Living our values in growing our team — we’re hiring!
Over the summer, we at Ada Ventures have been thinking about what it means to build a ‘high-performance culture’. We are hugely ambitious on our vision for Open Venture, investing in extraordinary talent where others aren’t looking. We want to generate phenomenal returns for our investors, while also making the world a fairer place. We need our team to be working at their best and to be supporting each other in the most effective way possible.
In line with our goals as a business, we are growing the team and we are now hiring for two positions: an Investment Principal or Associate, and a Financial/Operations (FinOps) Associate! See below for more information. For more context, you can read about our first two hires, Xun and Diarra, here and here!
If you think you’d be a great fit for either role, please do apply and/or share this with others who could be a fit for Ada Ventures.
Ada Ventures Values
As a business we are extremely values driven — so to get to know us a bit better, we’ve described those values and the behaviours that show how we live these values below. These values act as our North Star in every decision we make, including how we have designed our hiring process, briefly described below. We will review these values every quarter along with our Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and iterate on them as our business continues to grow and evolve.
1. We’re inclusive: we embrace difference and keep a radically open mind. For example, we have used Applied, a recruitment platform that minimises bias, to hire both Diarra & Xun, and are continuing to use it for our two open positions.
2. We’re human: we believe you can build a highly successful business whilst being kind and decent human beings. We fully invest in getting to know the people behind the business — whether this is the Ada team, or the founders we are backing. We offer support during hard times (e.g. mental health support through Spill), and endeavour to understand and respect people’s boundaries and working styles along the way. As a team, we have worked with a coach to supercharge how we communicate based on our natural communication styles.
3. We teach & learn: we believe we are all conduits for learning, we are humble to know what we don’t know and we’re not afraid to ask, we help each other be better. This is the core reason we write our Medium posts. We also work in partnership with organisations such as Stemettes, Beyond HERizons and Future VC, speaking at events and offering internships each summer.
4. We are healthily paranoid: as a regulated business we are always evaluating risk and looking around corners. See this. We also expect everyone associated with Ada Ventures to abide by our code of conduct.
5. We’re brave: we are bold in decision making and move at pace. We aim get back to people quickly on decisions that need to be made, not getting too bogged down in detail to be paralysed by indecision.
6. We’re joyful: we have a positive attitude, love to find joy in what we do and see the gift in any situation. We celebrate the highs, and to take each low as a learning opportunity without beating ourselves up.
Our hiring process
Our process for hiring the Investment Principal or Associate and FinOps Associate will be similar to the one we have used before. In reviewing this process, we looked at multiple different recruitment platforms and methodologies, and finally settled on one which we hope will encapsulate our values above, and be:
1. Fair. As noted earlier, we will continue to use Applied to reduce bias. For the FinOps position, we are also working with a recruiter, whose candidates also go through the full Applied process. We will not be seeing candidate names or CVs until after we have reviewed and scored work samples. Each answer will be scored against a pre-defined framework by at least 2 members of the Ada team.
2. Inclusive. We are posting our jobs on our social channels, and on a range of job boards, including Future VC and the DWP website. We hope that this will attract the most diverse range of applicants as possible.
3. Accessible — testing for essential skills, not career/personality profile. The questions we ask on the application form are based on real work samples, and we are asking candidates to provide as much specificity or detail as possible (without name dropping your university or company name!). We have also worked with Applied to introduce a numerical test as part of the initial application process. These tests are designed to test your numeracy, analysis and attention to detail — all of which are crucial skills for both open positions*.
4. Thorough. We will be taking the top scorers in the application form stage through to interview. These interviews will be held through Zoom (earlier stages) or in person in London (later stages), and candidates will have an opportunity to meet Check, Matt, Diarra and Xun during this process. The anticipated timing for this is set out in the job descriptions linked below. We are specifically looking for people who complement the skills set in our team, and who are able to fill in the gaps in the way we think. To help us assess this, we are aiming for the Ada team to have multiple touch points with candidates as they progress through the stages, and the final stage of the process will include a psychometric test.
5. Transparent, equal process. Unfortunately, in order to be fair to everyone, we are not able to discuss the positions with candidates outside of the process or have calls or meetings with anyone about questions they have. If you have any accessibility requirements at any stage of the process, please let us know and we will make reasonable accommodation.
*We encourage all applicants to do a practice test before completing the full test. If you need extra time or have an accessibility request, please contact Applied through the test page.
We hope that being transparent with our thinking will not only attract the best candidates to our open positions, but alsohold us accountable to our values. If this sounds like a place you’d like to work, we’d love to hear from you.
Applications close on 9 October, 23:59pm for both positions:
Investment Principal / Associate: https://app.beapplied.com/apply/jd8ichntam
Finance/Operations Associate: https://app.beapplied.com/apply/suc0gwxtlx
