Resources for Hiring Managers

Partnering with recruiting

Each hiring manager has an assigned recruiter for their hiring needs. If you are unsure which Recruiter you should partner with, please Slack @hiring to inquire.

Partnering with sourcing

Coming soon…

Estimated time-to-hire

It is our goal to fill our openings as quickly as possible while maintaining a high quality bar and a strong candidate experience. Our time-to-fill goal is an average of 45 days. This means that the timespan from intake meeting to candidate offer acceptance (when a candidate signs their offer letter) should be, on average, 45 days or less.

  • (45 days time-to-fill) + (2-4 weeks notice period) + (1-2 weeks vacation in between jobs) = 3 months from the time we kick off the job to when our new teammate starts.
  • All roles should be kicked off 2-3 months prior to our target start date to ensure we’re taking a proactive, rather than reactive, recruitment approach.
  • Once a candidate begins the interview process with us, we should aim to complete the interview process in 2-weeks or less.

Please reference the hiring plan to see your upcoming open roles. This document is updated in real time and adjusts as the needs of our business change. If you see that you have an upcoming role in the next 2-3 months, please follow the below steps to kick off a search.

The interview process

1. Opening a new job

  • To open a new role:

    • The Hiring Manager fills out this intake form. Responses are routed to our headcount tracking sheet.
    • The Hiring Manager creates a job description using this template. Read more about why we write job descriptions in this way here.
    • The Hiring Manager creates an interview plan. Before creating your plan, we encourage you to read more about why creating an interview plan comprised of structured interview questions is critical to our success.

  • Once the Hiring Manager completes the above steps, the Recruiter takes the below actions:

    • Recruiter schedules a 30-45-minute intake meeting with the Hiring Manager to kick off the search. This is a necessary step to ensure initial alignment and set our search up for success.
    • Recruiter opens the job in Greenhouse by copying the “Template” job and builds out the interview plan, adding all behavioral-based, structured questions directly into each interview stage. All interview stages should use the standard interview titles, found here.
    • Recruiter posts the job to our Careers page and LinkedIn. If you would like it posted in other locations, please ask your Recruiter or send a Slack message to @hiring. You can see a list of other job boards we are considering here.
    • Recruiter starts the Slack Kick-Off Process.

2. Recruiting Stage

  • Recruiter reviews applicants.
    • To advance a candidate to the Recruiter screen stage, Recruiter uses the Calendly template in Greenhouse to schedule.
    • To reject a candidate, Recruiter sends rejection email template.
  • Recruiter sources passive candidates who are not actively looking for a new job.
  • Recruiter conducts an initial recruiter screen with eligible candidates.
  • Recruiter submits qualified candidates to Hiring Manager.
  • Recruiting Coordinator schedules additional interviews for candidates.
  • The hiring team (including the Recruiter, Hiring Manager, and all other interviewers) debriefs and makes final hiring decision.
    • This can be done in a synchronous fashion via a debrief Zoom meeting, or asynchronously via Slack.
    • Hiring Managers are responsible for communicating your hiring decisions to the rest of the interview team to stay informed and calibrate for future hiring decisions.
      • Post your note in the private Slack channel for the role.
      • Your note should provide context for why we’ve decided to hire someone, or why we’ve decided not to hire someone.
      • Once it’s been posted in Slack, paste your note into Greenhouse so it lives on the candidate page forever.

3. Offer stage

  • Once finalist is identified, Recruiter completes references if necessary.
  • Recruiter confirms level and compensation.
  • Recruiter submits offer for approval in Greenhouse.
    • Approval chain: VP Talent > Hiring Manager > Department Head > VP Operations.
  • Once the offer is fully approved in Greenhouse, Recruiter schedules offer summary call. The purpose of the offer summary call is to review our offer with the candidate and answer any questions they may have.
    • Attendees: Recruiter, Hiring Manager, Candidate.
    • Agenda: 1. the Hiring Manager kicks off the call to give the candidate feedback and tell why we’re excited about them 2. the Recruiter then shares their screen to display the offer summary document. The Recruiter then covers our compensation philosophy, the compensation specifics, perks, travel (and benefits, if applicable), and equity 3. the Hiring Manager and Recruiter answer any questions and ask how the candidate is feeling about the opportunity.
    • Before ending the call, be sure to 1) determine a potential start date (all start dates should fall on a cohort Monday and any exceptions to that rule require approval from VP of Talent, Noemi, and Inés) and 2) schedule a follow-up call to answer any questions.
  • Following the offer call, Recruiter sends the offer summary to the candidate in an email.
  • Once the candidate has verbally accepted, we will send an official offer. The Recruiter:
    • Updates the offer approval with the accurate start date
    • Tags the VP Talent and the Recruitment Operations Specialist in the notes section: “@Carly @Trevor please send this [US/Non-US] offer letter”
  • The official offer is sent to the candidate via Docusign.

4. After the offer

  • After the candidate signs the offer, the Recruiter sends a welcome email to the candidate and Cc’s the Hiring Manager.
  • The Hiring Manager posts an announcement of the candidate’s acceptance in the Slack #Hiring channel.
  • The Recruiter takes the following steps:
    • 1 Declines all other candidates.
    • 2 Confirms that the start and hired dates are correct, ensuring accurate time-to-fill data.
    • 3 Confirms the candidate source information is accurate, ensuring accurate source data.
    • 4 Click the “Mark Candidate as Hired” button found in the “Offer Details” section of the candidate’s profile: 1. Select Close Reason 2. Click either “yes” or “no” in the “Keep Job Open” section” 3. Select “Yes” for “Make Candidate Private” 4. Selet “Yes” for “Export to BambooHR” 5. Email a summary of this candidate to: “Obboarding Email”, Carly Jones (VP of Talent), and the Hiring Manager.
  • The People Operations team then works with the candidate to onboard them and get them set up for their first day.

Using external recruiting agencies

  • Q: Who is allowed to engage with external recruiting agencies?
    • A: Any hiring managers that need additional support to fulfill hiring needs can leverage an external agency. Please contact @hiring or recruiting@sourcegraph.com to make a request.
  • Q: Am I allowed to engage with an external agency if I have an assigned internal recruiter?
    • A: This should be reviewed on a case by case basis to see what is the required candidate pipeline to meet the team’s hiring goals. If internal recruiter(s) are not enough to meet the needs of the team then the hiring manager can seek external help.
  • Q: How do I engage with a new agency?
    • A: To engage with a new agency, please Slack @hiring with your request, including 1) the agency name/contact information and 2) the roles that you would like the agency to work on.
    • As a next step, the VP of Talent will send and sign all agency agreements.
    • All agencies sign our standard agreement.
    • Our standard agency fee is 20%.
  • Q: How do agencies submit candidates for consideration?
    • A: The talent team will set each agency up with a Greenhouse account. All agencies must submit candidates via Greenhouse. Please contact @hiring or recruiting@sourcegraph.com to get an agency added to Greenhouse.
  • Q: What do I do if an agency recruiter (with whom we do not have an agreement) emails me a candidate?

The folder to store agency contracts can be found here

Tools for Hiring Managers

You can see a list of all recruiting tools here. If you need a tool not listed, please Slack #hiring to request it.

  • Guide to using BrightHire, our interview recording tool
  • Guide to using Greenhouse, our applicant tracking system

Providing interview feedback

Please put your written feedback into Greenhouse as soon as possible following the interview (immediately is ideal) while it is still fresh in your mind. You can also leverage your BrightHire recording to revisit key points during the interview when providing feedback.

All feedback must be submitted in Greenhouse before discussing with anyone. This is required and ensures that bias does not impact your hiring recommendation.

We want to ensure that teammates score candidates in a consistent fashion which is why we have definitions for what the following ratings mean: 1. Strong yes 2. Yes 3. No 4. Strong no.

Scheduling

We are flexible when it comes to scheduling interviews because we are all-remote and we don’t need to schedule all interviews back-to-back (unlike typical onsite interviews at other companies). Some candidates like spreading interviews out (e.g., across multiple days and/or having breaks between interviews on the same day) and others prefer to batch them as much as possible to get it over with. Ask the candidate what their ideal interview schedule looks like and then try to accommodate those preferences as much as possible (given interviewer availability).

Even if candidates prefer to batch all their interviews together, it might not be possible due to the timezones of available interviewers.

If interviews are spread over multiple days and it is clear from the initial feedback that we won’t be moving forward, we will cancel the remaining scheduled interviews to save our teammates and the candidate’s time.

To schedule an interview with a candidate, please reach work with your recruiter or Slack @hiring. You can see a list of Recruiters here.