EP107: HackerOne - How to Solicit Candidate Feedback

All-In Recruitment is a podcast by Manatal focusing on all things related to the recruitment industry’s missions and trends. Join us in our weekly conversations with leaders in the recruitment space and learn their best practices to transform the way you hire.

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

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Lydia: Welcome to the All-In Recruitment podcast by Manatal, where we explore best practices, learnings, and trends with leaders in the recruitment space. If you like our content, please subscribe to our channels on YouTube and Spotify to stay tuned for our weekly episodes.

I'm your host, Lydia, and with us today is Michaela Ricketts of HackerOne. Great to have you with us, Michaela.

Michaela: Thanks. It’s a pleasure to be here.

It’s a Multifaceted Role

Lydia: So, tell us about your journey in the talent space. What's kept you and what's motivated you to stay in the space?

Michaela: Good question. So, I started in the recruitment industry, I think about 12 years ago. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. I recently had a baby, I went into a recruitment agency and really started from scratch, from the very beginning, and worked my way up. I love my job.

I don't think I could have chosen a better career for myself. In the end, I think people always say they fell into recruitment in a certain way. But I think the people who stay in it, love it, and I think it's just the ever-evolving landscape of recruiting.

I think things are changing all the time; getting to work strategically within business on difficult roles or advising hiring managers. It's just a really interesting, multifaceted role.

Lydia: Yes, multifaceted is definitely the right description, especially in the era that we're living in, and the vast amount of information coming in. The different kinds of talent that you're looking at and the different priorities at companies as well.

So, your role at HackerOne at this point is Lead Recruiter, right? What are some key areas that you have prioritized at HackerOne, and maybe describe a little bit about how the recruitment process works, or how the business runs?

Michaela: So, at HackerOne, we have built a SaaS platform that connects the ethical hacking community to our customers. It means that we are a very tech-focused business, which is really exciting to work within as a lead recruiter. We try to have projects running as well as, working on actual roles and recruiting people.

Something that we're very focused on at the moment is candidate experience. So, how can we ensure that all candidates, whether they get the job or not, walk away feeling happy about their experience, and that they want to tell their friends that they had a good experience? You never know the person that we just rejected could be working at another company that we'll want to speak to in the future, and it's just about doing the right thing as well. So, we're very focused on that.

Diversity and inclusion are something that we're really trying to tackle this year as well. Our recruitment process, we try to make it as simple as possible. So, you apply, and we'll reach out to you either way whether you're not successful or if we want to speak to you further. It always starts with the recruiter screen, and then we'll move on to the interview process. Depending on the level of the role, that can look different in different pockets of the business, but one thing that we're pretty consistent on is ensuring that we keep our candidates up to date throughout the process, ensuring that they have everything they need to succeed, and ensuring that they can get all the information that they want readily available. So, that's a big focus for us at the moment.

Having a Robust Interview Process to Move Candidates to the Next Stage Promptly

Lydia: So, the candidate experience itself is also, I would imagine, time-focused, and you would think about giving that feedback or that result in the interview as soon as you possibly can.

So, what might be an ideal time frame for recruitment when it comes to a highly specialized role?

Michaela: We actually have above-average time-to-fill for all roles across the organization. So, I think we are quite quick. I think our time to fill across all roles, bearing in mind they are all very different—one could be an Account Executive, another could be a Software Engineer—but our average time to fill is around 30 days.

So, we do try to have processes concluded quite quickly. But again, it's about trying to move quickly through the process while balancing that with making good decisions. That means making sure that we have a robust interview process. One thing that has been rolled out within HackerOne this year—my colleague Katie has done that—is structured interviewing. Before we even start to advertise a role, every interviewer will know what they're going to ask, and what we're assessing. They'll have a standard set of questions to ensure there's no bias in the process. Having everybody organized and knowing what they're doing is essential. I think that a lot of the bad interview processes that you hear or read about on LinkedIn come from under-preparation throughout the process.

You can never over-prep, and ensuring that we're reviewing the processes, making sure that there aren't too many stages, and that the candidate and the interviewer are actually getting something they need from each stage is crucial. Is it necessary? Could we learn that from another stage? Could we group some interviews together?

We review feedback consistently, so we send every candidate a feedback survey and review that. If they say the process was too long, we'll look at it next time. We also send surveys to the hiring managers and do recruiting retros with them as well to understand whether they felt the process went quickly enough and whether they felt like they got what they needed. It's just about that constant learning, reiteration, and implementation following that.

Lydia: Yes, and also the communication of that feedback into the entire process—after the process is completed, and sharing that with the HR team or your team, I would suppose, and making sure that that is constantly evolving as and when you see new candidates or new types of roles coming into fill.

When it comes to DE&I, as you mentioned earlier, where is the focus right now? I mean, how does that go into the interview process or the hiring process?

Michaela: So, it's ensuring that when we're looking at, first of all, our job descriptions. It starts from the very beginning, “Is that inclusive?” When we look at years of experience and just all of the details that we start out looking for, it's about reviewing all of that with the hiring manager, talking about possibilities and scenarios that we could consider, like potentially hiring in other countries.

Do we want to hire somebody with the same skill set that the team already has, or do we want to bring in someone with a new thought process as well? It's about constantly reviewing those gaps that we might have and keeping them top of mind. I mean, the thing is, everybody has bias. It's a controversial statement, but everybody has bias. So, it's about constantly checking that, reminding people, and looking at ways that we can remove those biases. That's why structured interviewing was so important to us—to ensure that every single candidate gets the same process.

Understand the Role’s Nuances to Find Talent with Niche Skills

Lydia: So, when it comes to the assessment of technical skills and the usual tests that most software companies or technology companies do, are there any particular methods that you found particularly useful or effective when it comes to dealing with highly specialized roles or niche skills that you might be looking for?

Michaela: Yes, good question. Technical tests are never going to please everybody in the job-seeking market. I get people coming to me saying they would rather have a take-home test or they would rather do the test live. There are so many variations; even now, you've got AI doing one-way tests. So, there are many variations in that.

What we do at HackerOne is, obviously, our technical roles are about hard skills. So, it’s, “Can you code?” and, “Can you complete that in a reasonable amount of time?” But it's not just that we're looking for. We do code pairing, which is where an interviewer will do live coding with the candidate, and we will give them hints and tips throughout. We want to see how they're working with the interviewer. Are they taking that feedback on board? Are they working as a team? Are they actively listening to help pass the test?

So, we do live coding for our software engineer roles using HackerRank, which, again, you're never going to please everybody. We do typically get really good feedback on it because they get to see how they would work as a team and what our vibe is within the engineering teams. We find that to be successful, and in our software engineer roles, that's the main part of the technical screen. For cybersecurity roles, we have an initial technical screen but also a hands-on interview where they'll show us how they assess vulnerabilities. I think it's just about really understanding the role's nuances, really understanding what we're looking for, and making sure that the test encompasses all of that.

Lydia: This goes back also to the candidate experience, right? Are they willing to talk about it positively with their friend? And for the most part, how do you go about collecting this sort of feedback? Is there a structured way in which that feedback comes back to you?

Michaela: Yes, so we have a couple of rules within our team and KPIs at HackerOne.

Firstly, we send every single candidate who has had an interview with us—not just the ones we've hired—a survey so they can fill that out. We've designed it to be as quick as possible so that we can solicit feedback, and we review those weekly. If we receive particularly bad feedback, our Director of Talent will reach out to them to try and understand why they felt that way or what we can do to improve. We constantly look at it and iterate on what we need to.

We then look at the bigger picture. We couple that feedback from the candidates with the hiring manager's feedback on how they felt the process went. We also do a quality-of-hire report later on, once the candidate has been here for a few months, and we look at all of that holistically to see how we can improve.

Going back to the candidate side, I will always give candidates feedback if they ask for it. You're never going to please everybody. Some people don't want to hear feedback—they might be really upset that they didn't get the role. They might be ready to speak in a week, or they might not want to at all. I think we have to respect that everyone wants to hear feedback differently. For me, I want an email and then an opportunity for a phone call. Someone else might want just a phone call. But when we eventually get those candidates on the phone to give them feedback, I will always ask, "How was it for you? Is there anything we can improve on?" And I'll say it throughout the process as well. Again, it's about constantly giving them the space to feel safe, to talk to us, and to tell us what we can improve on, and what we can do better.

Candidates Want Flexibility, Work-Life Balance, and Growth

Lydia: So Michaela, I'm curious when it comes to benefits, or what candidates are looking for in terms of compensation benefits, what kind of packages are they looking for, or are they looking for growth? Are they looking for time off or work-life balance that fits into their lifestyles? What is a candidate climate, so to speak, when it comes to specific communities of talent that you tend to look at?

Michaela: Yes, so at HackerOne, we are digital-first. That means we believe we can do our work asynchronously in the digital realm. But we're not digital-only, so we do still get together in person and meet up. I see a lot of candidates come to us because of that. They want some flexibility and work-life balance because they might not be able to pick up their kids from school at the moment because they're in the office, or they just want a better work-life balance. That comes up a lot.

I'd say second to that, if not equal—kind of joint first place—is growth. The questions that I get asked all the time are, "What does growth look like for me in this role? How quickly can I grow? Can you tell me the career trajectory of somebody in-house who has grown?" And I love that we have that mobility at HackerOne. We also handle internal recruitment, so we do see people move across teams, get promoted, etc.

I think, really, in this day and age, there is a huge focus on growth. “Am I going to learn from my manager?”, and, “Is my team going to help lift me to the next level?” There seems to be a much bigger focus on that now than there was maybe 10 years ago, which is really exciting. Companies are obviously having to keep up with that as well. So, for us internally, it's about having our career development plans mapped out so we're ready to speak to HackerOne employees and candidates about what that looks like.

Lydia: That's actually interesting to look at because we see a different kind of candidate market these days, and it's always fluctuating. But I was thinking about how candidates have the power to dictate. It was the Great Resignation, and then the Quiet Quitting, and then the different phases that you see in terms of candidates coming in.

What they're expecting from a company these days if they choose to take a job and what is the real value for candidates today? How do you push that value forward, or present that to a candidate as you're competing with different companies to get that kind of talent?

It's interesting to see that work-life balance and growth are key when it comes to really looking at what the value proposition is of a company.

Michaela: Yes, I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because not everybody wants the same thing. The other thing that we find as well is a lot of people want to work for a company with a purpose. To feel like they're doing some good, or, the company has a real mission. It doesn't feel like money is the biggest thing. I think everybody has a level of income that they aspire to achieve, or they need to achieve to feed their family and still go and do nice things at the weekend, etc. But it doesn't seem to be as money-motivated as it was. It seems to be about, “Okay, I'm looking at the next five years rather than the next year.”

Working Together with Hiring Manager to Get That Top Talent

Lydia: In your role now, you cover EMEA and also APAC as we talked during pre-show. So, what are some roles that you're looking at right now? Where's the need when it comes to challenge and HackerOne? And which regions are you looking at? What's the dynamic there?

Michaela: Yes. So, we hire in multiple different places at HackerOne and we try to follow the talent while keeping within our business needs as well. We have to take into consideration time zones as well.

We're seeing a lot of growth in India right now. There is a brilliant cybersecurity pool of candidates out there. So, we're hiring multiple positions there at the moment. I think I've got about five open myself and we're expanding to Singapore as well. So, a couple of roles there at the moment, and then we've got a few in the UK mix, a real mix of roles at the moment. Because I'm regional, I support all business units under the region. I’m hiring for an Order Management Specialist in Radford. I'm hiring for a Customer Account Executive, which is an Account Manager in sales. I'm hiring for a Product Security Analysts in India. I’m also hiring for salespeople to join our new team in APAC. So, it's really varied across regions.

Lydia: How do you look for the right kind of role and what kind of communication with the hiring manager, what level of communication do you need to make sure that you've got a balance between what you're searching for and what is being told to you from within the company in terms of business needs?

Michaela: Yes, so while I'm hiring a role, I live in the hiring manager's pocket. They will hear from me weekly, if not daily, just to make sure that we are working together really closely. We all understand timelines, how I learned so we've got the best position.

I think being a recruiter is to learn that we talk to people on the market every single day that is by far the best way to learn—just by talking to people, talking and understanding the nuances of the market. What does the market want and understand the roles that we're recruiting for? Are we looking for the right thing and at the right place? It's taking that back and discussing it internally as well.

I think it's great to have and back that up with data as well. So, data is the best place to start to make sure that we're doing things right, considering the right decisions, and driving change.

Summarize Your Interviews Instead of Taking Notes

Lydia: You're looking at data from different angles as well, and when it comes to the recruitment process or using data that comes out of recruitment technology, how far does that help? You said you use an ATS, but is there any other metric, or is there any other data point that you think is useful when it comes to hiring for specialized roles and looking across the region for different kinds of changes in the landscape?

Michaela: Yes, good question. AI in recruitment and data is one of my favorite topics and the first thing I will say is that I know a lot of people are scared of AI in recruitment. You see those posts all the time about ATS robots auto-rejecting people's applications. That doesn't really happen—it's mostly us reviewing applications. Of course, we could set up knockout questions, like for a role based in the UK, I could set up a question asking, "Are you based in the UK?" If a candidate answers no to that, it might auto-reject them. But I've set that up, so there are multiple ways we use AI, and it's not as scary as job seekers are made to feel it is.

AI is being used a lot at the moment, quite heavily within interviews. For example, being able to summarize your interviews instead of note-taking, where you're not even looking at the screen or talking to the candidate. That's something we're exploring at the moment at HackerOne—summarizing our interview notes. Just being able to make things much quicker, improve the candidate experience, and provide better quality notes.

But I think data is the biggest thing in recruitment. You can see everything from the numbers—how many people have passed through this process, how quickly they passed through this process, and how many days they had to wait for feedback. Then, look at all of that together and consider, what was their candidate's NPS score. Were they happy? And then really break down that process they went through and see where we need to improve.

Also, being able to have that data to influence decisions internally as well. For example, "Hey, hiring manager, I'm seeing X, Y, and Z on the market, and I think we need to look at this." I think data is hugely important in any role, but particularly in recruitment, being able to drive changes with that.

As for AI, I'm embracing it—I'm excited about it—but I think everyone in recruitment is naturally a little apprehensive about it because we don't know what that's going to look like. Our industry is already slammed with these ATS bots, which aren't really a thing, so I'm excited to see where it goes. I can't say we're using a huge amount of AI at the moment, although our platforms do have AI built-in. And if anyone knows of anything that I should try, then feel free to hit me up.

Lydia: Finally, Michaela, what is your favorite or most memorable recruitment story? I'm sure you have many, but what stands out for you?

Michaela: I think my favorite, it's not a particular story based on one person. But my favorite thing in recruitment is when we have a candidate who was previously rejected for whatever reason. They went through the process and maybe they didn't make it, they weren't hired.

Then we give that candidate feedback, they go away, and they come back and six months or a year later they get hired. That's my favorite thing in recruitment. I've seen it happen a lot more recently. We're able to kind of nurture the same pipeline and bring those people in that pipeline who really want to work here and have gone away and improved. That gives me a really good feeling.

Lydia: Do they remember that experience, for the first time, being rejected? Do they talk about that?

Michaela: Yes. I mean we've just had one that we've hired and it's happened multiple times. I think a huge part of it is that we give them feedback, and they say what they need to work on. But second of all, they go away and they work on it, and they come back, able to ace the next interview. So, it is something very wholesome.

Lydia: I'm just curious, in situations like this, I would assume technology has records to show that this person has gone through that process before and with a new application for another role. I mean, you're going to see that. So, I suppose that's another insight that that technology would give you as well.

Michaela: Yes, and quite often we'll go back through candidates that we had in previous roles and review those and see if we can bring them forward for new roles as well. So, when you get a rejection email and it says we'd love to keep your details on record, we really do that. We do still look at things after as well.

Lydia: Just thinking about the whole cycle and how important feedback is and how that contributes to candidate experience. That's certainly invaluable to both sides I suppose in situations like this. I'm really glad that you got to see that in your role at HackerOne.

So, thank you very much, Michaela, for your time and your generous insights today. I'm sure the audience listening in will be excited to hear it and really find it useful for their own practices as well. For those who want to connect with you or maybe pick up a conversation later, where can they connect with you?

Michaela: LinkedIn is the best way to get through to me.

Lydia: Excellent. Thank you again, Michaela.

We have been in conversation with Michaela Ricketts of HackerOne. Thank you for joining us, and remember to subscribe to stay tuned for more weekly episodes from All-In Recruitment.