dev_to_ta (talent acquisition)
Ricardo Delgado
VueJS Frontend Developer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ricardod_dev
Github: https://github.com/rdelga80
Dev.to: https://dev.to/rdelga80
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardo-delgado-6ab12a93
www: https://rdelgado-portfolio.web.app/
Ashley Pastino
Talent Acquisition Manger
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/penn-interactive-pi
Instagram: @Penn_Interactive
Twitter: @PICareers
Ricardo: The first thing I wanted to say is thank you for enabling this project. I think so far we’re the two sole contributors to the Medium page, but it’s been super fun and awesome.
Ashley: Don’t even give me that much credit! I would say it’s been 99% you. I’ve even passed off making the graphics to my new marketing and recruitment specialist. So I appreciate you stepping up.
I forget when we had a conversation about this? I remember that we first talked about volunteering opportunities, then it transpired into this. I love that’s what happened. So thanks for reaching out to me.
Ricardo: Well, to be honest, I had an agenda.
Ashley: Don’t we all have an agenda. Haha.
Ricardo: When I was getting hired, I was asking for blogging opportunities. I think it’s important to differentiate yourself as a company, but also as an employee. I feel pretty passionately about Barstool, and I was really excited when I knew I was going to get this job.
Going off that, projects like this Medium page, and also the opportunities with volunteering, what is it that you’re trying to convey to potential hires?
Ashley: There’s a lot of things we’re trying to get out there. I would say, the two biggest things are brand recognition, and establish Penn Interactive as its own brand. A lot of times when we’re having phone screens with candidates it’s like, “wait, but I applied to Penn Interactive, why is Penn National Gaming emailing me, and where is Barstool in this whole thing?”
It’s trying to get that information out there first so that when candidates already have an idea on who we are, and then we can make the conversation more about our culture, about what they’re looking for, their background, etc.
Slowly we’re trying to get people thinking “Penn Interactive is where I want to work.”
Second is trying to be a window into the culture here.
A lot of times, and this is something I’ve seen a lot in my career, you’ll never truly know a company’s true culture until you start. But we want to be as transparent as we can, and let people know what it’s like to work here. We want to work with people that have the same culture and values that we have, but how can people know that before actually starting here?
Everything from social media, showing the virtual cooking nights we have, to these blogs, to working with nonprofit orgs is to give a behind the scenes picture of Penn Interactive.
The biggest thing you hear everywhere lately with labor is The Great Resignation, and I think that title can be a little bit misleading. People aren’t quitting because they don’t want to work, they’re quitting because they understand their value now, and corporate America just isn’t going to work anymore.
Rolling into the office at 9:10am, getting written up, and called into your manager’s office isn’t going to fly anymore.
Ricardo: When we started talking about the interview side of the blog it was to show how we actually get along at work, and it’s not just like “hey this is the person I deal with.”
Because really, you and I have no reason to know each other, right? Our departments don’t work with each other, but yet you and I have this great relationship, and I get really happy when I see a message pop up from you on Slack.
Ashley: Exactly!
Ricardo: If you had a “three sentence pitch,” what is it that you would say to represent PI?
Ashley: That’s a great question.
Three sentence pitch? I don’t think I have just three sentences. Normally it’s like a ten minute screen to go over this.
I want Penn to come across that we’re a fast growing company, but we allow people the balance of maintaining their mental health and a work/life balance. Granted there’s nights where we work really hard, especially this past year with everyone trying to crunch in all these launches, so I do want people to know that upfront.
It sounds corny, but we have that “work hard, play hard” mentality. We do a really good job at balancing that, but I think we’ve navigated dealing with this new remote world pretty gracefully too.
We went from 50 employees to 500 during a pandemic. Compared to other companies which had to shut down and adapt to a new working environment, we started moving right as the pandemic hit, and I think that speaks volumes.
Think about it, you’re a remote employee, you’re staying remote, you’re not going to come into the Philly office. A lot of companies before the pandemic didn’t know how to engage their remote employees, how to make them feel included.
I know I’m kinda going really long, I told you I can’t do three sentences.
I just want to show we adapt with what’s going on in the world, we’re a very transparent organization, so I would say we’re very adaptable, and what we’re doing right now isn’t going to be the same in five years.
Ricardo: It’s interesting, I know when I bring up that I do the blog, I participate in volunteering, and I think I work relatively hard that people think “you do too much.” Have you seen concerns from interviewees who are like, “oh there’s so much extracurricular stuff, but why should I have to invest so much into my job?”
Are these types of issues to screen for people who won’t really care about their job and only want to get a paycheck?
Ashley: I think we do a really good job at screening that out in the entire interview process. One thing we do for interviewees is a “culture screen,” where we send out guidelines on how to steer a conversation to see if this person is a great culture fit.
I would say it’s something we do look for. We don’t want someone who just wants to just collect a paycheck and log off. Granted, we also don’t expect people to come in and join every organization. But there’s no role here where an employee will ever say, “that’s not my job.”
Look at you, with Angie [Sanders, Team Lead] going out on maternity leave, and even though you really enjoy coding, you’re stepping in while she’s out just to have a new experience. And so you let things change it up, and that’s what we love to see.
And it’s not as if we’re expecting you to have this “career progression.” Like first you’re an engineer and then you’re a manager.
We want people to enjoy what they’re doing, but then still have different ways to be involved with the organization and help out across other teams.
We’re not necessarily looking for someone that’s going to volunteer for every speaking engagement, or take on interns, like how you’re literally doing it all. I really appreciate everything you do, and you enjoy it.
Ricardo: It’s fun.
Ashley: It’s really adding to the value of a team environment here. One of our core values is a “no ego zone,” and we really do screen for that. I’ve interviewed people that are great on paper, great experience, and they don’t get past me if they’re a jerk.
And even if they slip past me, that next interviewer is going to catch on. There’s no one that will get to an offer that’s a complete a-hole.
Ricardo: I have a lot of sympathy for the situation you must be in, because you probably get it from both sides, it’s in the world in general, people just complain about jobs.
“I’m at a job I hate” or “I hate my job.”
I can see you not wanting to put pressure on people, and let them feel like “join PI and do your job, that’s what we expect.” But of course wouldn’t it be great to have a company where everyone is super passionate and motivated, and into the work the company is doing?
I’ll just say from my perspective, from my side of the hiring process, I’ve never had difficulty in job interviews, even my very first job application process. You always hear these nightmare stories of programmers trying to get their first job, having to send out 80 to 90 resumes before breaking in.
I did three applications, I got three interviews, and I got a job out of one of them. And I think it’s because I come off like I care, because I do — this is a fun job. I do a lot of my own side projects, and when I was interviewing I had 3 fully built web apps that were just fun for me to make.
And the interviewers were like, “did you make this for your portfolio?” And I was like, no, this is cool, and fun, and it was cool to make it.
So for interviewees, I think they want to come off like that, but there’s always that concern like “I don’t want my job to think that I need to be 150% committed to what they want” either.
Ashley: I wish there were more Ricardo’s applying to a lot of our positions, because of your personality. I think especially in this market right now, a lot of engineers and candidates in general know that we’re competing for them.
We’ve noticed in our initial screens, those extra portfolios, or volunteer opportunities, interviewees aren’t sharing that, they don’t really care to. It’s kind of like “I’m great, I’m getting an offer with another company, are you going to match it?”
So we have become a lot more creative with offers, offering more Senior type of roles, LTI stuff, stock options, we’ve incorporated paid parental leave, etc. I know I max out my UberEats credits every month.
But I think candidates aren’t doing the extra stuff because they know the market is hot. We’re talking to a candidate, and when we get to the first phone interview they already have an offer — or when we get to our offer, they at least have another offer or two.
If candidates really want to work here, stand out, tell us you want to be here, don’t come off like the grass is greener. It’s not like every candidate is doing that, but we’re seeing it a lot more.
Before it was like, “how can I stand out? How can I wow this recruiter? How can I wow this recruiting team?”
But now it’s more going with the flow in an interview.
Ricardo: That’s kind of a bummer, to be honest. Because you hear so many people say, “I want a job that I love,” and in my opinion you make yourself love your job. If you’re not loving your job, then go get another job.
Ashley: And right now’s the time! Because if you don’t love it, this is the time to change it up.
Ricardo: I think that’s why I love that PI offers a lot of volunteering opportunities, and having developers go and talk to people about what we do. I’m a long term goal person, and I think finding people with a similar background to me is going to matter. I don’t have a CS degree, I didn’t go to a bootcamp, I just learned off YouTube videos.
Ashley: I didn’t know that.
Ricardo: And I think this volunteering aspect is similar to laying the foundation of a pipeline for non-pedigree people to become part of the company starting from the beginning of their journey.
Ashley: Yeah, as opposed to the traditional college grad, studying computer science.
Ricardo: Exactly, I don’t think we need to go down that road anymore. It can be more like “you’re a positive minded person, you’re trying to break into something, you have a background where you’re going to appreciate the insane amount of money you can get paid, and you’re going to be really really grateful.” I can teach that person programming.
Ashley: I agree, this Great Resignation isn’t going to go on forever. I do think that, yes, it’s tougher for recruiting, we have to be more competitive, but I love that.
I love that as a business we have to change, corporate America has to change. And granted there are companies that are offering larger benefits because they want to acquire new talent. But that’s good!
Also, to touch on the volunteer opportunities we do with LaunchCode and Hopeworks, actually two of my recruiters are doing 25 minute one-on-one interviews with Tech Elevator Bootcamp. It’s beneficial to the people who are working with them in a new industry, or a new position, but also for our employees.
What we hear in a lot of our surveys, or just from talking to candidates, is they want more. There’s a lot of employees that want to change it up, and we want to be able to offer different things, so that employees who have a passion can find them.
That’s why we have these volunteer opportunities to speak, that’s why we have a community impact Slack group that meets every month on different topics, because some people are very passionate about it, they’re very passionate about their voice being heard and being an advocate for employees.
And that’s what I love about being in the people and culture department because I have a big hand in that. We’re offering resources to the community, to other people that are looking to get into tech, or are already in tech, and we’re also offering different things for our employees.
If you and I never connected, we wouldn’t have this blog, you wouldn’t be working with the two Hopeworks candidates that showed up to your presentation, and I know that’s stuff you enjoy and it makes you enjoy this company even more.
You still enjoy your day to day, but it adds that little touch for employees, and if they’re ever hesitant and if someone reaches out for a little bit more money to join another company, hopefully our employees will think it isn’t all about money, I don’t get to do this at another company, here I can make a difference.
