7 ms·

Exactly, it's clearly not a lack of resources, but explicitly not prioritizating candidate experience for candidates you're not actively pursuing. Which, by the

by ss3000 6y ago

Exactly, it's clearly not a lack of resources, but explicitly not prioritizating candidate experience for candidates you're not actively pursuing. Which, by the way I think is a totally valid decision to make, but let's not kid around and make it sound like your hands were tied.

pc 6y ago
There are two somewhat separate issues, I think. (1) The practical reality that a lot of people will have a suboptimal experience until we (both "we Stripe" and "we the industry") figure out more scalable ways to assess people. We'll do the best we can to identify promising people but a lot of people will get something somewhat functionally equivalent to a form rejection. You could argue that this is merely a prioritization decision -- we could keep hiring recruiters until everyone could be individually assessed -- but doing so would require a recruiting team of comparable magnitude to the rest of the Stripe organization and so the current state is an unfortunate compromise given the current constraints and given the decision to have an open application form (which is, I think, on net better for everyone). (2) Cases where people at Stripe mishandled the process. I know for a fact that some of the anecdotes shared in the thread are from many years ago, and I know that our process has improved since then (we have empirical data to this effect), but we're also acutely aware that we continue to make mistakes -- recruiting is a high-stakes and complex process with a lot of fallible moving parts. For whatever it's worth, we issue CSAT surveys to every candidate who interviews (about 6,000 onsite interviews in 2019), and track the results both at the aggregate Stripe level and at the individual recruiter level. And I get why some people here sound so annoyed -- what might be "another entry in a database" to a recruiter or hiring manager is "the future of my career" to someone on the other side. While it's always hard to know what to make of a set of anecdotes, and while our referral rate among Stripe employees is very high today, I'm nonetheless bothered by the number of cases shared here, and we're going to be digging in. (Specific anecdotes with more concrete dates or data are welcome at patrick@stripe.com.)
- gault8121 6y ago
  Couldn't you "pen test" your own hiring process? Have some folks stage applications and see the process failures first hand. You might get better data from running these experiments yourself rather than through a survey.
  - com 6y ago
    You’re talking about a “secret shopper” test. They deliver very actionable findings, if there’s a will to improve.
- borroka 6y ago
  "The practical reality that a lot of people will have a suboptimal experience until we (both "we Stripe" and "we the industry") figure out more scalable ways to assess people." It is not inevitable and there are company that do recruiting better and other worse. For example, asking for a cover letter at Stripe and then ghosting people liberally even after multiple rounds of interview does not sound tremendously good to my ear. That is a not a sub-optimal interview experience, like being in a coma is not a sub-optimal life experience. I understand that working with recruiters is hard (who ever said: I know a recruiter who is a genius? Or even the lesser: I know that recruiter, they are brilliant), but respecting candidates should be a priority of any organization.
  - pc 6y ago
    > For example, asking for a cover letter at Stripe and then ghosting people liberally even after multiple rounds of interview does not sound tremendously good to my ear. Absolutely. That is category 2!
  - mbesto 6y ago
    > but respecting candidates should be a priority of any organization. Sorry, but it's not. I'm not giving Stripe a pass here per se, but the priority of an org is to make money so that they can offer positions. Scaling recruiting is hard. Just like you might want an org who see thousands and thousands of applications every day to act more benevolently, the opposite also holds true.
    - borroka 6y ago
      Yes, it is not, but it should be. And not "the priority" of the organization, which is, as you said, making money, but one of the priorities. In fact, using the double KPI method, "finding great candidates and treating all with basic respect" should be the guiding light/mantra/KPI of any recruiting team. "Scaling recruiting is hard". Sure, plenty of things are hard when scaling, but calling back candidates after multiple rounds of interviews (just to highlight one common complaint) is not. That is a cultural problem.
  - webmaven 6y ago
- marcinzm 6y ago
  It's not hard to have an automated system that tracks if a candidate that's been interacted with has been ghosted. If the candidate has been previously contacted then require communication with the candidate for any archiving or other rejection. Hell, require communication even if you reject them without ever talking to them. Sending an automated email tied to the HR system candidate status isn't expensive or hard. You can then reprimand the recruiter or their manager as appropriate if they don't do this or try to get around it
- rochester46 6y ago
  >For whatever it's worth, we issue CSAT surveys to every candidate who interviews (about 6,000 onsite interviews in 2019) I interviewed in 2019 and never got a CSAT. The recruiter (and rest of the team) completely ghosted me after telling me an offer was coming. No further communication, and certainly no CSAT. It seems that could be a huge hole and your entire CSAT program is subject to confirmation bias if you are not even sending them to the people who are most likely to respond with a negative experience. I'm not sure I would trust this "empirical data" you have.
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  I had an on-site interview in your San Francisco office in 2019 and did not receive a CSAT survey

by ss3000 6y ago

pc 6y ago

There are two somewhat separate issues, I think. (1) The practical reality that a lot of people will have a suboptimal experience until we (both "we Stripe" and "we the industry") figure out more scalable ways to assess people. We'll do the best we can to identify promising people but a lot of people will get something somewhat functionally equivalent to a form rejection. You could argue that this is merely a prioritization decision -- we could keep hiring recruiters until everyone could be individually assessed -- but doing so would require a recruiting team of comparable magnitude to the rest of the Stripe organization and so the current state is an unfortunate compromise given the current constraints and given the decision to have an open application form (which is, I think, on net better for everyone). (2) Cases where people at Stripe mishandled the process. I know for a fact that some of the anecdotes shared in the thread are from many years ago, and I know that our process has improved since then (we have empirical data to this effect), but we're also acutely aware that we continue to make mistakes -- recruiting is a high-stakes and complex process with a lot of fallible moving parts. For whatever it's worth, we issue CSAT surveys to every candidate who interviews (about 6,000 onsite interviews in 2019), and track the results both at the aggregate Stripe level and at the individual recruiter level. And I get why some people here sound so annoyed -- what might be "another entry in a database" to a recruiter or hiring manager is "the future of my career" to someone on the other side. While it's always hard to know what to make of a set of anecdotes, and while our referral rate among Stripe employees is very high today, I'm nonetheless bothered by the number of cases shared here, and we're going to be digging in. (Specific anecdotes with more concrete dates or data are welcome at patrick@stripe.com.)

gault8121 6y ago
Couldn't you "pen test" your own hiring process? Have some folks stage applications and see the process failures first hand. You might get better data from running these experiments yourself rather than through a survey.
- com 6y ago
  You’re talking about a “secret shopper” test. They deliver very actionable findings, if there’s a will to improve.
borroka 6y ago
"The practical reality that a lot of people will have a suboptimal experience until we (both "we Stripe" and "we the industry") figure out more scalable ways to assess people." It is not inevitable and there are company that do recruiting better and other worse. For example, asking for a cover letter at Stripe and then ghosting people liberally even after multiple rounds of interview does not sound tremendously good to my ear. That is a not a sub-optimal interview experience, like being in a coma is not a sub-optimal life experience. I understand that working with recruiters is hard (who ever said: I know a recruiter who is a genius? Or even the lesser: I know that recruiter, they are brilliant), but respecting candidates should be a priority of any organization.
- pc 6y ago
  > For example, asking for a cover letter at Stripe and then ghosting people liberally even after multiple rounds of interview does not sound tremendously good to my ear. Absolutely. That is category 2!
- mbesto 6y ago
  > but respecting candidates should be a priority of any organization. Sorry, but it's not. I'm not giving Stripe a pass here per se, but the priority of an org is to make money so that they can offer positions. Scaling recruiting is hard. Just like you might want an org who see thousands and thousands of applications every day to act more benevolently, the opposite also holds true.
  - borroka 6y ago
    Yes, it is not, but it should be. And not "the priority" of the organization, which is, as you said, making money, but one of the priorities. In fact, using the double KPI method, "finding great candidates and treating all with basic respect" should be the guiding light/mantra/KPI of any recruiting team. "Scaling recruiting is hard". Sure, plenty of things are hard when scaling, but calling back candidates after multiple rounds of interviews (just to highlight one common complaint) is not. That is a cultural problem.
- webmaven 6y ago
marcinzm 6y ago
It's not hard to have an automated system that tracks if a candidate that's been interacted with has been ghosted. If the candidate has been previously contacted then require communication with the candidate for any archiving or other rejection. Hell, require communication even if you reject them without ever talking to them. Sending an automated email tied to the HR system candidate status isn't expensive or hard. You can then reprimand the recruiter or their manager as appropriate if they don't do this or try to get around it
rochester46 6y ago
>For whatever it's worth, we issue CSAT surveys to every candidate who interviews (about 6,000 onsite interviews in 2019) I interviewed in 2019 and never got a CSAT. The recruiter (and rest of the team) completely ghosted me after telling me an offer was coming. No further communication, and certainly no CSAT. It seems that could be a huge hole and your entire CSAT program is subject to confirmation bias if you are not even sending them to the people who are most likely to respond with a negative experience. I'm not sure I would trust this "empirical data" you have.
anonymoushn 6y ago
I had an on-site interview in your San Francisco office in 2019 and did not receive a CSAT survey