At Dyspatch we believe that a thriving tech community benefits us all, and that open, equitable, and consistent recruitment practices are a cornerstone of that. You can read more about our recruitment process in a past post on our blog. To ensure that each candidate has a positive experience interviewing at Dyspatch, each of our interviewers is well trained, and comfortable with our selection system.
In order to continue to grow as a diverse and highly capable team we need to have interviewers from each part of our organization, and at varying stages in their careers. Any Dyspatchio interested in interviewing starts our training process by shadowing at least five interviews. For our technical hires, our trainees will shadow our technical screening, and the different sections of our panel interviews, discussing teamwork, shared values, and previous experience, as well as technical competency. Through shadowing, our trainees learn to build appropriate and effective interview questions, craft in-depth follow-up questions, and evaluate candidate responses. We ensure each trainee participates in a variety of interviews so that they’ll be comfortable speaking with candidates for any available role. As a highly collaborative team, we seek input from Dyspatchios across the organization when we interview. For a recent Customer Success interview round, our interview panel had members of our sales, marketing, and development teams, as well as Customer Success!
In addition to shadowing, would-be interviewers read our internal Hiring and Recruitment guide, and some of the source material our interview process is based on. This lets them place our process in a larger context of recruitment practices. We also include them in the kick-off and debriefing meetings that bookend each requisition.
Our Operations team has worked with each department at Dyspatch to create a library of questions that interviewers can draw from when prepping for upcoming interviews. Our process dictates that each interview is run the same way, with interviewers asking the same questions, in the same order. This consistency ensures that each candidate has the same opportunity to showcase their skills, experience, and enthusiasm.
Since moving all our interviews virtual, we’ve updated our interview guide so that each interviewer knows how to handle introductions, panel transitions, and any technical issues. After our Operations team developed these new practices, we added them to our training materials and updated everyone involved in our interviews. While our process is established, it’s important for it to be adaptable to the current environment.
After finishing their interview training, our Dyspatchios debrief with our Ops team to confirm what they’ve learned and ask any questions. About half of our team is currently trained as interviewers with many team members on a waitlist to be trained. In our feedback surveys, candidates tell us that they find our interviewers prepared with relevant questions and practices and that the interview process feels fair.
