Challenge

Hiring while “flying a million miles per hour”

Will: We started working with Hear Me Out a few months before our IPO. Back then, there were times when we had more open roles than employees! It felt like we were flying an airplane a million miles per hour, but everything was kind of taped together, and we needed to invest in our team.

When you’re growing fast, you’ve got band-aids on things. There comes a point where some of the existing processes no longer scale, and I felt we were past that point. We needed to change our approach to scaling the company’s technical hiring.

A “rose-colored view” from key stakeholders

Will: We didn’t have a centralized project management system, and every recruiter was doing things a little bit differently, which led to mixed reviews from hiring managers. At a surface level, stakeholders loved working with our team. But when we tried to dig into specific feedback, we’d get a rose-colored view of the world. They wouldn’t want to give us direct feedback until something had gone wrong. We suspected there were ways we could improve, but we just weren’t hearing them.

Hiring managers’ feedback to recruiters mainly focused on what was going well.

Solution

Confidential feedback delivers unique insights

Will: As a third party, Hear Me Out interviewed people anonymously, so we got really good insights. It was one of the first times where I really saw that it can be a good decision to have an outside perspective instead of tapping into an existing team. People don’t want to hurt your feelings, but everything was totally anonymous, so they could say whatever they wanted.

Hear Me Out interviewed all of our hiring managers and recent interviewers. We reviewed all the Greenhouse candidate surveys, too. It was around 45,000 words of feedback total, and they helped us track the patterns to find the gaps, instead of putting a lot of effort in without verifying the problem first. They also found some things in Greenhouse feedback that were worth investigating. Additionally, the tools that the Hear Me Out team used were all top-notch, and it taught us new ways of solving problems on our own after the engagement.

Executive stakeholders: “This is amazing!”

Will: Reading the report, there were some clear areas where we could invest in improvements. After sharing with our leadership team, they loved what we put together. I remember them saying, “This is amazing!” They understood some of what was happening, but the feedback filled in the details. It was one of the first moments in my career where I thought, “You know, getting really pinpointed, direct feedback is super helpful.” Now, I solicit it whenever I can.

Will and Ben at Will’s home office in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.

“Almost overnight, everyone was using the new system”

Will: It became clear our recruiters had a much higher workload than people realized. Some of the managers even explained, “this recruiter is answering emails late at night, and they might be spread thin.” That was really telling, and it helped us justify staffing up to take the burden off the team.

After the report, we spent the next few months delivering internal products to streamline recruiting. For example, if someone wanted to kick off a position or request an outside headhunter, it went to a centralized form. We even started running hiring end-to-end in Slack with private channels and emoji reactions. We went from zero to one, and almost overnight, everyone was using the new system.

Results

Higher productivity, lower turnover, happier candidates

Will: After working with other outside vendors, I was concerned the research would just lead to a lot of fluffy talk, but Hear Me Out pushed our team to drive results. We closed 40% more hires per recruiter, and our recruiting team had low turnover for many months after our engagement. Candidate experience satisfaction in Greenhouse went up 20 points, too, which was huge.

We adopted new processes, had more engaged candidates and hiring managers, and brought a product-based approach to running our tech recruiting team. For Peloton, this kind of investment more than pays for itself, especially when you’re hiring software engineers in New York City.

A new role intake process helps ensure recruiters know what to look for.

“Every single role was kicked off the same way”

Will: One big area we improved on was role definition. How do we identify the kinds of people we truly need? How is someone successful in the role? At the time, it was a challenge to make sure we were only working on approved roles. The form created a check and balance to help us verify every role with finance, so we had less opportunity for errors, like opening a position that wasn’t approved.

We used the role intake form for all of our new positions. Every single role was kicked off the same way, and all the recruiters were equipped with the right information. We had really good people, but it was helpful to have that standardized. It wasn’t just recruiters relying on their expertise.

“As a leader, you always want to challenge yourself”

Will: I really enjoyed working with Ben. He isn’t afraid to give you feedback, but he’s definitely empathetic. At the time, we were more concerned with filling positions than answering questions like, “What do hiring managers think of us? Are candidates getting a good experience?”

The new process started in tech, but eventually, we expanded it to all of corporate recruiting. I learned a lot, and I still use some of the tools and frameworks Ben brought to our team. As a leader, you always want to challenge yourself and learn new things, and Hear Me Out totally helped me with that.

Peloton’s motto is “Together, we go far.” The new process helped engineering close 40% more hires.

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