One of the most incredible things about working in the tech recruitment business is the opportunity you have to see what drives people to change their jobs.
We think of ourselves as being in the life-changing business, because despite our short year and a half of happy existence, we’ve already helped dozens and dozens of people change not only their career paths, but their lives as well. Some might say money is the secret to hiring good candidates, but you know what? IT’S A TRAP!
What’s the use of hiring a couple of top-notch Front-End Developers if they decide to leave after six months? You were after a loyal FTE for the long haul and ended up with a contractor who left as soon as the first project finished.
There’s so much more that motivates the modern tech professional. We’ve built a framework about exactly this in our YourFit model. Within it, there’s one factor I’d like to point out here, and one that’s among the most important for us at Landing.jobs: Culture!
We’re far more than just a pretty website. Take a peek behind the scenes and you’ll see we’re a company just like yours. We’ve got a big challenge of keeping everyone motivated enough to don the company shirt each day and to fight for our mission: make tech hiring a rewarding experience for all involved.
https://instagram.com/p/-B1kk_w5kH/
They say one of the major perks of working in a tech startup is the ability to actively mold and shape the internal company culture from the ground up. If you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ll know that it’s a struggle when there are a million other priorities in building a high growth business from scratch. We’re no different.
As Head of Operations, I’ve worked hard to ingrain a few initiatives that help keep Landing.jobs a safe place from outside recruiters, and we want to share them with you. Buckle up!
1. OpShops
Workshops for Operations.
At Landing, we’re constantly aiming for more, and if there’s someone not learning something new every day (which I seriously doubt), we make sure to overturn this at least on a weekly basis.
The OpShops are a time for knowledge sharing, brainstorming and creating discussions, and we organise one every Friday. It only takes one hour of brain food before the weekend comes flooding in, hitting everyone along the way.
2. Opckathon
Hackathons for Operations.
Shh, we like the hard-to-say name. 😛 One of the most important things we need to ensure is that our candidates are having a great experience using Landing.jobs. We want to make sure that every single one gets proper feedback and we’re here to help with the challenging task of going after their dream jobs.
Once a month, we do an all-day Opckathon, where the team gets together in a room, calls candidates with reviewed applications through Landing.jobs, and looks to:
- Understand the status of the candidates’ applications
- Check if the candidates need any help/advice/guidance from our side
- Ask for feedback on their experience with us — the best way we have to improve our platform and our service, and make Landing.jobs better every single day.
It requires a lot of cooperation and coordination amongst the team itself to get ready for and then do it, and it’s been a great way to foster team spirit. We love celebrating every single candidate who nails a final interview or receives a proposal (in a very special way, more on that in a bit)!
3. Landing.beer
@channel Landing.:beer: time. Here’s our Slack notification that pumps up every single Wednesday evening.
Come 7pm, you stop what you’re doing and grab a beer and head to the back room (it was once a Game Lounge but we’ve grown so much it’s now the working area for at least 5 people every day — sorry guys!)
Here we are in action:
We even had an open session with our community and tried to stretch our 20 m2 room to accommodate 60 people. “Tried” being the keyword in that sentence… the new office will be better for this.
4. Team Lunches
Every single Friday! You know you shouldn’t schedule any lunch meeting on this day of the week or you’ll probably end up regretting it…
https://www.instagram.com/p/-B1yo3w5kj/
… because you can always expect some kind of treat. This was the latest team lunch we had, cooked up by our new recruit Sara (props for her cooking skills!).
Another ritual at the Friday lunch: a question we all have to answer around the table in turn. Questions like, Where would you go if you could choose a one month free trip? or If you could live at any other moment in human history, when would it be and why?
With answers from serious to funny and everything in between, it’s a great way to find out a little bit more about who we’re working with most of our waking lives.
5. Feedback
Always! Always! Always!
This is probably the most important thing to keep your team close and have them share their problems/achievements/opinions, and basically everything else with you.
We’re strong supporters of giving continuous feedback, but we also have one official feedback session every quarter, where everyone has the opportunity to:
- Ask for feedback: Employee > Employee
- Give feedback: Landing.jobs > Employee
- Discuss improvement opportunities and define some action items from side to side
To keep a close-knit team, make sure every single person is getting as much constructive feedback as possible!
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it yet, but… Always give feedback!
6. #Winning Channel
Our favourite Slack channel and the first one I sprint for when a new message appears.
Celebrating every single achievement will motivate everyone else to chase after the next one for the simple pleasure of celebrating again. It’s a great endorphin-hit and great to chase for more. Everyone ends up celebrating something and yearns for more.
Remember our special way of celebrating I mentioned earlier? Every time we help someone get hired through Landing.jobs, this is the sound that echos along Rua da Prata:
Yes, we ring a cowbell around the office (our neighbours will certainly kill us one of these days). For reasons still not widely understood, Carrozo brought it in on his first week, and it’s been our way of ringing in success!
At the end of the day, the success of your company will depend on a committed and skilled team that will take any opportunity to draw your logo anywhere and everywhere, including…
So that’s where we are right now in keeping everyone as part of a growing family of like-minded pros. We’re always on the lookout for the next member, so make sure you follow us on our own platform at perhaps the best URL on the internet: https://landing.jobs/at/landing-jobs
David Bento
Head of Operations at Landing.jobs
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