Update: I turned the lessons from this hiring round into a more structured guide: Getting Hired. If you're actively interviewing, start there. This post is the story behind those recommendations.
Joe & I often talk about whether an activity effects the slope or the Y-intercept. Hiring, without a doubt, is a "slope" activity. (although, all of the time spent hiring at the beginning might lower the Y-intercept, it definitely is well worth it).
In April, Joe messaged our team with a challenge. "What would it take to hire another software engineer in less than 2 weeks?" Our 10 person team was stretched thin, and one day we woke up and realized we needed to hire a lot of people very quickly.
We sifted through hundreds of resumes and applications. Our Head of Operations who leads HR, singlehandedly screened at least 50 people. It was truly an all-hands-on deck cross-company experience, with the hiring manager responsibilities spread across engineering, GTM, and support. (When it was all over, one of our teammates remarked how incredible it is that startups can actually change priority overnight.)
Now, I'm so proud to say we successfully nearly 2x-ed the team. We added two senior software engineers, a Head of Sales, Head of Product, Head of Design, a customer success engineer, and a marketing designer. We had a 100% offer acceptance rate. I am truly over-the-moon that we found such high caliber talent all through self-source and referrals, and that they chose to bet on us.
When I think about how we did it, I think about the fact that every new hire multiplies the group. How do we bring incredible people into the company? By hiring other incredible people.