Chimers Chime In: Scaling talent through hypergrowth (and in a global pandemic)
4 Tips for hiring through rapid growth
In 2020, Chime hired 404 new Chimers.
So far in 2021, we’ve welcomed 689 new Chimers.
We went from having 1 office in 2018 to 3 offices in 2020.
Growth is a great thing, especially when you’re a startup working to make a difference for millions. And with rapid — dare we say, hyper-growth, comes a lot of responsibility for the talent function to scale accordingly. Whether it’s hiring practices, goals, or culture, the talent function is the door through which all new employees walk when joining the company — so recruiters, sourcers, and other talent professionals have to keep up with and drive growth, as well as constantly sharpen their skills and improve their craft of recruiting.
We sat down with several Chime recruiting leaders to discuss the ins and outs of scaling a company through hypergrowth, and here’s what they had to say.
The challenges: Evolution and cohesion
“When a company goes from being small to not being so small, it can be tricky to get everyone on the same page,” explains Amy Silverman (she/her/hers), our Senior Manager responsible for business strategy and operations recruiting (she/her/hers). “You still want to hire the best talent that we can, but doing that at scale and in lockstep with the entire organization gets harder as you grow.”
In practice, this might look like departments doing things their own way or following their own processes, instead of adhering to organization-wide practices. For example, the debrief process following interviews might look different across teams, but when the company is scaling rapidly, it’s even more important that it be the same. “We recently rolled out a new debrief process that helps all teams and departments follow the same process, ensuring consistency and eliminating confusion around what the right process is,” explains Jeff Winter (he/him/his), our Senior Director of Talent Acquisition.
Key takeaway: Hypergrowth can lead to fractured processes when it comes to hiring. Implementing organization-wide best practices and processes to follow helps everyone move together toward your goals.
Cohesion is important at scale because, without consistency, rapid growth can quickly lead to messy, hard-to-track processes for recruiters and less than ideal experiences for candidates. By having guardrails, documentation, and a united team, the entire hiring process becomes more objective — and, in turn, better for the company and candidates alike. “Consistency is a way to ensure candidates are getting an equal opportunity to join any team and helps the company continue to hire the best talent,” explains Candice Smith (she/her/hers), a Senior Technical Recruiting Manager.
“To make sure our team stays united and processes cohesive, we’ve over-indexed on communication,” explains Jeff. “In order to stay ahead of our hiring velocity and correct or avoid problem areas, we’ve talked and shared what’s happening — with leaders, hiring managers, and teams.” By maintaining open lines of communication, we’ve been able to keep everyone involved in the hiring process and incorporate changes and evolutions more easily.
Key takeaway: Cohesion matters, and to maintain it, communication is key. Sharing changes, getting buy-in, and helping a growing company know how recruiting functions, is the first step to avoiding the challenges of hypergrowth.
We recognize that in order to grow in a sustainable way, we have to evolve — and do it together. That’s our role as talent professionals: to actually grow the team, and to help us evolve the way we grow the team so that growth is efficient, values-aligned, and helping us move forward.
The plus side: Hypergrowth
Hypergrowth isn’t all challenges — in fact, looking back over the past few years, the team noticed several positive changes that have come as a result of our growth. “When we first started Chime, as with any early stage startup, nobody really knew who we were,” explains Jeff. “It’s hard to hire for a company when people don’t know what it is and why it’s important.” In the beginning, recruiters would spend all of their time with candidates explaining what Chime was and convincing them that it’s a good place to work with interesting problems and a mission worthy of consideration . As we’ve scaled and built our brand, recruiters have shifted to getting to know candidates and helping candidates get to know their teams and the work they’d be doing. “Candidate engagement is way higher now that we have a brand,” Jeff adds. “We made an immediate investment in our employment brand and candidate engagement has increased significantly over time as a result.”
Key takeaway: Hypergrowth is an opportunity to build a recruiting brand that can help you hire — because more people know about your company. More brand awareness means you can focus on connecting with candidates instead of telling them about your company.
Growing fast also means that we’ve made crucial hires internally that have helped develop a strong culture, both within recruiting and beyond. “We’ve brought in strong leaders who act as the pillars around which we can grow our company,” says Candice. “On recruiting, we share the load of growing the company by coming together and sharing our individual expertise,” she says.
Key takeaway: Building a strong recruiting team is one of the best ways to drive hypergrowth and maintain a strong culture.
The process: 4 Tips for hiring for hypergrowth
When it comes to actually hiring, the team focuses on three main areas: hiring holistically to create a well-balanced team, hiring smarter than ourselves, and building relationships with key partners.
1. Hire holistically
“I think about hiring based upon skill gaps on my teams,” explains Amy. “Think about hiring holistically for the skillset the team needs to succeed long term, not in reaction to short term events or issues. Every new hire should bring an element of experience nobody else on the team has.”
2. Hire smarter than yourself
“I encourage all of my hiring partners to hire people who are smarter than they are,” says Candice. “It’s that simple — once we all recognize that we can learn from each other, our teams become stronger and hiring becomes about adding value, not checking boxes.”
3. Build relationships
For Jeff, hiring during hypergrowth comes down to establishing relationships with key partners. “I believe in building trust between recruiters and hiring managers so that recruiting becomes an ally and partner, not a blocker,” he says. “This helps as we change processes or and adapt our practices because our hiring partners trust that we have their best interests in mind.”
“When it comes to building relationships, you get what you give,” says Tracy Ikeda (she/her/hers), a Director of Technical Recruiting. To build trust, the team works to produce results and show up consistently. They also push back on hiring partners, because that builds trust, too. “You don’t always have to be a yes person — pointing to why something might not be working, and supporting it with data is a great way for teams to develop trust,” says Amy. Being honest and transparent while committed to action is a great way to connect with your hiring partners.
With a solid foundation of trust, managing relationships through periods of change becomes easier. It makes tough conversations easier and finding solutions faster.
4. Accept changes in culture
Hypergrowth inevitably signals change, but when it comes to culture, change can seem scary. “I see culture change through hypergrowth as an evolutionary process, where the culture is added to, rather than simply assumed,” explains Candice. “With this amount of growth, there’s no way the culture won’t shift — it’s about shepherding it in a positive direction.”
Changing culture is easy to manage when values are firmly established. Erica Waichman (she/her/hers), a Recruiting Manager, believes that “With clear, firm values in place, we can hire people who share our values but aren’t just like us.” This helps to prevent microcultures and promote growth and evolution instead of stagnation.
And when it comes to leaders, hiring for culture is critical. “Leaders can have an outsized effect on culture, so evaluating every leadership hire for their values and behaviors is even more important during hypergrowth,” Erica says. “We’ve implemented specific leadership interview panels to look at values and culture alone when we hire for leadership positions at this stage of growth.”
Words of advice from the team
“Don’t freak out,” says Candice. “Hypergrowth can feel overwhelming sometimes, but it’s achievable, and you, as a recruiter, have the opportunity to impact how it goes.”
“Make sure your team — and you — take vacations and time for yourselves,” says Jeff. “It’s easy to get swept up in the growth since we act as the engines for it, but it’s more important than ever during times of hypergrowth to take time to slow down.”
For Tracy, it’s about taking a step back once in a while to look at what you’ve accomplished. “It’s so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day, and, especially as we’re working remotely, it’s hard to see the growth we’ve achieved. Grounding in our progress is a rewarding and motivating thing to practice.”
We’re still growing and still hiring! Check out our open roles on our careers page.
