Talk Talent To Me Socotra Head of TA Dubi Ben-Shoham
Dubi tells us of his three most recent hires and how he goes about ensuring that diverse candidates are being brought into the company. He explains the pressures that hiring managers place on him and how he is able to navigate through scheduling conflicts between candidates and his team. There is a growing trend for on-demand interviews and our guest breaks down some of the issues that arise therein, as well as a close examination of the mistakes being made by companies when they hire technical engineers. In our conversation, you’ll learn how tech companies are contradicting their ingenuity, what the ideal number of interviews should be, what Socotra’s interview process is like, and how and why the cultural interview is a good way of assessing how a candidate will fit into the company. Dubi explains how other companies are lazy not to send rejection letters, before leaving us with an inspirational story of how he gave a second chance which led to incredible success.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Introducing our guest, Dubi Ben-Shoham, and
- A quick look at his current work week: he made three key hires.
- How Dubi makes sure that diverse candidates are being hired.
- The pressure placed on him by hiring managers.
- What he does to set realistic expectations for his managers.
- How he balances the calendars of his execs.
- Scheduling conflicts that arise between candidates and hiring managers.
- The growing precedent of on-demand interviews.
- Breaking down the problems surrounding the hiring of engineers.
- Whether the technical interview activities are relative to the job itself.
- How, for all their ingenuity, tech companies are still hiring in a dated way.
- What the ideal number is from Dubi’s perspective.
- A sneak peek at Socotra’s interview process.
- The culture interview as a good assessment of how the candidate will fit in at the company.
- How candidates ‘fake it’ more at skills interviews rather than cultural ones.
- What Socotra does differently to be more respectful to candidates.
- Why other companies do not send rejection letters: Dubi thinks it’s laziness.
- An inspirational story of success gained through a second chance.
Tweetables:
“One of my strong suits is, I know that I’m the expert in the relationship and the hiring managers are not. So I just set realistic expectations from the onset.” — Dubi Ben-Shoham [0:04:23]
“If you ever want to have another podcast about how I want to revolutionize the technical recruiting process, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure that out.” — Dubi Ben-Shoham [0:11:30]
“Tech companies are supposed to be the most forward-thinking companies but they’re still interviewing engineers like it’s 1999, and it doesn’t make any sense.” — Dubi Ben-Shoham [0:15:33]
“The time it takes usually to interview candidates, the process, it all should be reviewed on a regular basis, just to make sure we are doing the right thing and candidates are feeling good about it.” — Dubi Ben-Shoham [0:17:50]
“I applied to 300 jobs, seriously. I got to be a candidate for so long and it just showed me everything bad about recruiting.” — Dubi Ben-Shoham [0:21:53]
“Managing expectations was the first thing I learned as a recruiter. If you’re good at that, then you’ll be good at what you do.” — Dubi Ben-Shoham [0:23:52]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: