Cheat Sheet, a regular series, lifts the curtain on the steps companies take to recruit top talent. This week, if you impress the people you’ll manage as much as your bosses, you may fit Etsy’s work culture like a hand-knit glove.
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First Round:
45-minute phone screening with a hiring manager, looking for experience leading a technology team. Management track record trumps technical skills for this role.
Second Round:
Phone interview with an engineer that the candidate would manage, who assesses whether their personality is the right fit. “We don’t care if you can write code. It’s more like, ’can I trust you to get me unstuck?’”
Third Round:
A full day at Etsy’s New York headquarters that includes lunch with the boss and working through an engineering problem on a white board. Candidates also role-play difficult conversations, like a low-performing employee asking for a promotion. “The interview isn’t grading you on your improv skills, but whether you steer difficult conversations forward without falling for distraction.”
The Score:
Everyone who talked to the candidate grades them on a rubric that includes communication qualities and expertise, and raises red flags at a group meeting. In the rare case of a stalemate, the hiring manager makes an executive decision.
Do bring your war stories. “I want to hear an example of when you had to go against the team’s opinion. This person should show that they’ve dealt with tough situations and have come out the side better.”
Do explain how you tackled a complex project. “Diagramming a previous system is the best way [for Etsy] to gain confidence in their problem-solving ability.”
Don’t understate your self-improvement goals. “Do you read Peter Drucker, Bob Sutton, or the RAND blog? Not that we have a prescriptive philosophy, but we do think of leadership as a craft.”
Don’t stress if you’re not a 10X coder. “Managers should understand the architecture of code and be able to help someone who is more junior, but the role does not involve coding on a day-to-day basis.”
Don’t be full of yourself. “The one thing about Etsy is that it’s a very generous, low-ego culture and we’re very transparent about that. It’s always good to see a bit of humility.”
