Why and what was #poolsideinterview
Around a month ago we posted a campaign on social media about looking for a travel companion to join our company trip to Croatia from the 1st to the 3rd of June. We got a lot of attention from it, good and, well, constructive and we wanted to open up our thinking behind the scenes.
Why did we do it?
Firstly, we weren’t lying, we had too many flights booked by accident, all of us could not make it. The oopsie came up in a trip planning meeting, and someone said “let’s just post a classified ad on the paper” and the idea was out there.
Secondly, we need software developers. We are relentlessly trying to get our name and love out there for the like-minded solid developers to find and join us. But it’s not simple. There’s a deficit of 10k software professionals in Finland, competition for talent is ruthless, no one knows us (yet) and the market is saturated with recruitment “weasels” cold contacting people. Also, the cost of recruitment is high, and we saw the cost of a flight ticket and trip costs (around 1,000€) as peanuts in comparison. For example recruitment agencies charge around 20% of the annual salary of the individual, which can easily amount to anywhere between 7,000€ and 15,000€, plus the cost of time of the people working on recruitment in our company.
We did the math and it checks out:
€7,000 > 1,000€
Don’t get us wrong, this is the way the cookie crumbles and we are happy to pay for recruitment now and in the future. But we also saw an opportunity here to get visibility and our name into discussions.
Thirdly, it’s about a cultural fit. By this we don’t mean getting in people with similar thoughts and backgrounds, but rather people who we see could bring something new to the mix, allthewhile getting along with the people in our company and developing themselves.
“What is most important to you in your work?”
This is a question we ask nearly everyone in the first, “getting to know each other”- sit-down, the first date if you will. The re-occuring answer we hear over and over again is mentioning the people, teams, someone to learn from, to innovate with. It comes as no surprise, companies are their people and the chemistry between team members is a huge factor in the success of not only the company, but the individuals working for it. For us it’s imperial, especially as at this point of our history every new “New Thingerer” will have a huge impact on the company and the way we think. We’ve seen this over and over again.
They say travelling together is the best way to get to know someone. So why not do it with someone potentially joining the company? If a person is adventurous enough to travel with 13 strangers to Croatia for a weekend, they might just match with the crazies of our company.
Lastly, we did the campaign partly because we can. We work lean without a corporate structure behind us that tells us what to do or how. Our desicion-making process works on an advisory principle. Ask people who have interest and/or knowledge on the matter, get feedback and make a decision based on the advice. In this case the advice was “why not?”.
So what happened?
Five people contacted us through the campaign, we had coffees with two people and the rest have to still be met for different reasons. This time it was bad timing for both the people we met, and we mutually agreed to continue discussions at a later time. So we didn’t bring anyone to our trip unfortunately.
You might say the campaign was a failure, but we don’t see it that way. Every new person we meet is a learning experience, and a valuable connection. We never want to get people in just for the sake of bumping up the numbers, and timing is a big factor for someone thinking about changing jobs. Making a decision to change workplaces is one of the biggest in anyone’s life, and all factors need to be considered. We are in it for the long haul (pun intended) -we are flexible. We are not hiring anyone for specific projects, so even if the process takes a year we’ll be happy if in the end the person decides to join us. We want to do our very best to get people who we will love to work with and learn from, and vice versa.
