Meta Broadcast

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meet our recruiting process

Written by Mirona Iliescu on 20 Jan 2011

Many an awesome engineer, designer or all-round useful person have applied with MetaBroadcast across the years to discover that interviews and tests are not industry-standard (if there is such a thing). Most of these fine people, and others who haven’t applied (yet?) but hover round our inner circle and know our ways, have commended us for said process, so we’ve decided to publicly describe it in its full glory.

Assuming you sent us a convincing combination of CV and cover letter answering the question why you?, or that we’ve already spoken briefly at an event/ in a pub (we always welcome partners & friends to our Monthly Beers), we’ll take you through the steps below, which either of us can break at any point—no harm done:

  1. Meet the owners
    2. This will always happen over a coffee/ beer/ Skype (if needed), and be extremely informal. Chris and I want to see what else drives you in life, and give you an opportunity to ask a lot of questions about the company and ourselves :) On a couple of occasions, we had no answer, odd people that we are; you’re hereby warned that we don’t have a favourite movie, band, dish or, for that matter, technology, gadget, and typeface—sorry! Note: if neither of us will be your direct boss, than s(he) will very likely join us in this meeting, too.

  2. Complete a test in your own time
    3. There is a test for any position, and where needed we customise it for you or come up with a whole new one. If applying with the engineering or design teams, we often require that you work with an API or product we developed. In your own time :) We had tests completed over the night, across a weekend, and taking as long as a couple of weeks. It’s your time, so the last thing you need is us adding pressure. Some tests have scores, others don’t. Ultimately, they all attempt to show us how you think and how you solve a challenge, while giving you a realistic glimpse of what working with us entails.

  3. Spend a day working with us
    4. Again, this is function of your time and the previous commitments of our team, but it’s never been delayed for more than a couple of weeks from the previous step, and it often happens within a single week. What you end up doing that day depends on what we’re working on in that given period and what new technologies, toys, and hacks excite us. This is highly tailored, and generally puts you in a position to produce something usable by end of day, often alongside one team member. We like doing this on a Friday, as the winner of the team’s votes that week picks the grub and we all chat over lunch in our cafe. After work the full team goes to a nearby pub and everyone gets a final chance to show their true colours and ask questions. Jonathan has blogged the good, the bad and the awesome bits of his day with us.

By the end of our day together, we would have taken a decision and before we part, you will hear it. A positive outcome means that we’ll prepare all documents the Monday after, and bike them your way, assuming you’re in the same city. Otherwise, in Special Next Day deliveries we trust :) The package you’d receive at this point includes: an offer, a contract including an agreed starting day, a long list of benefits, a short list of what you should bring with you on your first day at MetaBroadcast, other readings and a few surprises. Simples!

The recruiting process described above developed organically throughout the years. We don’t claim it’s perfect, unique, or in its final incarnation. But we are keen to put quite a bit of effort in the early stages, while at the same time ensuring that you’re protected, any existing friendship with a team member is protected, too, and so is MetaBroadcast, ultimately.

Update, October 5th 2011: We have just updated this process and blog post to its version 3.0, stripping it to the core and reordering what was left. As usual, feedback is more than welcome. But not from agencies ;)

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