4 Myth-Busting Stories of Finding Extraordinary Talent
By Naveen S R
How does a fast-growing super app hire the best people for the best teams to do their best work?
The airasia.com engineering team’s journey started over 3 years ago. We have scaled up from a single-digit into a triple-digit team and have seen strong demand for our services over recent times, which is also seeding many other lines of business.
In this journey, we have had numerous interviews to hire positions of all levels including positions of fresh graduates, Software Engineers, Senior Software Engineers, Technical leads, Engineering Manager, Product Manager, and also for a Head Of Engineering.
At airasia.com, we believe in hiring passionate, mission-driven people from interesting and unconventional backgrounds. We then challenge and nurture our people, place them in high-performing teams and empower them to achieve big dreams.
Below is some general guidance and advice if you wish to join our team for any of the currently advertised roles on our career portal. airasia.com is an equal opportunity employer, but we like to do some things differently:
The names below have been changed to keep the examples anonymous. :)
Myth 1: Dress to impress
Myth Busted: Diversity is celebrated
There is always a general expectation that candidates have to be well-groomed for an interview. On one occasion, however, we discovered a talent named Krish who walked into the interview wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt.
Torn jeans or not, we loved his problem solving skills, positive attitude and the depth of his technical answers. Needless to say, we hired him.
Fast forward one year, he is now responsible for anchoring one of our core Lines of Business for production and he is one of the highest code committers.
At airasia.com, the dress code is dress however you like, work from wherever you like, office or home, and everyone’s ideas are welcome here. All cultures are celebrated and all opinions are valued.
Myth 2: Direct experiences are expected
Myth Busted: Unconventional backgrounds can really stand out
Our interviews are spread across a few folks from different streams, in order to get mixed opinions,and then we have a debrief to arrive at hire or no hire decision. This example happened during the debrief session for a product manager position. We had one panel on the fence and one negative since the candidate did not come from a purebred product backdrop.
Candidate Pankaj started as a developer — not so common for a usual product manager specification. He went on to work on the product and its domain as a developer for a decade and recently switched to a product management role.
While his product management practices were not in line with our expectations in the initial interview, the third interview panel strongly vouched for this person’s top-notch domain knowledge. The decision eventually tipped in favor of Pankaj.
One year later, Pankaj was promoted to several layers from product management to owning the commercial experience. Following the role requirement checklist strictly would have cost us this super talent!
Myth 3: Overconfidence as cockiness
Myth busted: Confidence in the right areas can be an asset
As an interviewer, you are sometimes faced with a situation in an interview, when the candidate can be almost overpoweringly confident and knows his or her stuff. We were in yet another debrief where one person saw this candidate as a bar raiser and a person who had great potential. While another was on the fence and saw MJ as a person who could potentially intimidate his peers.
Noting that he had the ability to collaborate, we decided to offer MJ the role and guess what, one year later MJ went on to be promoted twice in the same year and delivered so many projects with his excellent people skills. He left his mark by bringing the best tech practices and taking teams to a whole new level.
Myth 4: It’s all about your qualifications
Myth busted: Adaptability and potential to learn quickly are important too
We had a young applicant straight from college in another example and in the interview, he explained his humble background. He walked to school 14km each way, every day. His village to date does not have internet connectivity. His scores were low but he had an amazing attitude, a hunger to learn, and importantly, he was honest and authentic.
One year later, with through our mentorship and series of training programs this young student became one of the top developers of a core Line of Business team and delivered amazing outcomes. At airasia.com, we always work hard to nurture young talent. We never discriminate and have a rich curated training pack that can transform lives as you can never imagine. You can read more about the training here.
Most of the time, interviews are easy if you only need to consider tech prowess. However, in many situations, you face candidates where other decisions need to be taken, not just with individual tech skills.
In our experience, looking for a coachable attitude, team players over having supreme technical skills also pays off in the long run. We have had success stories from numerous candidates whom we picked even though they did not know everything about the tech stack we use. They learned on the job, mastered tech stacks, delivered crucial projects, brought in best practices, worked on cutting-edge technologies, and continued to grow as inspirational leaders.
Join the Allstar family!
Conventional signals — what interviewers look for could be misleading at times. Here, we do all we can to break the rule-books and we also look at evolving signals to be able to get the right talent.
Passion and drive are more important than anything else, and that’s how we can fly higher.
The airasia.com Allstars are a bunch of thinkers, doers and dreamers who come from all kinds of cultures and backgrounds. There is always a problem to solve and a dream to pursue. If you’re looking for a dynamic, engaging career where you are constantly encouraged to grow and develop, apply today!
