Customer Spotlight — Hiring With Clue
Customer Spotlight Interview | Clue
Clue is a close partner of our team at ACELR8. In our time working with them, we have hired 8 new members of their team.
ACELR8’s Talent Partner Marián Ruiz has worked with Clue to help them find new, experienced talent that shares their culture and values. Clue is a period-tracking app, a trusted menstrual health resource, and a thought leader in femtech.
By combining science and technology, they are actively changing the way people learn, access, and talk about menstrual and reproductive health around the world.
To learn more about Clue and what makes their company tick, Marián talked to Greg Ryzhov, CTO of Clue.
Here’s how their conversation went:
Marián: Greg, what is your role at Clue?
“I am Chief Technology Officer. At Clue I’m not only responsible for the Engineering Department, but also look after our Data and Customer Support teams.
It’s a great opportunity because as a product-driven company, which addresses consumer needs directly, the collaboration between Customer Support and Engineering, informed by Data, is incredibly important.”
Marián: What attracted you to work with Clue in the first place?
“The process at Clue stood out from other interview processes because I felt it focused on the right thing. Clue already knew what they actually wanted to get from this position and how they wanted this person to fit into the company culture. Their questions and the whole process really emphasized this well.
The other thing during the process is that the topic, femtech, was still quite new to me. So, I started to do a lot of research and reading and I realised that there is an endless opportunity to learn and to actually impact people’s lives.
I also connected personally to the topic as I have a teenage daughter, who was having her menarche — so I was familiar with challenges like how you communicate, how you ensure she has the right information about it, not just hearsay from her friends or questionable internet resources. And that I think applies to a lot of people around the world, so that really caught my interest.
And from a technical point of view: it’s a direct-to-consumer product. It’s mobile-only. You have more than 12 million monthly active users. It’s a high-loaded and highly demanded product. So for an Engineer, or anyone who likes to work in the Product area, this is an incredibly attractive company.”
Marián: Do you have any favourite memory of your work at Clue so far?
“This is an interesting one. In this Covid-19, online-first environment, generating memories can be a really challenging thing. But I would definitely go with my first summer offsite with the team. It was really nice to finally see and interact with people in person after months of online-only meetings.”
Marián: How do you think the pandemic has changed your working habits?
“There’s been way less interaction on the personal level and less personal topics. It’s challenging as it requires you to always remember to check in about people’s moods, what’s happening in their lives, and have some conversations other than just work-related topics.
The approach to meetings has also changed. It demands more experience in facilitating — making sure that the discussions go straight to the point, letting people speak up but not over each other.
And maybe, the good thing is that now you might have a bit more time to really focus, and you have more control of this time. You can log off Zoom, set yourself as “do not disturb”, or set a block in your calendar to actually focus on something important.”
Marián: How would you describe Clue in 3 words?
“I’d say: honest, caring, and kind.”
Marián: If Clue could be a colour, which one would it be?
“Definitely not pink! But some warm colour.”
Marián: We are currently hiring many people! Why do you think a person should join Clue’s team?
“One thing that I mention to candidates when I interview them is fairness. There are a lot of processes and frameworks in place that ensure fairness on multiple levels. Also, in whatever we do, we always try to find a fair solution. Of course, it’s not always possible, but we try really hard, for example, with our salary structure.
The second thing is that in order to maintain and guarantee this fairness, we are always learning and adjusting. So, when we see a challenge, we address it in a timely manner, for example.
Third, this is a big learning opportunity. You can learn a lot about the domain itself as we have really professional and knowledgeable people on our Science Team, with diverse medical backgrounds, so the information that we receive in our weekly Home Meetings is always incredibly insightful from a scientific point of view.
Last but not least, the product itself. As I already mentioned, you have access to 12+ million people. You can run interesting product experiments and learn from the huge number of users. It’s an incredible opportunity for Engineering, Product, or Design folks.”
Marián: What are the key traits an ideal candidate should have in your opinion?
“Personality-wise: kindness and empathy. From a business perspective, I’m looking for solution-oriented people who seek fast, pragmatic solutions in an optimistic manner. Focusing on finding the good solution, and treating problems as challenges and not as a reason to complain.
Now, as we are growing incredibly fast, there are specific requests to get people with specific experience who can support us with this growth, but in general, I think there are very nice learning opportunities within the team. For example, there are employees who started in the content side and became engineers. There are many other examples of people who actually find their place at Clue and get the feeling that they belong to it.”
Marián What is the best part of Clue’s culture as a company?
“I might be repeating myself, but it’s care. And I think it works on so many levels: care for the employees, for the customers, for each other. It’s the centrepiece of Clue’s company culture.”
Marián: How has the work with ACELR8 been so far?
“Great! I think results speak for themselves, right?
I think of how fast you onboarded to the company with almost no handover, you jumped straight into it and started closing positions. Also, flexibility, because when we needed to increase the number of Talent Partners working with us, you managed to solve this really quickly.
I also think this model of having embedded Talent Partners actually works really well, plus having a company in the background that can provide partners with their needed resources is a great value-added. It’s very different to working with freelancers, who work on their own. Again, having a company in the background really helps.”
That was our conversation with Greg at Clue, showing how ACELR8 can really help a company find the right talent with a seamless, versatile approach. As an embedded recruitment service, we can better understand your culture, structure, and hiring needs.
Interested in joining Clue? They are currently recruiting. You can find their careers page here.
