How we Hire Agile Coaches at SHARE NOW
Oh, hello there! You are likely here because you applied for an Agile Coach position with us. First up: thank you for your interest, and we are excited to get to know you!
We outline the stages of our current process here so you know what you can expect. We have done numerous iterations, and the present form seems to work quite well for the candidates and us. If you have any additional questions, you are always welcome to reach out during the process or use the interviews to clarify them.
The Application
Maybe you haven’t sent in your application yet but are still considering it. If you feel you don’t tick enough of the boxes, we would still encourage you to do so. Some of our current colleagues took a leap of faith, and we are all very happy they did.
And you are always welcome to attach a cover letter to help us better understand how you’d be a great fit for the role.
Gearing up for the interviews
If we feel your profile is a good fit, you will receive an email with a link to help us schedule your first interview. Our scheduling tool will let you know what times would work best for us, and you can pick your favorite(s) or, if need be, make alternative suggestions.
With the world being as it is, we still stick to 100% remote interviews using Google Meet. We will send you the link to the call once we agree on a day and time.
People at SHARE NOW tend to be very passionate about car-sharing and mobility. If you live too far away from our cars, you can still find much information on the product and company on our website.
The first interview
This call is around 30 minutes long. Here, we mainly focus on your motivation. What excites you about Agile? What is it about the role that makes your eyes glow? Why could SHARE NOW be a great place to work for you?
We want to know what motivates you and what you seek (and don’t seek) in a workplace. It is essential for us to make sure that people find the right set of challenges and the right environment that keeps them motivated. We want to ensure a good fit for both of us.
Most of the time, somebody from our Agile Coach Chapter will do the first call, so you can already bring all your detailed job-related questions.
The Skill-Based Interview
For the second call, we double everything: two coaches from SHARE NOW, 60 minutes, twice as many cameras pointed at you (just kidding, no second camera required).
Our focus here is on your skills and experience. What do you bring to the role, the teams and company, and our group of coaches?
We will also go through a few imaginary scenarios to better understand your problem-solving approach. Don’t worry: the scenarios are loosely based on our work, but our day-to-day work isn’t always that intense.
And there will, of course, be time for your questions as well.
The Third Stage
Come this far? Congratulations! There is just one more thing. Ok, it is three, but we usually schedule them in one piece (~2.5h). If that doesn’t work for you, we can always find another arrangement.
First up, we will ask you to facilitate a retrospective with one of our teams. Yes, a real retrospective with a real team. But don’t worry: we will help you prepare. And we are also not looking for perfection. But we want to know how you interact with a team and how you reflect on your work (more on that later).
Once we agree on a day and time, you will receive a briefing from the coach who is most familiar with the team. We will also help you figure out technical details. You are free to use the tool of your choice. Ours is Mural, but you are free to pick another — just factor in a bit of time in the beginning for the team to get familiar with it. And while you might be tempted to show off your whole range of facilitation methods and tools, we recommend keeping it more on the simple side. After all, this is about your interaction with and support for the team, not the depth of your toolkit.
There will be one or two coaches present during the retrospective. They can help out with technical issues, but they are mostly there to silently observe.
After the retro (60–90 minutes) and perhaps a short break, the coach(es) will do a debrief with you:
How do you feel about how the retro went?
What was your plan, and what went well?
What did you learn about the team?
Again, we are not looking for perfection. We know we can strive for it but cannot ultimately achieve it. At the debrief, we want to learn how you reflect on your work. Because to get better we need to be aware of what can be improved. The debrief is another ~30 minutes.
If any open questions are left, you might have another quick call with somebody from the coaches or company.
A few Last Words
We try to be very quick and often succeed in doing so. You will receive feedback the day after a stage in the best case. It shouldn’t take more than a few days to hear back from us on average.
And if everything works out, you might soon find yourself on our side, improving processes and blogging about it.
This is basically all there is to our hiring process as we practice it today in early 2022. We have tried out different things in the past, and this version seems to work quite well for us. We are, of course, always open to feedback to make it even better. Just let us know how we might improve.
For now: thanks for reading, and best of luck with your application!
PS: Maybe you didn’t land here through one of our job ads, but you are now curious? Check out our job site.
