From words to action: Applying core values to every day.

Carrie McComb
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

Recently I was asked if core values really matter. Does anyone think or talk about them outside of a company’s obligatory “office culture” webpage? What do you use them for in the day-to-day?

At their core, values are just catchy words used on a business card, unless you can find ways to incorporate them into your working environment. If you integrate them into how you work and how you build your team, they can help build the company culture and identity. They can be the “why” you come to work for every day.

The values Wyzant upholds today didn’t just drop into my lap, and I didn’t rush to throw away everything I’d built before they were conceived to rebuild around them. Instead, I try to keep all four of them in mind when I’m making decisions regarding hiring. Am I creating a process that allows the candidate to enjoy the journey? Have I learned from our recruiting process and set personal goals to improve the experience? How have I continued to learn from our process and how have I encouraged others to do the same? And what can I do to ensure I’m being resourceful in my day-to-day activities? Here are a few examples of how I’ve worked our core values into building out our talented engineering team at Wyzant.

Always be learning

Our engineering interview process has evolved significantly in my tenure here, mostly in part to this idea that the opportunity for professional and personal growth exists whether you’re at the beginning of our interview process or a seasoned Wyzant vet. We use feedback from our interviewers, candidates and research on current market demand to evolve our candidate experience. And when candidates are in high demand — as many within the Chicago tech world are — you learn to tailor the process for timeliness. Instead of doing a technical take home exercise, we incorporate a coding challenge into our phone interview, using a product that allows you to code in real-time from your browser.

On the other side of the experience, I believe it’s important to allow candidates to share in this value, regardless of whether they’re presented with an offer. Apart from letting candidates know how we invest in professional development, I make it a point to always offer feedback to those who have taken the time to meet the team in our office. If we determine Wyzant isn’t a good fit for a candidate, we always give them the option to receive feedback from our side. While our feedback is our perception from an interview, we hope it still serves as a valuable tool in helping a candidate learn how they can present better in an interview or — at the very least — understand how we arrived at our final decision.

Enjoy the journey

This is where people tend to assume things like the cool office, beer fridge and cute dogs make the difference. And while all those things are great (and again, cute), I prefer focusing more on showing candidates who we are from a people perspective and how we work together towards enjoying the journey. As I mentioned under always be learning, I think it’s important to provide feedback, particularly to those who have invested significant time in your process.

Apart from feedback, I believe it’s important to be honest and transparent. I share information with candidates from the very beginning of the process regarding our expectations of the position. I try to be as up front as possible with them regarding our current needs, but also explain how they can potentially fit into a position, now or at a later time. I also think it’s important to ensure no more than two days go by without the candidate hearing from me or someone on the team, even if it’s just to tell them we haven’t made a decision yet or we’re still working on scheduling. A candidate should feel included in the experience, by understanding what’s happening on our side throughout each stage of their journey, however long it may be.

Set ambitious goals

While committing to hiring six engineers in three months is one example of our ambition, I like to think of day-to-day ambitious goals as us trying to continuously set the bar higher through the building of process. The easiest way to think about ambitious goals from this perspective is to think about hiring, numbers and timelines. With that in mind, the goal would then be to create an efficient feedback loop that leads to good decision making after a well prepared candidate interview.

We learn from feedback and then we evolve the process to better the overall experience. After a candidate meets with our team, we do a wrap-up meeting. Treating it like a stand up meeting, we offer an evaluation based solely on an employee’s session with the candidate before discussing feedback all together. Once feedback is discussed, we make a final decision based on the cumulative conversation.

The communication loop has been an invaluable part of our process exemplified at other parts of the hiring process as well. At one point during a wrap-up meeting we realized that we weren’t all on the same page regarding the expectations of the candidate as they related to the open position. While a feedback wrap-up meeting was great, it couldn’t add much value if we didn’t understand the position and the candidate. So we decided to add an interview prep meeting where interviewees meet for 15 minutes to talk about the position and candidate — what is important to know for someone to be successful in the role? Who is our candidate and what motivates them? And what should each interview pair focus on during their office interview? With all of these steps in play, we are more prepared as a group, which leaves the candidate with a more cohesive, structured experience.

Be resourceful

I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “eat your own dog food.” Well, what better way to be resourceful than to turn to your own internal tools rather than a third party? For engineers, we typically conduct a technical phone interview. During it, we ask candidates to be in front of a computer so they can work on a technical challenge with one of our engineers. We’ve recently been working on a way to incorporate our online learning tool into this step of the interview process. In doing so, not only will candidates and interviewers get to experience our product firsthand, but we’ll be able to provide a more well rounded technical interview experience with our built-in code editor and audio visual capabilities as well.

It’s exciting to step back and think about all of the different ways our day-to-day responsibilities align with our values. It reinforces how strong of an influence they have on our culture and team. They’re always present — even as you build and change — and provide a common language for you, your coworkers and candidates to communicate through. If you’re interested in more information about how we set up our core values, you can read more from the perspective of our CEO Drew Geant here.

Wyzant Tech

Thoughtful engineers, data scientists and designers building a better way to connect people who need to know with the experts who can teach them.

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Carrie McComb

Written by

People@wyzant

Wyzant Tech

Thoughtful engineers, data scientists and designers building a better way to connect people who need to know with the experts who can teach them.

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