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cover of episode Adam Wathan: how small startups hire employees (Tailwind CSS)

Adam Wathan: how small startups hire employees (Tailwind CSS)

2024/6/4
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A
Adam Wathan
J
Justin Jackson
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Justin Jackson: 我认为小型团队的招聘过程通常是临时性的,很少公开讨论。Adam 公开招聘,收到了 1600 份申请,处理这些申请花了他两个月的时间。无论你是招聘的创始人还是想在小公司工作的人,这次讨论都很有价值。我几乎每次招聘都是雇佣我之前就认识的人,通过各种人际网络认识他们,然后逐渐转为全职。 Adam Wathan: 我们花了很长时间才决定要招聘这两个职位,将需要做的事情分解成具体的职位非常具有挑战性。发布职位招聘信息,确定每个职位需要包含的内容,讲述正确的故事,确保既能激发人们的兴趣,又能清晰、真实地描述工作内容,这些都极具挑战性。我一直认为,有很多有才华、有能力的人,只是我不知道他们的存在。我不想让人们在 Twitter 上的名气成为积极因素,因为这与他们是否擅长某个特定职位或是否适合公司文化并不一定相关。我们收到了 1600 份申请,这让我们很难给予每份申请应有的关注。处理大量的申请需要大量的精力和时间。我希望找到能够支持我的领导,并带来专业知识的人。我理想的员工是那些能够带来我们所缺乏的经验,并且对与自身经验无关的事情感兴趣的人。我们最终雇佣的两个人都没有通过申请流程。我想分享这次经历,因为我对结果感到惊讶,而且我的收获与 Justin 一开始提到的内容相关。

Deep Dive

Chapters
This podcast episode discusses Tailwind CSS's hiring process for two new roles, which involved receiving 1600 applications and ultimately hiring two people who did not apply. The process took two months of full-time work and involved multiple steps of filtering.
  • 1600 applications received for two roles
  • Two months of full-time work spent processing applications
  • Neither of the two hires applied through the formal process

Shownotes Transcript

How do founders of small bootstrapped companies hire new employees?

Adam Wathan got over 1600 people who applied for two new roles) at Tailwind Labs) (a small team of six people). They ended up hiring two people, but neither of them actually applied. This wasn't how Adam expected (or hoped) this process would go. There were lots of surprising takeaways and lessons learned from the whole experience. "If you figure we spend 5 minutes on every single application, that was like 133 hours straight reading applications. Processing these job applications was basically my full time job for 2 months." – Adam Wathan Links:

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Timestamps:

  • (03:40) - What's the size of Transistor and when did you last hire?

  • (05:29) - How did you meet or find your employees?

  • (07:17) - Adam's process for hiring

  • (12:49) - The energy required to process applications

  • (17:37) - What got people in to the 100 list?

  • (21:08) - Did Adam get any videos in applications?

  • (24:54) - Previous employment was a good indicator

  • (30:21) - Painting a picture of what the position looks like

  • (32:07) - The kinds of people who applied

  • (34:57) - How did the application process work out?

  • (38:57) - The kinds of questions we asked applicants

  • (42:30) - Does a great conversation impact a hiring decision or not?

  • (49:29) - Does having the position open in public help?

  • (51:41) - How Adam was connected to the people they hired

  • (59:36) - The importance of conference conversations

  • (01:02:25) - Finding ways to share your work in public

  • (01:06:16) - The process does work... just not this time

  • (01:12:35) - Could I ever get comfortable with a 70% success rate?

  • (01:20:58) - Bringing in someone you knew vs a fan

  • (01:26:50) - Keeping a tab in different areas to pull from

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