or a traditional work week. And so we totally get it. It's a big ask, a big commitment. We think it's worth it, but we're also willing to schedule that when that works for them. So there's this conflict around a lot of time and effort that could feel slow, but when they're ready to go, we are fast. We make up that time. So if you and I were having an initial screen, you're like, "Yeah, okay, I'll be open to talking to hiring manager." Open up your calendar. I have their calendar. Great. You're going to talk to them in an hour. So once they're ready to go, you got to capitalize on that. You can't create openings for them to have second guessing. So when we go, we go, but it might take a lot of time to get up to that moment. [00:53:12] S0: Moving ourselves further down the funnel, what's the moment when you decide we're going to make this person an offer? Is there something that you look for specifically and/or just what's the process like a hiring committee meeting is something else?
00:53:12 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[00:53:12] S0: Moving ourselves further down the funnel, what's the moment when you decide we're going to make this person an offer? Is there something that you look for specifically and/or just what's the process like a hiring committee meeting is something else? [00:53:25] S1: Yeah, we debrief as immediately as possible as a team. Each function has a little bit of a different hiring process of what that looks like, but we don't have hiring committees. It is hiring manager led. They get lots of input from the team. And remember the role of the hiring manager is, it's not a democracy. Hiring manager is holding that group accountable for helping them get them the right inputs to make out the right decision, to make the best decision, hire or no hire. And so we try to frame it in that way, making sure we get really good signal on it. So we try to move really quickly. So debriefing's typically same day, if not next day. And they make that decision, then that decision goes to the founders for stamping. [00:54:15] S0: Awesome. Okay. Then you get to the offer stage. There's a bunch of stuff here, but one is just there are many massive offers happening these days. Okay, so say you made an offer to one of these top 50 people and they're like, "Okay, but I also got this offer from Anthropic for a bazillion dollars." How do you handle that? And also just, is that super frustrating or is it like, "Oh wow, more signal, this person is incredible."