How We Hire

Resources

  • If you have a verbal agreement with a new hire and need to onboard them, please use the Onboarding Request form and Ops will kick off the process.

Guidelines

At Cantilever we set our expectations high. We really love when people share our passion for our Mission of Digital Hospitality as well and look for those who match our values.

For all roles, first and foremost we are looking for people who vibe with our

. This goes beyond what they say – good candidates have a demonstrated commitment to the same principles we do.

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Danny Meyer, one of our inspirations, uses the term “Hospitality Quotient” to describe these types of qualities. He says this makes up 51% of his hiring decisions. Skills and competencies are the other 49%.

We like to hire those who bring a new perspective, differing viewpoints, and new approaches to the team. We value diversity in every form and strive to seek out perspectives which are missing from our team.

We have two staff types, and within those, multiple levels of commitment that are better for different people in different moments in their lives.

Since we are a remote team it’s critical that all hires have a demonstrated history of success in a fully remote role. This is especially important for full-time Core Team roles. Our standards for full-time are 35 hours per week, and working 35 hours per week at home is not for everyone.

Currently Ops leads our hiring processes, collaborating with the internal person who wants to make the hire. If you think hiring someone would be a good idea, please talk to @Ty Fujimura to discuss the key parameters:

  • Do we need a Core Team member or a Contributor?
  • What is the need the new hire will fill?
  • What role will the person fill? Do we perhaps need a new role?
  • What is our timeline?
  • Do we need someone full-time or part-time?
  • What level of seniority are we looking for? How does the potential wage fit in with our budgets?
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Our hiring methodology is heavily inspired by the Who Method. If you are going to do a hire, please read up on the method online or buy the book, it’s a short and easy read!

Where we look for candidates

Ops should always start by creating a job description and posting it to our website’s Careers section via Webflow.

A fundamental concept in the Who Method is that the Job Description is formatted as a “Scorecard” which can then be used by everyone involved in the hire to grade the candidate. Our role definitions are already in the “Scorecard” format and are used to measure the performance of people once they are actually in the role. So you can use the role definition to quickly create a job description.

For Contributors, JDs can be looser and don’t have to match our pre-existing roles.

Depending on the role, Ops may want to:

  • Make sure the JD is posted to the #campfire channel in case anyone has friends who might want to join Cantilever.
  • Coordinate with the team to get the JD posted to social media
  • Utilize Job Boards (this is more for Core Team roles than Contributor roles, though some Contributor roles may merit it)

    • Job Board Database

    Authentic Jobs
    DesignersDevelopers
    Black Tech Pipeline
    DesignersDevelopers
    Dribbble
    Designers
    Behance
    DesignersDevelopersMarketersWriters
    Women Who Design
    Designers
    Women Who Code
    Developers

Hiring Workflow

Candidates will come through our website, slack/email, and the job boards. We also get unsolicited applications that are not connected to a particular job posting, and those use this workflow as well.

If the candidate comes through the website or email they will be in Hubspot. Please remove spammy submissions but keep all real candidates so that we can reach out to them about future roles.

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This workflow is reflected in the Contributor Recruiting Pipeline in Asana. We plan to make another one for Core Team hiring as well.
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Ops Screening

  1. If the application is from a spammer, agency, or other non-qualified individual, ignore them and remove them from Hubspot if they were added.
  2. If the person is a real candidate but obviously not qualified for the role or to work at Cantilever, keep them in Hubspot but send a polite rejection email.
  3. If the person is a real candidate who meets our requirements, proceed.
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Manager Screening

The hiring manager (or relevant internal expert, if there was no hiring manager) should review the applicant’s portfolio/resume and decide whether they are worth pursuing. Remember, if it’s not a “Hell Yes” it’s a “No.”

If it’s a “Hell Yes” the manager should reach out to set up the interview process (cc Ops).

If it’s a “No”, Ops should send a polite rejection note.

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Interviews

The interviews should include the manager/internal expert and ideally an Ops team member or a potential peer (just watch out for non-billable hours usage).

Core Team

For Core Team hires we use the Who Method interview sequence:

  • “Who” Interview
  • Focused Interview

Contributors

For Contributors we combine the “Who” and the Focused parts of the full process into a single interview.

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Reference Check

If we want to move forward, we should solicit references from the candidate and Ops should reach out to them to get those references. For Contributors, one reference is enough. For Core Team, at least two should be required. If the person was originally a referral from a trusted source, we can waive this part.

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Comp Negotiation

We should now compute and send a comp offer to the new person based on our

model. It doesn’t have to be in a formal offer letter, it can just be via email or call.

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Onboarding

If we are 100% ready to hire the person, we can start the onboarding process.

Use this form to request that Ops start onboarding the person. They will do this by creating a new Onboarding project in Asana (in the Cantilever workspace) and following the steps therein.

One of the initial steps will be a background check. Then Ops will send them an official offer letter. When they say yes, Ops will send them official contract paperwork to get started. Our contract templates are in Drive and we send agreements through Pandadoc.

Once all the legal stuff is done Ops will get the person into the right systems.