How We Hire

Our objective in the interview process is to have both of us get a sense of what the other side is like, and check for cultural fit, competency, and character. We do that through a series of structured steps we’ve spent years refining in order to give all of us the best possible chance of finding a great fit opportunity.

Here’s what to expect:

Application Review

Once you’ve applied through one of our job posts, your information is sent over to Breezy, our recruiting platform for our hiring team to review. You’ll receive an automated application confirmation email initially, which means that you’re officially in our queue.

Following Up On Your Application

A few notes on timing and follow up:

1. Because we have a small team, we sometimes receive more applications than we can process. If we don’t respond quickly, it’s not because we don’t like you. It’s probably just that we’re overwhelmed!
2. If you have a question, we’re more than happy to answer once we’re available, just reply directly to the automated confirmation email you received.
3. Please do not go outside of this process to contact us via our contact form on the website, LinkedIn, emails to our team members, etc. as it just slows down the process for our team.
4. If you don’t hear from us for 2 weeks it’s safe to assume that you weren’t selected to move forward in the process. We’d love to be able to respond to each and every one, but given the volume of applications we receive, and our small team’s bandwidth, this isn’t something we can support currently.

Our Review Process

First, we’ll review your application across our standard filtering criteria, which we stick to pretty stringently. What we’re looking for at this stage is:

• Alignment between your “why” and “why now” and our “why.”
• Whether you meet the required qualifications for the role you applied for.
• Work history, skills and experience that map well to the responsibilities necessary for success in the role you applied for.
• Written communication competency.
• Career trajectory and compensation alignment with the role you applied for and future opportunities at the company.

Once we’ve reviewed your application and determined we’d like to move on to the next step, you’ll receive an email from us to coordinate next steps.

Interview #1: One-Way Video

Once we’ve determined that your skills, experience and career goals align with the role, you will receive an email from us for an initial 1-Way Video Screening Interview instead of a live call. We’ve found that this step allows us to consider far more candidates at this stage and is also reflective of the type of video screencast-type skills you’ll need to have in place if do end up working with us.

We’ll ask you a few follow-up questions on your application specific to cultural fit, strengths and weaknesses, and career trajectory, as well as some role specific scenarios.

Following the interview, we’ll review and digest your answers, and then follow up within a few days to either (a) coordinate your second interview if it seems like a good fit so far, or (b) let you know that we won’t be moving forward.

Please also take some time to assess our discussion yourself and let us know if you don’t think it’s the right fit on your end.

Interview #2: Competency

This is 45-minute Zoom call with the hiring manager for the position you applied for to assess your competency in the skill and experience areas specific to the role.

This will include some detailed questions about your area of expertise, as well as some scenario-based questions to assess how you would think through common situations you might encounter in the role. Please make sure to take the call on a desktop/laptop so that we can screenshare with you.

After the call we’ll log notes, digest, and get back to you shortly on next steps.

Assessment and References

If we end up moving forward, we’ll also ask you then complete three additional steps in parallel as we schedule your next interview:

1. References. We’ll send you a form to fill out that will ask you to submit the name, email, and phone number of 3 professional references we can contact and ask a few questions.
2. PrinciplesYou Assessment. We’ll also ask you to complete this 30-40 minute assessment, which we’re using to assess fit in with the current team as a supplement to our overall interview process. Once you do, save your results with your email and send a PDF copy to the hiring manager.
3. Working At SBS Review. We’ll send over a link to a comprehensive outline detailing specifics of the role, our company, and the compensation and benefits package you’d be offered if we decide to move forward. Please review this ahead of your next call with our team.

Please feel free to get a head start on these steps, which will help us accelerate the overall hiring process.At this point, if any aspect of that overview does not align with your needs or objectives, we ask that you help us in our process by letting us know so that we can both pursue other opportunities.

Interview #3: Cultural Fit

This’ll be a shorter 15-minute call with our Director of Operations to discuss why you are looking to leave your current role, your long-term career goals, and what you are looking for from the role at SBS.

Our goal here is to better understand your career desires, why you’ve taken the path you’ve taken, and what you’re focused on. We’ll also leave some time at the end for additional questions and discussion.

Interview #4: Experience

The final interview in the process is a 60-minute call with our CEO to walk sequentially through each relevant experience you have listed on your resume and understand your thought process, wins and challenges, working style, leadership and management preferences, and overall career trajectory.

Once completed, we’re happy to answer an last questions you have and will have everything we need on our to make a final decision on the role.

Final Decision

Finally, once we’ve completed the Experience Interview step, we’re usually down to just a handful of candidates and will quickly move to make our final decision.

If we do decide to extend an offer to you, we’ll provide a copy of the offer and a walkthrough that covers all of the details, the majority of which you will have already seen as part of our process.

Please do keep in mind that because we’ve standardized our pay and benefits for all employees for our standard positions, this won’t be negotiation, but instead a simple “yes” or “no” depending on whether the position and offer works well for you.

Timeline

The entire process, end-to-end generally takes 3-4 weeks depending on availability of our hiring team. Please let us know if you foresee any timeline conflicts.

And that’s it! Thanks again for applying with us, and we look forward to hopefully speaking with you soon.

The SBS Team