#19 – Recruiting Primer – Part 2

Tech Deciphered

In episode 19, we share detailed advice to recruiters, sharing views on job descriptions, finding talent, interview process, good and difficult interview questions, other hacks, as well as our own “pet peeves”. This is the second episode on recruiting. In episode 18, we framed the discussion and shared our core recruiting principles, including in compensation, and in the design and development of the recruiting organization. Episode 20 will end our trilogy, by focusing on detailed advice to candidates. Navigation: Introduction (01:24) Section 1 - The Job Description (02:00) Section 2 - Hacks & Tools (10:19) Section 3 - Finding Talent (15:04) Section 4 - Interview Process (18:14) Section 5 - Other Hacks (31:52) Section 6 - Pet Peeves and Dislikes (39:17) Conclusion (41:27) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, co-Founder and Managing Partner of Strive Capital, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news. Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:24)Bertrand: Welcome to episode 19. This is the second episode in a trilogy of episodes on recruiting that started previously, with episode 18. In this new episode, we are going to focus on the recruiter side: writing a job description, the tools and approach to find talent, the interview process, global differences, the evergreen approach to recruiting, closing candidates. And we will conclude on our pet peeves and dislikes.Section 1 - The job description (02:00)Nuno: And maybe switching and going into the weeds a little bit on advice that we would specifically have for recruiters and starting with the job description. The job description is normally this painful thing that someone has to do that involves some copy pasting, hopefully if there's a template or some Googling in the middle, to define what the job looks like.I think this is absolutely the wrong approach, just to be clear. A job description, I think has two sides to it. There should be an external job description, which is manifested to the market. That can be used with external recruiters, that can be used with candidates directly. And that should be sharp and really conveying what hard skills are being looked for, what soft skills are being looked for, what is the value system of the organization, and obviously a brief description of the organization, and finally, a little bit on how that position would fit in terms of roles and responsibilities within the organization. Those four or five things need to at least be there.It should be sharp, it shouldn't be a three page job description. I've seen seven page job descriptions. I'm like, why?Bertrand: No way.Nuno: Is anyone gonna read that? And sharp should be one page, very clear, there should be a lot of attention to the words that you use and the clarity on it.And it should really be appealing. It is a marketing material. I'm not saying it's not, but it should also be clear in filtering people that have certain skills versus others, people that have a certain value system versus others, et cetera. Then there's a little bit the internal job description, which also should be very clear. Which is, who is this person going to report to, what are going to be the day to day of this person, the complexity of it, et cetera.I'm not sure that needs to be manifested in a very formal way. But there should be clear understanding around the table, from the hiring manager all the way, maybe to the CEO early on in the company, to the person that's managing the recruiting process so that there is clarity on what works and what doesn't.