Our Answers to 8 Questions to Ask Recruiters Before Committing to the Hiring Process?

Are you struggling with what to ask the recruiter during the interview? I have recently come across this post by the arc() team, and I think those are good questions indeed!

At Bowtie, we want to make everything as transparent as possible — therefore, instead of having you ask us those questions, let us share our answers and thoughts up front!

What is the hiring process for the role?

The hiring process is for both the company and the candidate to learn about each other. There are 3 primary areas of focus:

1. technical fit (skill, knowledge, capability)
2. values fit
3. growth potential/opportunity

For all our hiring process, there are 2 main blocks:

1. technical interview — we develop our own take-home technical assessment for each role. On top of assessing your skill, we hope that this also gives you a taste of what working in Bowtie is like! Depending on the role, there could be additional technical interviews.
2. non-technical interview — we want to learn more about your past achievements, your working style, your passion, and values, and whether we can offer those to you.

For more about preparing for an interview with us, you can check out this post!

Is the interview process decision majority or unanimous?

After a candidate completes the interview loops, we will collect feedback from every interviewer. All interviewers are required to put a rating and their question marks there.

If the decision is unanimous, we will move to speak about the offering. If the decision is not unanimous, we will conduct a round table (mostly in-person, occasionally over email) to discuss the situation. Most of the time, we will be able to reach a consensus over the decision (as other interviewers may have the missing information), if not we go with a majority vote. In some situations, we do give certain people veto rights.

Why is this role vacant?

We dream big and need great talents to join us! Over the past 2 years, we have been expanding, not aggressively, but prudently. While a good portion of our roles is new headcount, we do look for replacements at times. When we look for a replacement, we also take that as an opportunity to review our current situation and to re-scope the role if needed.

For software engineering, we are literally always hiring (and we have a really low turnover rate!).

Remote OK?

It depends on your role and seniority.

While most of our team is based in Hong Kong, we do have a few colleagues in different time zones. We have been working in a hybrid format for the past 2+ years, and we are actively looking to build a distributed team. For roles that require little to no Hong Kong context and are not required by law to be in Hong Kong, such as engineering, design, product, and digital marketing, we are totally open to remote!

Why me?

We looked into the crystal ball and saw you! (joking, I wish we have the capability though.)

Before going into the answer, I think you also need to think about what you are looking for with this question — make sure that you are not looking for flattery or fishing for compliments.

If you are referred to us, you must have done something great to/with the referrer :) (and we usually let people know if we get to know them via referral).

For cold outreach, we do rely on keywords as a start. We read through people’s profiles to look for:

1. achievements — we are looking for high achievers and passionate people. Being in a startup is not all rainbow and unicorn, and we need people who are driven, resilient, and strong at execution to join us.
2. values alignment — are you purpose-driven? do you have a strong sense of ownership? are you someone who cares?
3. other fun things that are worth noticing!

What is the compensation range for this role?

Here is where I don’t agree with the original post on the concept that you should never give a number up front — that is only valid if you think the company is using that to your disadvantage and it is definitely not the case for us.

Also, we understand that things change along the way and we would not hold it against you if you have to revise your expectation.

Lastly, we also offer honest feedback on whether the ask is realistic — we believe that will be useful for you too (asking for a 50% increment for the same role as your current role? or asking for a significant raise when you are pivoting in your career? let’s be realistic here).

When we consider an offer there are a few factors that we are looking at:

1. the level/salary band. We value internal fairness! While for most of the roles, we have a rough level/seniority in mind, it may not always be the case, and we are always honest with you on that. In those situations, we will share the absolute ceiling with you — however, that may/may not be relevant to you, depending on your situation.
2. candidate’s current package. While we do not encourage people to (solely) move for money, we know that financial incentive is important. If you are moving to a bigger role in a similar function, we will be looking at a 10–15% increment in most cases.

Who does the role report to? What is the team structure?

We will have to answer this one during the call. However, we can very confidently say we are a flat organization (and will strive to stay this way), so no matter what the reporting line is like, you will be heard and be given a lot of room to achieve great things!

What stage of growth is the company in?

Finance wise

We completed our series B1 round in 2021 (see our press release here and our co-CEO, Michael’s Bloomberg interview here), and do have plans for further funding activity.

Since our launch in 2019, we have been profit-generating and prudent with how we spend our money (and hiring!). We are allocating our funds wisely to make sure that we will be able to sustain and build towards our dream!

Product / Market

In the past 3 years, we have grown from 0 to supporting over 60k+ customers (including non-insurance products). 60k+ is still a small number, but we do believe that is still meaningful growth.

Instead of just focusing on achieving “hyper-growth” (which contributes to a lot of flops in the startup scene), we emphasize equally achieving sustainable and strategic growth.

We are pushing the boundaries of insurance in Asia on multiple fronts — from what customers get to how we do it. While we would say we still have a lot of room to grow, we are comfortable that we are definitely on the right track!

Want to explore more about Bowtie? Get in touch today or check out our career site now!