Observation created over 4 years agohttps://lessonly.slack.com/archives/C047M50C0/p1605275111174200
I laughed out loud while reading this thread. Way to bring brightness Brea... well done!
Observation created over 4 years agoI'll post the original message at the bottom (can't link because it was a DM).
This is how it should be done!!! What is it? Setting up interviewers for success. A few specifics:
- Brea had to turn around a hiring gameplan in hours because of a non-usual situation with a specific candidate... and did so!
- Brea gave clear background and context to what is happening in the interview
- In an effort to ensure the interview is as smooth as possible, she assigned each person with a specific value, skill, behavior, or knowledge she wanted them to check for.
- Finally, she was aware enough to realize that since folks probably weren't used to our new ATS, that she should give a bit of guidance/training on that as well.
Overall an excellent way to set up an interview for success. An excellent show of adaptability given the time frame this was all put together under.
The time crunch isn't something we will get used, to but damn does it feel good to know we can rely on each other to step up when needed to kick it into a higher gear temporarily.
Well done!
Good morning and Happy Thursday! We have an engineering candidate, [redacted], joining us Friday. :tada: He’s interviewing for a Senior Software Engineer position (his focus will be on SRE and data needs to start and eventually help us grow a data team). [redacted] has interviewed with Lessonly previously about a year ago and was offered a position the timing didn’t work out. Here’s some more info about him:
Jobvite Summary: [redacted link]
Woven Results: [redacted link]
LinkedIn: [redacted link]
Here’s an overview of Friday’s schedule:
09:30 AM to 10:00 AM, Conversation with: Brea
10:00 AM to 10:45 AM, Technical/Culture Interview with: Tyler, Kristina, and Makenzie
10:45 AM to 11:00 AM, Break
11:00 AM – 11:45 AM, Culture Interview with: Kim, Ashley, and John
11:45 AM to 12:00 PM, Break
12:00 PM to 12:30 PM, Hiring Manager interview with: Brea, Andrew, and Theresa
Let’s take the following parts of the scorecard as our focus areas for interview questions. Feel free to ask questions that don’t focus directly on these areas after you’ve covered these areas - also feel free to swap with someone if you want. Let me know if you have any questions!
@kim
- Business and technical translation
- Prioritization @Ashley
- They work to meet deadlines, and if they can’t, they proactively communicate progress and make a plan
- We have difficult conversations @John
- They have strong opinions weakly held (No brilliant jerks)
- They are willing to give and receive both critical and appreciative feedback @tyler
- Troubleshooting/debugging
- Technical Investigation
- Prioritization @Kristina
- Collaborative
- Mentorship
- Comfortable with change
- Empathy @Makenzie Bontrager
- They recognize when to ask for help and when to utilize their resources effectively
- Self-awareness
- Initiative A few notes on Jobvite since it’s a newer tool not widely used: Please login ahead of time by selecting the first link in the calendar invite and make sure you can see the Evaluation Form. If you have issues logging in, let’s chat. All fields on the evaluation form are required to submit it, so please select NA for those you don’t have a strong opinion on. I’ll be putting a quick debrief meeting on the calendar here shortly, and please let me know if you can’t make it Friday so we can find a replacement. Thanks! Brea
Observation created over 4 years agohttps://lessonly.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/9840
This was a tough ticket to read through. Promises being made, technical investigation being done, direct customer interactions, and high emotions.
Everyone was trying their best to communicate and do what is best for the customer.
However, I want to speak specifically about Brea's response.
First, the little not that she put in on 8/20 that let everyone know that she is reviewing and creating a response was excellent because it let everyone know that the delays that had been seen up to this point, weren't going to happen with her.
Then, as many great leaders do, she stopped the blame game and absorbed it all herself. Acknowledging the frustration and focusing all of the "heat" towards herself. I imagine she did this so that Jackie and Noah would not feel attacked, and she knows that blame is unproductive and counter to a psychologically safe environment. This is tough to do, but often defuses a situation and allows real progress to be made.
Then she went full NVC by acknowledging the observations up to that point and adding much more context to the shared pool of understanding. This is a vital aspect of "Mission Control", in that sharing information is key to great decision making.
I also loved that she referenced multiple systems and discussed what their intent was, and what changes we'll make to them to continuously improve them going forward.
Moving forward, we are attempting to establish consistency and clarity around tiered support, so there is no confusion for those we serve and the least amount of risk to the product we create and provide to clients.
Love this sentence, because it puts everyone on the same side.
Finally, the importance/value of a tl;dr can't be overstated.
This was a nearly perfect response. My only note would be to be explicit about what "these changes" means, given so many different things were discussed throughout this thread.
Excellent work Brea... this was fantastic!
Observation created over 5 years agoI want to give a well-deserved shout out to our awesome engineering managers.
First off, to Brea, who is making a point spending time getting to know each and every engineer on the team personally. It's really helped me to feel valued by her, and I'm sure will help her relationships with her reporting engineers start off a lot more smoothly. There are a million things she could be doing to be learning about Lessonly, our codebase, how managers here work, etc, but the fact that she has spent time getting to know us (and at more than a group level) shows me that her people are her biggest priority and that's huge. Thanks Brea!
And then of course to Casey, who has been working tirelessly as the solo manager for months now and, even though I wasn't here for most of those months, I feel confident saying she probably never complained. In the time I've been back since being on leave, I've been impressed at how she manages to meet with all of us, answer questions, write up stories, do code reviews, lead hiring, and still manage to be her positive, happy self that we have all come to appreciate. Thanks, Casey, for being a great manager while also leading and lifting up the team in so many ways. We are glad you decided to spend your superpowers on us here at Lessonly. :)