1st Round Deliberations: Format & Culture Code
Format
There are three statuses for interviewees.
- They’re either Yes (2nd round), Reviewing, or No (reject the applicant from Spark). The goal for deliberations is to have ~20 interviewees set to Yes and the rest set to No by the end of deliberations.
From First Round Deliberations, the top ~5 applicants from first-round delibs are a Yes and will automatically move to 2nd rounds, so they will need no discussion.
- Typically, these are applicants with scores above 3.75. Keep that in mind as you are scoring interviewees.
- We typically then cut off those who score below around 3.125 (We keep/take into consideration those with high variance)
- This typically leaves around 30 middle applicants
The two interviewers will either give a yes or no vote for whether they believe that the applicant should move on to 2nd rounds.
Here’s a rough format for how we'll talk about each of the 30 middle applicants:
- Step 1: Interviewees who receive a yes/yes or a yes/no get a status of Reviewing. Interviewees with a no/no are automatically set to No.
- Also people below 3.125 with low variance are cut.
- People above a 2.75 w/ high variance are brought back.
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4 mins Anyone can change their votes having seen each candidate, but no more questions or discussion
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- Step 5: We are done!
Culture Code
💖 Trust the process.
It is everyone’s responsibility to hold each other accountable to following the process.
If you personally know an interviewee, please refrain from speaking or indicating that you know them.
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Outside information about the interviewee should stay outside unless they have a past of abuse or discrimination.
Either bring it up in deliberations or DM someone on Core beforehand.
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Our conversation pertains to candidates with a Reviewing status.
- Focus on making clear and compact contributions. To hear what we need in order to make informed decisions, keeping our contributions short makes room for everyone's voices.
- Ask questions!
- It's natural to feel attached to our candidates, but you should never feel like you owe a candidate your favor. Candidate A doesn't have to be bad for us to move on to Candidate B.
Reference the rubric as often as you can.
- E.g. “They're awesome, but I think we should look elsewhere. They didn’t have a good understanding of what we do..."
- E.g. “I want to see them in 2nd rounds because they showed a passion for bringing communities of diverse makers together!”
Important:
- In the end, we recruit for Spark's future and growth. We might change people's lives by recruiting them, but the purpose of recruiting is to grow our whole team and our whole impact. This is helpful to think about when trying to stay emotionally detached from a candidate.
- It's easy to fall into, but set aside the feeling that you owe your interviewee, even if they have applied before. Ask yourself: what does this feeling have to do with the rubric or Spark as a whole versus my own journey?