The Candidate Journey at Airbnb
At Airbnb, we strive to create a world where you can Belong Anywhere by facilitating trips that create authentic human connection. This mission transcends beyond our product offering and into our workplace — a culture that we’re tremendously proud of and take great pains to protect and maintain.
The journey toward building the Airbnb team begins with our recruiting mission statement: “Airbnb Recruiting blends strategy and partnership with authenticity and hospitality to find and recruit Airbnb’s greatest asset — its people. As the guardians of culture and the face of the employment brand, we treat every candidate like a guest, worthy of a magical experience.”
As we work toward this mission, we believe there’s no better way to connect with our past, present, and future candidates than by throwing aside the curtains and sharing some insights from behind the scenes. That’s why we’re launching our recruiting blog, The Candidate Journey.
We believe each interview process is about the experience as much as it is about the outcome or destination, and one way we aim to constantly improve the candidate journey is through storyboarding. In fact, our Core Value “Every Frame Matters” is a testament to storyboards. Our founders enlisted an artist to help us visualize both the host and guest experience on Airbnb, and we use these frames to think about how we can simplify, streamline, and improve the experience. We’ve applied this method to the interview process and we share these frames because they represent how we think about recruiting: each frame is meaningful and unique as a standalone, and yet when we consider them as a whole, they comprise a holistic picture that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
In terms of themes we’ll cover, we’ll address the questions and feedback that we receive directly from our candidates, and we’ll be transparent with you about how we tackle very real challenges. How do we make the unpleasant decision to hire one qualified candidate over another? What measures are we taking to hire diverse candidates? How do we resolve the apparent contradiction between our mission to create a world in which you can belong anywhere, with the reality that we can’t hire everyone who applies? Phew.
It’s not all heavy subject matter, of course. We’ll share with you some anecdotes from the frontlines, improvements to the recruitment process that we’re making, and of course, we’ll introduce you to some of our incredible recruiters across our San Francisco, Singapore and Dublin offices.
Stay tuned for future posts. In the meantime, we invite you to check out our Careers page to learn more about opportunities at Airbnb.
