As many companies are gearing up for expansion and growth in 2022, hiring trends continue to lean in favor of applicants. With so many prospective candidates waiting for the right fit, organizations are paying close attention to what attracts (and retains) top talent.
At the following companies, leadership is listening particularly closely. And as a result, benefits go beyond a competitive salary or 401k matching. They include a strong company culture, a balanced work pace and legitimate opportunities for professional development.
These nine professionals shared what attracted them to their current role and how their experience has changed since the new-hire days. We also got some insider knowledge on what they look for in applicants. If you’re scoping out a new role, one of their open positions might be for you.
What they do: Taskrabbit is a marketplace platform that connects people with Taskers to handle everyday home to-do’s, such as furniture assembly, handyman work, moving help and more.
Why did you first apply to join Taskrabbit, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
I first applied to join Taskrabbit because I felt there was an opportunity for me to apply some of my previous marketplace experience to a few really interesting problems on the platform. Since joining, I’ve discovered the problems are much more exciting and interconnected than previously imagined. Additionally, I’ve come to understand the positive impact our marketplace can be for our users. It is truly motivating to know that our marketplace makes the lives of our clients easier while providing significant income opportunities for our Tasker community.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, and why is it important at Taskrabbit?
When looking to grow my team I primarily look for a high level of quantitative proficiency and a growth mindset. We are constantly looking for ways to optimize our marketplace. It is a never-ending problem to solve. We need to be constantly analyzing our data for insights, exploring different approaches and testing our ideas. I’ve found that people with the prerequisite technical skill matched with grit and hustle are very successful in our environment.
What they do: Philo was created to build a better TV experience. The team provides a TV service, available nationwide, with a growing array of traditional and digital channels. Philo is a full featured product with multi-platform availability across web, apps and connected TV.
Why did you first apply to join Philo, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
Through some networking, I received an email in 2014 from Philo’s CTO asking me to interview. A week later, I had signed a contract. While the business model has evolved enormously since then, the company culture has remained steady, prioritizing transparency, wellness and punny humor. My experience on the team has evolved from being the first womxn on the engineering team to the inaugural co-chair of the Womxn of Philo employee resource group, to one of two womxn managers in engineering. The constants in daily life have been the opportunity to learn new things and the freedom of showing up as my authentic self.
What’s your most interesting or exciting work-related challenge right now, and how are you overcoming it?
I was recently promoted to manage the people, purpose and process of Philo’s QA team. It’s a daunting challenge, but I’m actually quite excited to have this platform to advocate for my reports as well as quality in the product. This is a rare opportunity to define my own role and the future of Philo’s QA team! I’m confident that I have a reliable support system available at Philo to help me become the best manager I can be.
What they do: Superhuman is an email platform with keyboard shortcuts, reminders, a calendar and undo send option, among other features.
Why did you first apply to join Superhuman, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
I joined the company in order to work directly for the co-founder and CEO Rahul Vohra in a role that was the first of its kind at the company: product manager. Since joining, Rahul has crystallized his product sense into a framework of product principles and personally coaches each PM on the team to craft a remarkable product experience. Since joining as the first PM, I’ve had to opportunity to build and scale the product team and hire other incredible PMs to drive the mission of helping professionals end every day feeling happy, more productive and closer to achieving their potential.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, and why is it important at Superhuman?
An important characteristic I look for in PM candidates for my team is humility. Great product managers must be grounded enough to approach a problem space or product area with an open mind and curiosity. The only way we can successfully craft the best product for our customers is to avoid making assumptions, and instead actively listen to what our users have to say, deeply collaborate with our cross-functional teams and constantly iterate our ideas and solutions.
What they do: Render allows users to host anything from simple static sites to complex applications with dozens of microservices online using their cloud platform.
Why did you first apply to join Render, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
Our CEO, Anurag Goel, reached out to me a little over a year ago. We were a smaller team then and didn’t have formalized recruiting practices, so the process was less structured. Now, we have more than doubled in size but still remain smaller than most. We have since hired an amazing recruiting partner who ensures the candidate experience is smoother with a little more structure. One thing that won’t change is our scrappiness when it comes to hiring. Both Anurag and I continue to reach out to people daily (DMs open!) and take as many initial candidate calls as possible.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, and why is it important at Render?
As a team, we’ve compiled and shared our values on our careers page. This is how we identify with each other and what we actively look for in candidates. Simply put, we love working with kind, smart people who enjoy collaborating on hard problems. We help each other grow as individuals and as a collective.
What they do: WeaveGrid aims to drive rapid decarbonization in global transport and power sectors by intelligently connecting electric vehicles to the grid.
Why did you first apply to join WeaveGrid, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
WeaveGrid offered an opportunity to tackle our climate crisis head-on by working with the electric and transportation industries. These industries combined represent more than half of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to tackling the climate crisis, I was looking for a place with a great team where I could continue using technology to solve problems that impact people. WeaveGrid offered both; a skilled and welcoming team that were committed to solving the climate crisis and a technology set well-positioned to help the electric grid prepare for the growth in electric vehicles. Since becoming a new hire, I feel fully integrated into the team and wake up every day excited to work together to help decarbonize transportation with electric utilities.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, why and why is important at WeaveGrid?
Empathy. One of the critical skills for solving incredibly complex problems is having the ability to listen and understand the perspective of the people you work with. Empathy enables a more nuanced understanding of the challenges that clients are facing, allows for better communication with co-workers around challenges and opportunities, and creates better and more sustainable solutions for the industries we serve.
What they do: Freshworks builds and delivers software-as-a-service that’s affordable, quick to implement and designed for the end-user.
Why did you first apply to join Freshworks, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
In 2018, I learned of Freshworks. While it was technically a startup, the company had already built a strong foundation and product offering that could benefit any organization. Add in the people and a culture that welcomes new ideas and contributions, as well as a leadership team that values diversity and life experiences, and I knew I had found something special.
I started on an incredible journey with Freshworks in 2019. It’s been invaluable to know I have support from a team who values my contributions. Freshworks is the type of company that allows you to grow if you have the ideas, drive and work ethic to set yourself apart, with bonus points for compassion and empathy. Said simply, there is no place else I’d rather be.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, and why is it important at Freshworks?
I look for the type of people who are dedicated to knowing their craft inside and out, who constantly strive to truly know their business, their industry, their product and their process. While they might not have all of the experience to thrive on day one, I’m interested in those who care enough to study, to learn and to grow from their mistakes.
What they do: Truebill develops a mobile app that helps consumers take control of their financial lives. The team leverages AI to analyze users’ spending habits, identify inefficiencies and take action to ultimately improve their financial health.
Why did you first apply to join Truebill, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
I initially applied to Truebill because I saw an opportunity to help make meaningful change through achieving Truebill’s mission of being able to improve people’s financial lives. I was excited to see such a warm culture on the data team and intrigued by Truebill’s features, including subscription cancellation.
My experience has been intellectually challenging as I’ve helped to grow the analytics team and worked with the team to form company-wide KPIs, dashboards and analytics used by Truebill leadership. There are boundless opportunities to have company-wide impact, which makes it exciting to come to work every day.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, and why is it important at Truebill?
As we’re growing the Truebill analytics team, I find it’s important to be both open minded about analytics but also leverage critical thinking. We’re thoughtful about best practices on how to structure the analytics stack and how our business stakeholders look at analytics and the data ecosystem. We have an open culture around data and a real belief in the company’s mission, which drives our analytics products.
What they do: Fivetran’s fully automated connectors sync data from applications, databases, logs and more into a cloud warehouse. Their connectors deploy in minutes, require zero maintenance and automatically adjust to source changes.
Why did you first apply to join Fivetran, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
I started this week. I came from Facebook, and so far, am loving it here. I like the ambiguity of building processes and creating scalable projects. I love the culture and the people as well as the sense of belonging I have.
What’s your most interesting or exciting work-related challenge right now, and how are you overcoming it?
I am working on optimizing the technical recruiting workflow in order to streamline for efficiency. To do so, I am collecting historic data, research, feedback and building out success metrics.
What they do: Personal Capital aims to transform financial lives through technology and people. The team combine technology tools with fiduciary advisory services, delivered virtually and directly to the consumer.
Why did you first apply to join Personal Capital, and how has your experience changed over time since you were a new hire?
Personal Capital was high on my list for a number of years before I initially applied. I had worked with some of the founders at a previous wealth management company, and they were people I admired and knew I could trust. Likewise, I was impressed with what the company was doing. Wealth management at the time fell into one of two camps: traditional firms that relied heavily on people, phone outreach, in-person meetings and white-glove service. In the other camp were digital upstarts that offered mostly online advice, scaled for a wide range of wealth levels, especially those historically overlooked by the people-centric firms. Personal Capital built a model that merged those two models.
When you’re looking to grow your team, what’s a quality that you look for in candidates, and why is it important at Personal Capital?
We hire across a wide range of roles and functional areas, so I can’t speak for all hiring managers at Personal Capital. But for me personally, I value intellectual curiosity above all else. My favorite candidates are those who have an interest in our industry, appreciate our business model and how it’s different, and want to understand how the nuts and bolts work underneath the hood. That leads to so many positive knock-on effects: someone who is enthusiastic about their job, who wants to understand not just what to do, but why, and who can think critically about their role and contributions.
