September 6, 2022 • 34 mins
In this episode, Laura talks to Cindy Alvarez, Director of UX for Powerpoint, about how to figure out what sort of hire you really need and write a job description targeted to the right folks.
Drink pairing: Sparkling Rose
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
00:04.50
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast tour we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both somehow absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein and please be advised that this podcast may contain drinking swearing and screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts. And my guest today is Cindy Alvarez she is the director of Ux for powerpoint at Microsoft and we're going to be talking a little bit about defining success in recruiting. So thank you so much for joining me Cindy it is. It is always lovely to to see you and talk to you? um.
00:34.24
Cindy
Great to be here.
00:40.14
lauraklein
And now that we're talking to each other nobody will weirdly think that we are the same person as often happens at at ah conferences for some reason.
00:46.35
Cindy
It It does indeed? Oh although I think there's there's some kind of voice alteration. We could be doing. We could actually just be talking. Yeah.
00:53.43
lauraklein
Oh yeah, it could just be Yeah, it's just the one of us and and you'll never know which one good thing we look entirely different. Ah yeah, this is the problem with being the thea only woman at ah at a conference speaking. Oh.
01:08.52
Cindy
Um, that's true.
01:10.16
lauraklein
Anyway,, let's talk about recruiting because this is something that I know you have done a tremendous amount and have given a lot of thought to and I love the idea about defining what success looks like in a role upfront. So Let's start with. Why Why do that? Why is that helpful.
01:34.72
Cindy
So I like to think that ah no one has ever written a job description from scratch right? We just we go. We find one we save as and we make changes. Ah and when you do that you have something that looks like a very plausible job description. But what it will actually get. You is a weird range of candidates and if you're really lucky, you'll find someone who is magically what you wanted but most of the time you get folks where maybe none of them are the best fit. But then you end up looking and you're like well out of these 6 people. What's the best out of these 6 when. You could have had someone much better. Ah, and I exactly for your team for your role for your organization for your maturity of product. There are lots of people who are phenomenal at certain kinds of companies or certain team sizes.
02:11.88
lauraklein
And and better specifically for the role. Well.
02:30.13
Cindy
And are not great in others.
02:33.10
lauraklein
I mean I ah hundred you know that I a hundred percent agree with that as as somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's I I think it's it's almost a disservice.
02:37.58
Cindy
I Myself am one of those people who is phenomenal in the right role and just not very good at all in the wrong role.
02:48.92
lauraklein
To the people that you're interviewing to put out 1 of those job descriptions that is so cookie cutter because they can't guess whether they'd be right for the role. So then they just I mean I can't tell you when I'm hiring and I'm sure you get the same thing. How many resumes I get that are clearly just we don't know. Sending it out to everybody because all of these look the same to us and if we were a little more purposeful about how we presented it. We might get people who self selected.
03:10.70
Cindy
Of course.
03:17.86
Cindy
Yeah, we think of it as wanting the top of the funnel to be as big as possible because that generally seems like a good thing. But if you really stop and think about being the hiring manager have you ever wanted to get 400 resumes and read them all like that's when we start looking for weird reasons to disqualify. 5 people. Oh I don't like that font I'm not going to look at hers anymore. It's is dumb. It's much better to get 20 resumes that are very tailored to what you need and then read through those and thoughtfully look at them and talk to people and ask some questions. You're just going to take you much less time and you'll end up with better people.
03:57.88
lauraklein
Yeah, speaking of reasons not to to move people forward I got 1 resume that um, half the text was backwards um, turned out that was an Ats problem. It was an applicant tracking system problem but I was I was absolutely like you know what? Just at this point something. Have been known to say you know what? just me a god damnn text resume and make it as simple as possible because I just want to read it and I don't want to look at your charts and and I don't really but like I also don't want to say no to people who do stuff like that and try because they've been given advice but but you're right.
04:29.80
Cindy
I know I know.
04:32.65
lauraklein
Like four hundred I I literally had 400 resumes ah two weeks ago for a couple present and it's it's impossible. It's it's too much. You can't weigh 400 resumes against each other these are humans. Yeah.
04:43.70
Cindy
Yeah, and Laura I'll go one better I don't even like reading resumes whenever I can I will put a bit in there. That's like if you want this job send an email talking about why you're interested in it I would much rather.
04:54.32
lauraklein
Oh you go Cover Letter only I like that that's interesting. Yeah.
05:02.49
Cindy
Because it's look I've been at Microsoft for the past ten years so you've heard of our products. It's not like it's not like it's asking you to do a bunch of research to talk about why you're interested in working for this product like you can you can find it you can learn things about it very very easily.
(00:31):
05:19.66
lauraklein
Ah, yeah.
05:20.59
Cindy
And then yeah and then tell me like what kind of person are you what kind of problems are you interested in Solving. What are you excited about because that will probably tell me like yes, we're going to get along. Well you're going to fit exactly this hole in my team. Everyone's going to be psyched to have you or. You are probably very good at another job but not this one.
05:43.70
lauraklein
Yeah, how do you? So That's an interesting thing because if when you're saying like just send me a send me that cover letter and tell me what you you know? what? you would change about powerpoint. Um, okay, that's great. How do you decide? How do you figure out. What it is that you're looking for on any particular resident or not resume sorry letter or you know that you're actually going to put in that job description to attract the right kind of person.
06:10.34
Cindy
So I feel like people want to know what they're going to be doing and what kinds of things are important to the team and so I'll try to think about why are we doing the thing we're doing and that's often not. The kind of grandiose like you know powerpoint is used by X million people or you know or if you're a startup you know, right? right? Yeah, exactly everyone knows and why is that actually important I think there's like there are some use cases where it is like if you are a backend architecture engineer.
06:28.81
lauraklein
We know? yeah.
06:38.11
lauraklein
Um.
06:45.19
Cindy
Ah, you are super interested in building a service that has to have twenty four seven uptime and it has like you know a billion subsequent hits like yes, absolutely talk about that because that is critical to your role. But for the designer a researcher you know. Whether we have 20000000 users or 200 users. We want to be solving their problems and so it's like let's go a step deeper and talk about what are the kinds of problems we're solving what are we excited to try next. How does our team work is this a giant organization is this a tiny organization. Do we believe in moving fast and trying not to break stuff or is this a like let's make sure that we're backwards compatible till the end of time. It's like there are some things like that that give you that sense.
07:32.84
lauraklein
Yeah I think that's I think that's a great point I I used to talk and I I still do talk whenever I try to write up. You know things about like this is this is what we do I Always try to talk about the complexity of the problem. But now I'm starting a lot more to talk about the complexity of the organization. Ah, and you know the complexity of the sort of work environment because those are all kind of different from each other like you need you know somebody could be really good at solving complex problems alone or really good at solving simple problems collaboratively with a huge group of people.
08:06.25
Cindy
Um.
08:09.78
lauraklein
And all of the permutations thereof. So.
08:12.79
Cindy
Yeah, and that's exactly what I think about when I think about defining success for a role is what does this team need based on the people who are here today and the product we have and the state of maturity and the way this organization works because I have had in my career. People who were phenomenal at very specific things where it wouldn't not every company would have been the right fit I had one woman who is not the strongest visual designer but you could give her the most abstract hand wavy concepts and she would make it into wire frames and then everyone was like oh. So I get what that exec was talking about like it is clear to us now very very good skill if you were looking to do something that was very visual design heavy wouldn't have been a great fit I had someone else who could literally design with an exec standing over his shoulder breathing on his neck thrived on that actually.
08:57.55
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
09:09.74
Cindy
Most people I know that would make them they would want to you know, stick a poker in their eye. But this guy loved it and we had an exec who loved doing that and so it was a great partnership that one is very specific but it's like people who are people who are very strong communicators.
09:17.40
lauraklein
Um, I mean that is that is a really specific one to know like's hard to put in the description. Yeah.
09:27.90
Cindy
People who are very good at anticipating problems people who are very good at moving things forward. Um like all of these have benefits I think there's ah, a lot of benefit to having a balance of kind of Introvert extrovert people or since they don't always apply loud people and writing people.
09:32.55
lauraklein
Ah. Um, yeah.
09:45.69
lauraklein
Ah I mean yeah, no, that's true. You got to leave space for loud introverts like myself.
09:46.56
Cindy
And convincing people and yeah, yeah.
09:54.16
lauraklein
I mean I think that's I think that's really useful and yet so many job descriptions are written like you will be making wire frames translating those wire frames into Pixel Perfect the you know, analyzing and synthesizing data for most and it's just like. Okay, we yeah we know what Ux design is okay, ah like yeah yeah.
10:16.16
Cindy
Well I think it sounds kind of weird too like we're always a little bit reluctant to put in the job description like hey by the way our Ceo is a total micromanager. So but but here's how we deal with him. Um, you know that is honesty. So i.
10:29.28
lauraklein
Yeah.
(00:52):
10:32.72
Cindy
You're right I probably wouldn't put that into job description. That's why I like to get people into a conversation where I might say that you know this is how things work. Yeah yeah.
10:38.23
lauraklein
Oh that is absolutely yeah, that's absolutely for the manager screen. We're like okay here's the deal. How are you at dealing with um difficult personalities because I'll be your manager I'm just making that very clear. Yeah, ah yeah, no, that's.
10:50.37
Cindy
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be me. It's going to be weird. Yeah.
10:56.10
lauraklein
Not on the job description I really one thing that I um that I recently did um I was helping a friend describe a job ah called a design technologist which is an odd job or um and else or maybe no actually it might have been the design engineer which is something that's like just a little weird and not every company has it and so we actually just went through and we wrote a. Blog post and I think I think one of the things we put in. There was like this is what your day is actually like you know like this is what you actually do all day and I think that's that's always kind of an interesting one because. I think sometimes we we don't want to say like okay, you're gonna be in meetings for 4 hours a day like that's just I'm sorry like I don't want to hide that from you but the other 4 hours a day you're going to be heads down on this or you're going to be collaborating in like workshops or you're gonna be.
11:39.70
Cindy
Um, right right.
11:52.80
lauraklein
I Don't know on the phone to legal. Ah, if you're a pm but you know that's like it's if you go through and try to figure out like what? what are a few typical days like I think sometimes that can kind of help you get a little clarity on like what the job actually is and then but then you have to figure out.
11:55.45
Cindy
Um.
12:07.86
Cindy
Who.
12:11.83
lauraklein
What you want? What? What things you take in consideration when you're trying to figure out. Okay, for this I Want you know not going I'm not going to go unicorn hunting I don't want you know somebody who does absolutely everything I want a human being who does some things well and I can accept some things less. Well. How do you pick those.
12:31.25
Cindy
Yeah, that tradeoff because we our instinct is to be like well I want everything which you're not going to get because you're going to hire a human. So what I've done in the past is I will write my own notes. But I also will grant I don't trust myself purely to hire.
12:34.22
lauraklein
Yeah, of course all of it now.
12:50.53
Cindy
Because like many people I am biased towards people like me and I have also I am I am great but you know what? but I have discovered the hard way that a team of people like me is actually terrible because a couple jobs ago I had that I had 2 people.
12:52.50
lauraklein
But you're great Cindy I'm biased towards people like you too. So I would hire you.
13:03.79
lauraklein
Oh okay, oh no.
13:09.55
Cindy
On my team who were very like me. We enjoyed each other immensely. It was not a successful productive team. Ah what balance balance is necessary. So for me I know that I like a certain kind of person and also that.
13:16.15
lauraklein
That's a great point. Okay I know I get that? yeah.
13:28.15
Cindy
I Need more diversity of thought and approach and personality to have a good team So I'll write my notes and kind of keep them separate I will ask the rest of the team to brainstorm open up fig jam throughout your sticky notes. What are all the qualities you want in a designer and everyone just kind of goes. Ham on that and puts a bunch out and then we have a conversation about why? like oh someone put this. That's interesting. How do you think that will help the balance of the team or what will you know? What would that look like if you had a person who was like that. How would that help a situation that we've come into and that helps us. Pick the most important things because there's always something where people kind of look at it and they're like well it would just be nice to have and they're like okay forget the nice to haves put them to the side. What's the stuff we really care about and then you might come up with a list like.
14:17.89
lauraklein
Ah, her.
14:22.22
Cindy
It would be useful to have someone who was really good at communicating across different types of people. It would be really useful to have someone who could take some ideas and quickly prototype something out so we could look at it. Um, someone who is good at expressing their ideas in writing someone who has. Good intuition on how to do quick and dirty research these are examples of kinds of things people have said. So then we get the list and then the next step is okay. How do we come up with questions or exercises to figure out is a candidate this kind of person and that.
14:42.28
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
14:58.56
Cindy
Is usually Async because it's really hard to come up with these on the fly. So it'll be like everyone go look at the fig jam. You know sometimes I'll assign you know here you take these two stickies try and think of some questions you know that you've been asked or that you've asked before that might help us get to that and then.
(01:13):
14:59.59
lauraklein
Yeah.
15:16.17
Cindy
That's where I draw on my research background and I'll kind of look at them and you know rewrite them so they're a little less biased. But then we'll come up with ah a set of questions we're like okay we all agreed that these are the qualities we like and then we collectively thought about questions and here is a list of questions that we feel like would get us that answer and even. Sometimes it's useful to think about what might a good answer sound like what might a bad answer sound like and this is not guessing the right answer which some companies do and I find incredibly annoying.
15:42.79
lauraklein
Right? Oh I hate that it's awful like my job is not to read your mind I mean if my job is to read your mind I do not want the job because I'm very bad at that. Yeah.
15:50.30
Cindy
But that's right exactly exactly. But it may be like here is a kind of answer. This is a kind of answer where someone said I couldn't do anything because I didn't have budget or because I didn't have buy-in that you can get away with that if you're fresh out of school. If You have any experience you should have found some way to work around it. Even if you were ultimately in an environment that was terrible which happens I completely buy that but you you had some things that you tried and then a good answer might be like here are things that I tried this is these are approaches I take um.
16:13.11
lauraklein
Um.
16:24.46
lauraklein
Um, this is what was successful and this is what wasn't sing says I'm actually fine I'm actually fine if they ended up not being able to get it done but it's like you got it, You got to tell me what you tried because otherwise I'm going to start you know, ideating with you.
16:29.55
Cindy
Exactly exactly that's fine. That's fine.
16:40.48
lauraklein
Around like oh did you? um, did you ask? but.
16:41.95
Cindy
Um, well I think the I think there's very few questions that I would universally say everyone should ask this but 1 of them is if you had it to do over again. What would you do do? What would you do differently.
16:47.48
lauraklein
Right.
16:56.60
lauraklein
Ah.
16:57.43
Cindy
Or if there was a specific obstacle like well let's say that you didn't have a team that was biased against research. What would you have done differently. Let's say you didn't have this ridiculously compressed timeframe. You had say three more weeks and people who are thoughtful who are humble.
17:02.83
lauraklein
Yeah.
17:16.79
lauraklein
Oh yeah.
17:16.91
Cindy
Have gone through this. They have thought about it. Um, because most of us like it kind of keeps us up at night like oh if only I could have done this.
17:22.60
lauraklein
I Just thinking about I'm like people like would you have done anything differently I'm like I have so many regrets mean it's a fine product. It works. It's great and boy I would have done this this and this differently but I didn't know that at the time.
17:26.89
Cindy
Yeah.
17:35.49
Cindy
But you know but you'll get people who are like well I couldn't so I didn't really think about it like oh well, the project's over so I don't know I guess and you can tell like they haven't thought about it before correct correct right? or or people or but.
17:37.86
lauraklein
Oh.
17:44.58
lauraklein
You can tell that it's not gnawing away at their soul at midnight keeping them awake just intrusive thoughts. Yeah no I get it I get it.
17:54.17
Cindy
Who still feel defensive about it right? like I did the best I could I'm like I know you did and also you know if they're very young I let them get away with it because no one has taught them.
(01:34):
17:58.50
lauraklein
I know I always feel little bad for that every so often I will say this and though and and sometimes I mean if you but you are brand new like you really can't like you just don't have any capital or power but ban it. It is.
18:10.96
Cindy
Yeah, it's true. Yeah.
18:16.31
lauraklein
It's kind of horrible after you've been doing this for a while you start to guess what their previous jobs were like from all the little like chips on their shoulders and all the things where they're like yeah this was um I mean it was a we it was ah it was a compressed timeframe. Um.
18:23.54
Cindy
Yes.
18:29.46
Cindy
Yeah.
18:36.22
lauraklein
We only had two weeks to do it and you're like oh yeah, okay I know exactly where you came from its okay, it's okay, you're you're gonna be fine.
18:40.99
Cindy
Yeah, yeah, and you know I think the rubric the reason why I talk about a good answer. A bad answer is because that changes by level Also so I'll we'll talk about what would a good answer look like for a University hire. What would a good answer look like for a Principal designer those are going to be worlds apart.
18:47.10
lauraklein
Well.
18:56.86
lauraklein
Oh yeah.
19:00.80
Cindy
And I think if you don't discuss this ahead of time people aren't able to on the fly make that judgment.
19:07.30
lauraklein
Well, let's let's talk about that because I think that's you bring up an excellent point which is most of us aren't that good at Book. That's not true. Review. You're a user researcher I mean I've done user research like we're probably better at asking questions not in a podcast. We're not judging me but but. So of us have actually been trained how to you know, ask without Bias and that kind of thing. But how do you get other folks who are interviewing sort of up to that level where they can make these assessments because it's so hard in such a weird dynamic if you haven't done it a lot.
19:26.77
Cindy
Ah.
19:44.26
Cindy
Yeah, so one of them is the rubric. What might a good answer look like what might a bad bad answer look like how does that vary by level. So just literally writing that out. Um, because then people have read it. They kind of like oh this is a thing to look for. This is a red flag. This is a good thing. The other is pair interviewing which I swear by it takes twice as many people and also you generally have some people who've done a lot of interviewing and some people who haven't ah so you pair interviewers and you put them together. And so when 1 person starts to ask the biased question the more experienced person can often kind of you know, ah, let me rephrase that or they can see things that other people don't the less experienced interviewer can see how people are responding to questions and the one that kind of kills me is that if you have a mixed pair.
20:24.75
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, inparency.
20:35.52
lauraklein
Hair mixed gender mixed up.
20:37.47
Cindy
Mixed gender mixed race mixed level. You catch a lot of people who are not going to be good fits.
20:47.60
lauraklein
Why Cindy would you like to elaborate on that you don't have to I think we all know what you mean, but you're welcome to.
20:52.11
Cindy
I Have absolutely I have absolutely had candidates who directed every single question to the man in the room I have absolutely had candidates who gave.
21:00.80
lauraklein
The I believe.
21:05.78
Cindy
Long answers to the person who clearly was more senior and gave very glancing answers to junior folks and look you're interviewing. You're supposed to be on your best behavior if on your best behavior you still can't apply an equivalent level of respect to 2 interviewers.
21:15.20
lauraklein
Be a be you find that behavior.
(01:55):
21:25.33
Cindy
What are you going to do when we're in a stressful situation. Exactly.
21:27.19
lauraklein
I Mean nothing good. Nothing good at all. Yeah, it's um, it's especially interesting when you know the woman or person of color is the is the manager and is it and is like.
21:43.88
Cindy
I This has happened with me where I have introduced myself as the manager and I'm interviewing with a man on my team and I'm watching this I'm like really like this wasn't a trap. We didn't try to fool you. We basically told you the power is here.
21:50.85
lauraklein
I Mean really really do? yeah.
22:03.26
lauraklein
Yeah, me me right here. Let yeah that' yeah, let's let's yeah, it's at that point you're ah tempted to send the guy out to get coffee. Ah which I'm sure you would never do but got to say Temptations flair. Ah so so.
22:03.70
Cindy
Yeah me, that's right, That's right.
22:20.95
lauraklein
Of this is actually I am I know that I I happen to know your answer to the next question. But I think it's kind of interesting because I think it all ties together in this weird way. What is the hardest thing about hiring or getting hired.
22:36.60
Cindy
So for me as a person that I will describe as an unusual candidate but I think as you've said before as we get more senior in our careers. We all become more unusual candidates. There's this realization that not every job is correct for you.
22:54.10
lauraklein
Ah.
22:54.96
Cindy
In fact, there are many jobs that even though you are very talented and this team is a very nice team will not properly jive and it's hard to kind of take yourself out of the running and as a hiring manager. It's hard to take people out of the running. You see a candidate. You're like oh Wow, they worked at this really good company. They went to a great school. Their portfolio looks good and also in our conversation the way they approach problems or their temperament or like there's some other thing where you will not be happy. In this role and therefore you will not be effective and it will just end badly and it's just best if you go work in a very different sort of organization.
23:35.44
lauraklein
The the big so it's it's funny like the the simplest the simplest version of this is that I have worked with some phenomenal people who I loved um who just hated remote work and once they sort of identified and you know the last couple of years notwithstanding This was actually before that.
23:49.65
Cindy
Right.
23:51.90
lauraklein
But once they kind of identified that they were just like I just I was like ah you're perfect, but like this is clearly making you unhappy because you don't work the way we Work. You don't like working Async you you know you like being in a room having conversations Collaborating. We're very like you know. Spread out everywhere and you know writing all these things down and like that's how we solve problems and if you don't I can't fix that I can't make this team work a different way and I can't make you like things you don't like so let's try to find you something Else. You know? um.
24:24.48
Cindy
Um, yeah.
24:27.34
lauraklein
So even like that level. But I I Absolutely agree with you that as we get older. We get more unusual and some of us didn't start out real normal to begin with so let's just ah, but.
24:36.97
Cindy
Yeah, yeah, as you know so for me personally now I've just taken the tactic of when I am looking for a new role I just start with an intro basically like this is what I do This is what I'm good at this is what I'm excited to solve if that sounds like a great fit. Let's talk. If not I will not be offended in the slightest.
24:56.51
lauraklein
Yeah, it's which is like it's funny because this is the candidate counterpart to the really thinking through what you're looking for in a candidate right? The um I saw oh is fascinating um somebody shared it with me I should find it and link it or something but an engineer. Um, was looking for a new job and she had written this whole blog post about here's who I am here is what I like to do here are the kinds of problems I am working on this is my minimum salary. This is like I want a you know like I want a remote team or I want a hybrid to or whatever it was like just laid it all out and was like if this is your team.
25:25.78
Cindy
Yes.
25:33.97
lauraklein
I Would like to talk to you and if it is not your team I would rather not and like I think when you get to a certain level of understanding of yourself. Um, you can do that sort of thing especially when you're quite good and your skills are quite in Demand you can.
25:37.14
Cindy
Um.
25:39.72
Cindy
Even.
(02:16):
25:51.96
Cindy
Right? Of course of course yeah it is it is and it and if you're a few years into career like you said you may not realize this about yourself or you may realize it and also feel like this is too arrogant I can't do this and I get it.
25:52.21
lauraklein
A little more demanding yourself, but it it feels very much like the same process to me, you're saying like this is where I fit.
26:12.50
Cindy
That's fine. That's why as a hiring manager your job is to think very clearly about what is the thing I need what is the kind of person who's going to be interested here. You know I hired someone I've hired people in the past onto Microsoft teams who were really startup people and I'm like great. Awesome. You are very smart. You are very talented. The reality is these are the paces we work at sometimes or this is the degree to which we have to interact with legal. It is never going to change and so I get it.
26:41.21
lauraklein
Ah, now.
26:46.42
Cindy
Go work for a 20 person company. You will be happier. You will do better work I'd love to see what you keep you know you what you get up to let's keep in touch but don't work here because it won't work for us.
26:53.71
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, absolutely or counterpoint like it was very weird for me interviewing the last time because I was like okay so I know that there's a lot of startups and stuff on my resume and like consulting and contracting and I would like like I am I am specifically looking for something different I am looking for a mature Ux organization. Where I can come in and learn how to like manage across teams and this is I would be pretty honest. This is not a thing I am naturally skilled at but I have a lot of other qualities and you can teach me that stuff and you know it's worked out. Okay, so but it is like you really.
27:24.97
Cindy
Um.
27:32.33
lauraklein
Have to be pretty crisp about that and I agree with you that when they're when they're newer and they maybe don't have that insight you have to work with the team to figure out like okay how do we find out if like okay they're going to say they're great at craft or they're great at research or whatever. How do we figure out if they're great in the way that we need them to be great.
27:50.00
Cindy
Yeah, and yeah, exactly exactly and like there was a recent interview with a candidate who is very strong who was an excellent presenter came out of consulting that gives you this background often spoke very well very chris.
27:51.62
lauraklein
You know that's because you don't know like I don't know how I trade off against other people.
28:09.19
Cindy
Very like here's how we can tackle it you know had had overcome obstacles and it's not that that was a bad quality but that I thought this will not actually be needed here like you are not going to get in front of customers and present.
28:21.80
lauraklein
Yeah.
28:28.10
Cindy
You're going to be in a figma file with people who are your peers who are on different teams that you have to convince 1 on 1 your you know your smooth speaking skills are are great. But also if you went somewhere else. They would be a particular advantage.
28:45.49
lauraklein
Um, yeah, and finding out which ones of those people actually want to use is is nice. Um, yeah, there are definitely things where people are like oh but you know how to do research and I'm like I do not going to I.
28:46.45
Cindy
And here they would just be sure. That's great.
28:58.29
Cindy
Um, yeah.
29:01.10
lauraklein
Manager now. Ah I manage designers we have researchers I would love to sit in and listen to the research and learn all the wonderful things and I'm not writing a discussion yet I will not do it I would love to help you I would love to discuss it with you. But yes, um.
29:14.69
Cindy
Um.
29:20.76
lauraklein
So yeah, no, it is fascinating trying to figure out. Um, how teams actually fit together. Well and how poorly we seem to have become at it looking for like that generic. Cog that fits into a place as opposed to you know it's a specific. It's a specific set of skills and even if you do move to someplace else like especially large companies like there's lots of other places on your you know in your company Microsoft.
29:52.22
Cindy
Um, yeah.
29:55.17
lauraklein
Need similar people. It won't be again all of them but it will certainly be others so and you know I'd rather keep my unicorns that I find you have a you have an interesting story about how this has played out in your life I understand and I would like to hear it please.
(02:37):
30:14.45
Cindy
Oh ah so twice now I have interviewed for jobs ah liked the job was really excited about the role thought like I had my like I could visualize like this is how I would go about it. This is the problems that I think are most important to solve. You know, kind of went through the whole interview um was turned down later looked on Linkedin to see who they'd hired because it was a first product manager role in both cases this was when I was doing more product management and so it was really easy to go see like well who did they hire and in both cases the person that was hired was. About as opposite from me professionally as one can be like in both cases. It was a very standard Mba having profit and loss running pm who started at Yahoo and it was kind of a relief I was like oh if that's what.
31:01.65
lauraklein
Yeah.
31:10.81
Cindy
You wanted I am glad that you did not offer me a job because I would have taken it and it would have been a terrible mismatch and we both would have been unhappy. Yeah.
31:18.00
lauraklein
Yeah, no it in that case I feel now whether or not that was the correct choice for them I have no idea you you never set that aside well we'll assume that they're smart people and they were making smart decisions like they did an excellent they it was actually they did an excellent job of excluding you as not the person they were looking for.
31:24.24
Cindy
Right? right? Let's set that aside, but.
31:37.23
lauraklein
But they didn't do it A very good job of attracting you know, like all the right candidates like you could you could have opted out of that whole process and they going to save some time if they'd said what they wanted.
31:45.16
Cindy
Correct correct sure sure. But this is also you know this is also where sometimes when you're higher when you're applying you get into that kind of mindset of like oh God I Just need to apply everywhere. So It's like would I have thought about this. Carefully at that state in my career. No I think I was probably you know I'm going to apply to 30 different companies versus you know my last role there were 2 I was looking at 2 opportunities and I was like my current job is fine. These are 2 things that are interesting if neither of them pans out I will stay in my current job and I can do that. However, long.
32:05.76
lauraklein
And maybe not um.
32:12.47
lauraklein
Do like bring up and funny.
32:19.51
lauraklein
Like yeah yeah, no, that isn't and I think you do um you I think they might have also learned what they were looking for more through the hiring process sometimes that especially at startups and places where they maybe don't know they're still figuring out what the rest of the team looks like that can be. It can be in.
32:23.47
Cindy
And so it was very picky because I can be now.
32:36.99
Cindy
Well Humans humans are better at that. We are much better at seeing something and saying oh not that than starting from a blank slate. Absolutely we have a principle on all my teams called the the something to react to principle which is.
32:39.47
lauraklein
You know flux. Well.
32:44.59
lauraklein
Um, oh so much better. It's so much it's it's easier to edit than to write. Um, yeah.
32:52.99
lauraklein
Um, yeah, um.
32:56.72
Cindy
Like you have to explain up front that this is what you're doing so that no one thinks this is like the written in stone final version. But then you say like I'm just going to give you this thing for you to react to and correct because that will get us forward much faster like instead of an hour long meeting I'm going to send you these 8 bullet points and you're going to be like lord.
33:07.81
lauraklein
Yeah.
33:15.39
Cindy
These two are completely wrong. Let me tell you what they should be and that would have taken us 45 minutes to hash out over Zoom otherwise so look how fast this is.
33:23.81
lauraklein
I'm I'm going to throw some just random ones in there that I know are incorrect into your job to figure what they were.
33:29.74
Cindy
Right? Well, it's like that the X K Cd comic about someone is wrong on the internet. It's like we see something that is wrong on the internet and we're like I have to correct this right now and we do fast.
33:34.48
lauraklein
Um, oh so it is wrong at the internet.
(02:58):
33:41.47
lauraklein
That's yup, yeah yeah, we do I I agree Cindy this has been fantastic I have had so much fun talking to you and um I once again every time I talk to you I I learned something. So thank you so much for for agreeing to do this.
33:58.50
Cindy
Thank you for having me.
34:00.54
lauraklein
Um, that is all the tide that we have for today. Um I want to I think thanks Cindy for joining us and um I also want to thank all of you out there for listening and wish you all the best of luck with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee I'm rooting for you.
00:04.50
lauraklein
Hello and welcome to what is wrong with hiring the podcast tour we talk about why hiring people and getting hired are both somehow absolute nightmares I'm your host Laura Klein and please be advised that this podcast may contain drinking swearing and screaming into the abyss so pretty much like most podcasts. And my guest today is Cindy Alvarez she is the director of Ux for powerpoint at Microsoft and we're going to be talking a little bit about defining success in recruiting. So thank you so much for joining me Cindy it is. It is always lovely to to see you and talk to you? um.
00:34.24
Cindy
Great to be here.
00:40.14
lauraklein
And now that we're talking to each other nobody will weirdly think that we are the same person as often happens at at ah conferences for some reason.
00:46.35
Cindy
It It does indeed? Oh although I think there's there's some kind of voice alteration. We could be doing. We could actually just be talking. Yeah.
00:53.43
lauraklein
Oh yeah, it could just be Yeah, it's just the one of us and and you'll never know which one good thing we look entirely different. Ah yeah, this is the problem with being the thea only woman at ah at a conference speaking. Oh.
01:08.52
Cindy
Um, that's true.
01:10.16
lauraklein
Anyway,, let's talk about recruiting because this is something that I know you have done a tremendous amount and have given a lot of thought to and I love the idea about defining what success looks like in a role upfront. So Let's start with. Why Why do that? Why is that helpful.
01:34.72
Cindy
So I like to think that ah no one has ever written a job description from scratch right? We just we go. We find one we save as and we make changes. Ah and when you do that you have something that looks like a very plausible job description. But what it will actually get. You is a weird range of candidates and if you're really lucky, you'll find someone who is magically what you wanted but most of the time you get folks where maybe none of them are the best fit. But then you end up looking and you're like well out of these 6 people. What's the best out of these 6 when. You could have had someone much better. Ah, and I exactly for your team for your role for your organization for your maturity of product. There are lots of people who are phenomenal at certain kinds of companies or certain team sizes.
02:11.88
lauraklein
And and better specifically for the role. Well.
02:30.13
Cindy
And are not great in others.
02:33.10
lauraklein
I mean I ah hundred you know that I a hundred percent agree with that as as somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's I I think it's it's almost a disservice.
02:37.58
Cindy
I Myself am one of those people who is phenomenal in the right role and just not very good at all in the wrong role.
02:48.92
lauraklein
To the people that you're interviewing to put out 1 of those job descriptions that is so cookie cutter because they can't guess whether they'd be right for the role. So then they just I mean I can't tell you when I'm hiring and I'm sure you get the same thing. How many resumes I get that are clearly just we don't know. Sending it out to everybody because all of these look the same to us and if we were a little more purposeful about how we presented it. We might get people who self selected.
03:10.70
Cindy
Of course.
03:17.86
Cindy
Yeah, we think of it as wanting the top of the funnel to be as big as possible because that generally seems like a good thing. But if you really stop and think about being the hiring manager have you ever wanted to get 400 resumes and read them all like that's when we start looking for weird reasons to disqualify. 5 people. Oh I don't like that font I'm not going to look at hers anymore. It's is dumb. It's much better to get 20 resumes that are very tailored to what you need and then read through those and thoughtfully look at them and talk to people and ask some questions. You're just going to take you much less time and you'll end up with better people.
03:57.88
lauraklein
Yeah, speaking of reasons not to to move people forward I got 1 resume that um, half the text was backwards um, turned out that was an Ats problem. It was an applicant tracking system problem but I was I was absolutely like you know what? Just at this point something. Have been known to say you know what? just me a god damnn text resume and make it as simple as possible because I just want to read it and I don't want to look at your charts and and I don't really but like I also don't want to say no to people who do stuff like that and try because they've been given advice but but you're right.
04:29.80
Cindy
I know I know.
04:32.65
lauraklein
Like four hundred I I literally had 400 resumes ah two weeks ago for a couple present and it's it's impossible. It's it's too much. You can't weigh 400 resumes against each other these are humans. Yeah.
04:43.70
Cindy
Yeah, and Laura I'll go one better I don't even like reading resumes whenever I can I will put a bit in there. That's like if you want this job send an email talking about why you're interested in it I would much rather.
04:54.32
lauraklein
Oh you go Cover Letter only I like that that's interesting. Yeah.
05:02.49
Cindy
Because it's look I've been at Microsoft for the past ten years so you've heard of our products. It's not like it's not like it's asking you to do a bunch of research to talk about why you're interested in working for this product like you can you can find it you can learn things about it very very easily.
(00:31):
05:19.66
lauraklein
Ah, yeah.
05:20.59
Cindy
And then yeah and then tell me like what kind of person are you what kind of problems are you interested in Solving. What are you excited about because that will probably tell me like yes, we're going to get along. Well you're going to fit exactly this hole in my team. Everyone's going to be psyched to have you or. You are probably very good at another job but not this one.
05:43.70
lauraklein
Yeah, how do you? So That's an interesting thing because if when you're saying like just send me a send me that cover letter and tell me what you you know? what? you would change about powerpoint. Um, okay, that's great. How do you decide? How do you figure out. What it is that you're looking for on any particular resident or not resume sorry letter or you know that you're actually going to put in that job description to attract the right kind of person.
06:10.34
Cindy
So I feel like people want to know what they're going to be doing and what kinds of things are important to the team and so I'll try to think about why are we doing the thing we're doing and that's often not. The kind of grandiose like you know powerpoint is used by X million people or you know or if you're a startup you know, right? right? Yeah, exactly everyone knows and why is that actually important I think there's like there are some use cases where it is like if you are a backend architecture engineer.
06:28.81
lauraklein
We know? yeah.
06:38.11
lauraklein
Um.
06:45.19
Cindy
Ah, you are super interested in building a service that has to have twenty four seven uptime and it has like you know a billion subsequent hits like yes, absolutely talk about that because that is critical to your role. But for the designer a researcher you know. Whether we have 20000000 users or 200 users. We want to be solving their problems and so it's like let's go a step deeper and talk about what are the kinds of problems we're solving what are we excited to try next. How does our team work is this a giant organization is this a tiny organization. Do we believe in moving fast and trying not to break stuff or is this a like let's make sure that we're backwards compatible till the end of time. It's like there are some things like that that give you that sense.
07:32.84
lauraklein
Yeah I think that's I think that's a great point I I used to talk and I I still do talk whenever I try to write up. You know things about like this is this is what we do I Always try to talk about the complexity of the problem. But now I'm starting a lot more to talk about the complexity of the organization. Ah, and you know the complexity of the sort of work environment because those are all kind of different from each other like you need you know somebody could be really good at solving complex problems alone or really good at solving simple problems collaboratively with a huge group of people.
08:06.25
Cindy
Um.
08:09.78
lauraklein
And all of the permutations thereof. So.
08:12.79
Cindy
Yeah, and that's exactly what I think about when I think about defining success for a role is what does this team need based on the people who are here today and the product we have and the state of maturity and the way this organization works because I have had in my career. People who were phenomenal at very specific things where it wouldn't not every company would have been the right fit I had one woman who is not the strongest visual designer but you could give her the most abstract hand wavy concepts and she would make it into wire frames and then everyone was like oh. So I get what that exec was talking about like it is clear to us now very very good skill if you were looking to do something that was very visual design heavy wouldn't have been a great fit I had someone else who could literally design with an exec standing over his shoulder breathing on his neck thrived on that actually.
08:57.55
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
09:09.74
Cindy
Most people I know that would make them they would want to you know, stick a poker in their eye. But this guy loved it and we had an exec who loved doing that and so it was a great partnership that one is very specific but it's like people who are people who are very strong communicators.
09:17.40
lauraklein
Um, I mean that is that is a really specific one to know like's hard to put in the description. Yeah.
09:27.90
Cindy
People who are very good at anticipating problems people who are very good at moving things forward. Um like all of these have benefits I think there's ah, a lot of benefit to having a balance of kind of Introvert extrovert people or since they don't always apply loud people and writing people.
09:32.55
lauraklein
Ah. Um, yeah.
09:45.69
lauraklein
Ah I mean yeah, no, that's true. You got to leave space for loud introverts like myself.
09:46.56
Cindy
And convincing people and yeah, yeah.
09:54.16
lauraklein
I mean I think that's I think that's really useful and yet so many job descriptions are written like you will be making wire frames translating those wire frames into Pixel Perfect the you know, analyzing and synthesizing data for most and it's just like. Okay, we yeah we know what Ux design is okay, ah like yeah yeah.
10:16.16
Cindy
Well I think it sounds kind of weird too like we're always a little bit reluctant to put in the job description like hey by the way our Ceo is a total micromanager. So but but here's how we deal with him. Um, you know that is honesty. So i.
10:29.28
lauraklein
Yeah.
(00:52):
10:32.72
Cindy
You're right I probably wouldn't put that into job description. That's why I like to get people into a conversation where I might say that you know this is how things work. Yeah yeah.
10:38.23
lauraklein
Oh that is absolutely yeah, that's absolutely for the manager screen. We're like okay here's the deal. How are you at dealing with um difficult personalities because I'll be your manager I'm just making that very clear. Yeah, ah yeah, no, that's.
10:50.37
Cindy
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be me. It's going to be weird. Yeah.
10:56.10
lauraklein
Not on the job description I really one thing that I um that I recently did um I was helping a friend describe a job ah called a design technologist which is an odd job or um and else or maybe no actually it might have been the design engineer which is something that's like just a little weird and not every company has it and so we actually just went through and we wrote a. Blog post and I think I think one of the things we put in. There was like this is what your day is actually like you know like this is what you actually do all day and I think that's that's always kind of an interesting one because. I think sometimes we we don't want to say like okay, you're gonna be in meetings for 4 hours a day like that's just I'm sorry like I don't want to hide that from you but the other 4 hours a day you're going to be heads down on this or you're going to be collaborating in like workshops or you're gonna be.
11:39.70
Cindy
Um, right right.
11:52.80
lauraklein
I Don't know on the phone to legal. Ah, if you're a pm but you know that's like it's if you go through and try to figure out like what? what are a few typical days like I think sometimes that can kind of help you get a little clarity on like what the job actually is and then but then you have to figure out.
11:55.45
Cindy
Um.
12:07.86
Cindy
Who.
12:11.83
lauraklein
What you want? What? What things you take in consideration when you're trying to figure out. Okay, for this I Want you know not going I'm not going to go unicorn hunting I don't want you know somebody who does absolutely everything I want a human being who does some things well and I can accept some things less. Well. How do you pick those.
12:31.25
Cindy
Yeah, that tradeoff because we our instinct is to be like well I want everything which you're not going to get because you're going to hire a human. So what I've done in the past is I will write my own notes. But I also will grant I don't trust myself purely to hire.
12:34.22
lauraklein
Yeah, of course all of it now.
12:50.53
Cindy
Because like many people I am biased towards people like me and I have also I am I am great but you know what? but I have discovered the hard way that a team of people like me is actually terrible because a couple jobs ago I had that I had 2 people.
12:52.50
lauraklein
But you're great Cindy I'm biased towards people like you too. So I would hire you.
13:03.79
lauraklein
Oh okay, oh no.
13:09.55
Cindy
On my team who were very like me. We enjoyed each other immensely. It was not a successful productive team. Ah what balance balance is necessary. So for me I know that I like a certain kind of person and also that.
13:16.15
lauraklein
That's a great point. Okay I know I get that? yeah.
13:28.15
Cindy
I Need more diversity of thought and approach and personality to have a good team So I'll write my notes and kind of keep them separate I will ask the rest of the team to brainstorm open up fig jam throughout your sticky notes. What are all the qualities you want in a designer and everyone just kind of goes. Ham on that and puts a bunch out and then we have a conversation about why? like oh someone put this. That's interesting. How do you think that will help the balance of the team or what will you know? What would that look like if you had a person who was like that. How would that help a situation that we've come into and that helps us. Pick the most important things because there's always something where people kind of look at it and they're like well it would just be nice to have and they're like okay forget the nice to haves put them to the side. What's the stuff we really care about and then you might come up with a list like.
14:17.89
lauraklein
Ah, her.
14:22.22
Cindy
It would be useful to have someone who was really good at communicating across different types of people. It would be really useful to have someone who could take some ideas and quickly prototype something out so we could look at it. Um, someone who is good at expressing their ideas in writing someone who has. Good intuition on how to do quick and dirty research these are examples of kinds of things people have said. So then we get the list and then the next step is okay. How do we come up with questions or exercises to figure out is a candidate this kind of person and that.
14:42.28
lauraklein
Um, yeah.
14:58.56
Cindy
Is usually Async because it's really hard to come up with these on the fly. So it'll be like everyone go look at the fig jam. You know sometimes I'll assign you know here you take these two stickies try and think of some questions you know that you've been asked or that you've asked before that might help us get to that and then.
(01:13):
14:59.59
lauraklein
Yeah.
15:16.17
Cindy
That's where I draw on my research background and I'll kind of look at them and you know rewrite them so they're a little less biased. But then we'll come up with ah a set of questions we're like okay we all agreed that these are the qualities we like and then we collectively thought about questions and here is a list of questions that we feel like would get us that answer and even. Sometimes it's useful to think about what might a good answer sound like what might a bad answer sound like and this is not guessing the right answer which some companies do and I find incredibly annoying.
15:42.79
lauraklein
Right? Oh I hate that it's awful like my job is not to read your mind I mean if my job is to read your mind I do not want the job because I'm very bad at that. Yeah.
15:50.30
Cindy
But that's right exactly exactly. But it may be like here is a kind of answer. This is a kind of answer where someone said I couldn't do anything because I didn't have budget or because I didn't have buy-in that you can get away with that if you're fresh out of school. If You have any experience you should have found some way to work around it. Even if you were ultimately in an environment that was terrible which happens I completely buy that but you you had some things that you tried and then a good answer might be like here are things that I tried this is these are approaches I take um.
16:13.11
lauraklein
Um.
16:24.46
lauraklein
Um, this is what was successful and this is what wasn't sing says I'm actually fine I'm actually fine if they ended up not being able to get it done but it's like you got it, You got to tell me what you tried because otherwise I'm going to start you know, ideating with you.
16:29.55
Cindy
Exactly exactly that's fine. That's fine.
16:40.48
lauraklein
Around like oh did you? um, did you ask? but.
16:41.95
Cindy
Um, well I think the I think there's very few questions that I would universally say everyone should ask this but 1 of them is if you had it to do over again. What would you do do? What would you do differently.
16:47.48
lauraklein
Right.
16:56.60
lauraklein
Ah.
16:57.43
Cindy
Or if there was a specific obstacle like well let's say that you didn't have a team that was biased against research. What would you have done differently. Let's say you didn't have this ridiculously compressed timeframe. You had say three more weeks and people who are thoughtful who are humble.
17:02.83
lauraklein
Yeah.
17:16.79
lauraklein
Oh yeah.
17:16.91
Cindy
Have gone through this. They have thought about it. Um, because most of us like it kind of keeps us up at night like oh if only I could have done this.
17:22.60
lauraklein
I Just thinking about I'm like people like would you have done anything differently I'm like I have so many regrets mean it's a fine product. It works. It's great and boy I would have done this this and this differently but I didn't know that at the time.
17:26.89
Cindy
Yeah.
17:35.49
Cindy
But you know but you'll get people who are like well I couldn't so I didn't really think about it like oh well, the project's over so I don't know I guess and you can tell like they haven't thought about it before correct correct right? or or people or but.
17:37.86
lauraklein
Oh.
17:44.58
lauraklein
You can tell that it's not gnawing away at their soul at midnight keeping them awake just intrusive thoughts. Yeah no I get it I get it.
17:54.17
Cindy
Who still feel defensive about it right? like I did the best I could I'm like I know you did and also you know if they're very young I let them get away with it because no one has taught them.
(01:34):
17:58.50
lauraklein
I know I always feel little bad for that every so often I will say this and though and and sometimes I mean if you but you are brand new like you really can't like you just don't have any capital or power but ban it. It is.
18:10.96
Cindy
Yeah, it's true. Yeah.
18:16.31
lauraklein
It's kind of horrible after you've been doing this for a while you start to guess what their previous jobs were like from all the little like chips on their shoulders and all the things where they're like yeah this was um I mean it was a we it was ah it was a compressed timeframe. Um.
18:23.54
Cindy
Yes.
18:29.46
Cindy
Yeah.
18:36.22
lauraklein
We only had two weeks to do it and you're like oh yeah, okay I know exactly where you came from its okay, it's okay, you're you're gonna be fine.
18:40.99
Cindy
Yeah, yeah, and you know I think the rubric the reason why I talk about a good answer. A bad answer is because that changes by level Also so I'll we'll talk about what would a good answer look like for a University hire. What would a good answer look like for a Principal designer those are going to be worlds apart.
18:47.10
lauraklein
Well.
18:56.86
lauraklein
Oh yeah.
19:00.80
Cindy
And I think if you don't discuss this ahead of time people aren't able to on the fly make that judgment.
19:07.30
lauraklein
Well, let's let's talk about that because I think that's you bring up an excellent point which is most of us aren't that good at Book. That's not true. Review. You're a user researcher I mean I've done user research like we're probably better at asking questions not in a podcast. We're not judging me but but. So of us have actually been trained how to you know, ask without Bias and that kind of thing. But how do you get other folks who are interviewing sort of up to that level where they can make these assessments because it's so hard in such a weird dynamic if you haven't done it a lot.
19:26.77
Cindy
Ah.
19:44.26
Cindy
Yeah, so one of them is the rubric. What might a good answer look like what might a bad bad answer look like how does that vary by level. So just literally writing that out. Um, because then people have read it. They kind of like oh this is a thing to look for. This is a red flag. This is a good thing. The other is pair interviewing which I swear by it takes twice as many people and also you generally have some people who've done a lot of interviewing and some people who haven't ah so you pair interviewers and you put them together. And so when 1 person starts to ask the biased question the more experienced person can often kind of you know, ah, let me rephrase that or they can see things that other people don't the less experienced interviewer can see how people are responding to questions and the one that kind of kills me is that if you have a mixed pair.
20:24.75
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, inparency.
20:35.52
lauraklein
Hair mixed gender mixed up.
20:37.47
Cindy
Mixed gender mixed race mixed level. You catch a lot of people who are not going to be good fits.
20:47.60
lauraklein
Why Cindy would you like to elaborate on that you don't have to I think we all know what you mean, but you're welcome to.
20:52.11
Cindy
I Have absolutely I have absolutely had candidates who directed every single question to the man in the room I have absolutely had candidates who gave.
21:00.80
lauraklein
The I believe.
21:05.78
Cindy
Long answers to the person who clearly was more senior and gave very glancing answers to junior folks and look you're interviewing. You're supposed to be on your best behavior if on your best behavior you still can't apply an equivalent level of respect to 2 interviewers.
21:15.20
lauraklein
Be a be you find that behavior.
(01:55):
21:25.33
Cindy
What are you going to do when we're in a stressful situation. Exactly.
21:27.19
lauraklein
I Mean nothing good. Nothing good at all. Yeah, it's um, it's especially interesting when you know the woman or person of color is the is the manager and is it and is like.
21:43.88
Cindy
I This has happened with me where I have introduced myself as the manager and I'm interviewing with a man on my team and I'm watching this I'm like really like this wasn't a trap. We didn't try to fool you. We basically told you the power is here.
21:50.85
lauraklein
I Mean really really do? yeah.
22:03.26
lauraklein
Yeah, me me right here. Let yeah that' yeah, let's let's yeah, it's at that point you're ah tempted to send the guy out to get coffee. Ah which I'm sure you would never do but got to say Temptations flair. Ah so so.
22:03.70
Cindy
Yeah me, that's right, That's right.
22:20.95
lauraklein
Of this is actually I am I know that I I happen to know your answer to the next question. But I think it's kind of interesting because I think it all ties together in this weird way. What is the hardest thing about hiring or getting hired.
22:36.60
Cindy
So for me as a person that I will describe as an unusual candidate but I think as you've said before as we get more senior in our careers. We all become more unusual candidates. There's this realization that not every job is correct for you.
22:54.10
lauraklein
Ah.
22:54.96
Cindy
In fact, there are many jobs that even though you are very talented and this team is a very nice team will not properly jive and it's hard to kind of take yourself out of the running and as a hiring manager. It's hard to take people out of the running. You see a candidate. You're like oh Wow, they worked at this really good company. They went to a great school. Their portfolio looks good and also in our conversation the way they approach problems or their temperament or like there's some other thing where you will not be happy. In this role and therefore you will not be effective and it will just end badly and it's just best if you go work in a very different sort of organization.
23:35.44
lauraklein
The the big so it's it's funny like the the simplest the simplest version of this is that I have worked with some phenomenal people who I loved um who just hated remote work and once they sort of identified and you know the last couple of years notwithstanding This was actually before that.
23:49.65
Cindy
Right.
23:51.90
lauraklein
But once they kind of identified that they were just like I just I was like ah you're perfect, but like this is clearly making you unhappy because you don't work the way we Work. You don't like working Async you you know you like being in a room having conversations Collaborating. We're very like you know. Spread out everywhere and you know writing all these things down and like that's how we solve problems and if you don't I can't fix that I can't make this team work a different way and I can't make you like things you don't like so let's try to find you something Else. You know? um.
24:24.48
Cindy
Um, yeah.
24:27.34
lauraklein
So even like that level. But I I Absolutely agree with you that as we get older. We get more unusual and some of us didn't start out real normal to begin with so let's just ah, but.
24:36.97
Cindy
Yeah, yeah, as you know so for me personally now I've just taken the tactic of when I am looking for a new role I just start with an intro basically like this is what I do This is what I'm good at this is what I'm excited to solve if that sounds like a great fit. Let's talk. If not I will not be offended in the slightest.
24:56.51
lauraklein
Yeah, it's which is like it's funny because this is the candidate counterpart to the really thinking through what you're looking for in a candidate right? The um I saw oh is fascinating um somebody shared it with me I should find it and link it or something but an engineer. Um, was looking for a new job and she had written this whole blog post about here's who I am here is what I like to do here are the kinds of problems I am working on this is my minimum salary. This is like I want a you know like I want a remote team or I want a hybrid to or whatever it was like just laid it all out and was like if this is your team.
25:25.78
Cindy
Yes.
25:33.97
lauraklein
I Would like to talk to you and if it is not your team I would rather not and like I think when you get to a certain level of understanding of yourself. Um, you can do that sort of thing especially when you're quite good and your skills are quite in Demand you can.
25:37.14
Cindy
Um.
25:39.72
Cindy
Even.
(02:16):
25:51.96
Cindy
Right? Of course of course yeah it is it is and it and if you're a few years into career like you said you may not realize this about yourself or you may realize it and also feel like this is too arrogant I can't do this and I get it.
25:52.21
lauraklein
A little more demanding yourself, but it it feels very much like the same process to me, you're saying like this is where I fit.
26:12.50
Cindy
That's fine. That's why as a hiring manager your job is to think very clearly about what is the thing I need what is the kind of person who's going to be interested here. You know I hired someone I've hired people in the past onto Microsoft teams who were really startup people and I'm like great. Awesome. You are very smart. You are very talented. The reality is these are the paces we work at sometimes or this is the degree to which we have to interact with legal. It is never going to change and so I get it.
26:41.21
lauraklein
Ah, now.
26:46.42
Cindy
Go work for a 20 person company. You will be happier. You will do better work I'd love to see what you keep you know you what you get up to let's keep in touch but don't work here because it won't work for us.
26:53.71
lauraklein
Yeah, yeah, absolutely or counterpoint like it was very weird for me interviewing the last time because I was like okay so I know that there's a lot of startups and stuff on my resume and like consulting and contracting and I would like like I am I am specifically looking for something different I am looking for a mature Ux organization. Where I can come in and learn how to like manage across teams and this is I would be pretty honest. This is not a thing I am naturally skilled at but I have a lot of other qualities and you can teach me that stuff and you know it's worked out. Okay, so but it is like you really.
27:24.97
Cindy
Um.
27:32.33
lauraklein
Have to be pretty crisp about that and I agree with you that when they're when they're newer and they maybe don't have that insight you have to work with the team to figure out like okay how do we find out if like okay they're going to say they're great at craft or they're great at research or whatever. How do we figure out if they're great in the way that we need them to be great.
27:50.00
Cindy
Yeah, and yeah, exactly exactly and like there was a recent interview with a candidate who is very strong who was an excellent presenter came out of consulting that gives you this background often spoke very well very chris.
27:51.62
lauraklein
You know that's because you don't know like I don't know how I trade off against other people.
28:09.19
Cindy
Very like here's how we can tackle it you know had had overcome obstacles and it's not that that was a bad quality but that I thought this will not actually be needed here like you are not going to get in front of customers and present.
28:21.80
lauraklein
Yeah.
28:28.10
Cindy
You're going to be in a figma file with people who are your peers who are on different teams that you have to convince 1 on 1 your you know your smooth speaking skills are are great. But also if you went somewhere else. They would be a particular advantage.
28:45.49
lauraklein
Um, yeah, and finding out which ones of those people actually want to use is is nice. Um, yeah, there are definitely things where people are like oh but you know how to do research and I'm like I do not going to I.
28:46.45
Cindy
And here they would just be sure. That's great.
28:58.29
Cindy
Um, yeah.
29:01.10
lauraklein
Manager now. Ah I manage designers we have researchers I would love to sit in and listen to the research and learn all the wonderful things and I'm not writing a discussion yet I will not do it I would love to help you I would love to discuss it with you. But yes, um.
29:14.69
Cindy
Um.
29:20.76
lauraklein
So yeah, no, it is fascinating trying to figure out. Um, how teams actually fit together. Well and how poorly we seem to have become at it looking for like that generic. Cog that fits into a place as opposed to you know it's a specific. It's a specific set of skills and even if you do move to someplace else like especially large companies like there's lots of other places on your you know in your company Microsoft.
29:52.22
Cindy
Um, yeah.
29:55.17
lauraklein
Need similar people. It won't be again all of them but it will certainly be others so and you know I'd rather keep my unicorns that I find you have a you have an interesting story about how this has played out in your life I understand and I would like to hear it please.
(02:37):
30:14.45
Cindy
Oh ah so twice now I have interviewed for jobs ah liked the job was really excited about the role thought like I had my like I could visualize like this is how I would go about it. This is the problems that I think are most important to solve. You know, kind of went through the whole interview um was turned down later looked on Linkedin to see who they'd hired because it was a first product manager role in both cases this was when I was doing more product management and so it was really easy to go see like well who did they hire and in both cases the person that was hired was. About as opposite from me professionally as one can be like in both cases. It was a very standard Mba having profit and loss running pm who started at Yahoo and it was kind of a relief I was like oh if that's what.
31:01.65
lauraklein
Yeah.
31:10.81
Cindy
You wanted I am glad that you did not offer me a job because I would have taken it and it would have been a terrible mismatch and we both would have been unhappy. Yeah.
31:18.00
lauraklein
Yeah, no it in that case I feel now whether or not that was the correct choice for them I have no idea you you never set that aside well we'll assume that they're smart people and they were making smart decisions like they did an excellent they it was actually they did an excellent job of excluding you as not the person they were looking for.
31:24.24
Cindy
Right? right? Let's set that aside, but.
31:37.23
lauraklein
But they didn't do it A very good job of attracting you know, like all the right candidates like you could you could have opted out of that whole process and they going to save some time if they'd said what they wanted.
31:45.16
Cindy
Correct correct sure sure. But this is also you know this is also where sometimes when you're higher when you're applying you get into that kind of mindset of like oh God I Just need to apply everywhere. So It's like would I have thought about this. Carefully at that state in my career. No I think I was probably you know I'm going to apply to 30 different companies versus you know my last role there were 2 I was looking at 2 opportunities and I was like my current job is fine. These are 2 things that are interesting if neither of them pans out I will stay in my current job and I can do that. However, long.
32:05.76
lauraklein
And maybe not um.
32:12.47
lauraklein
Do like bring up and funny.
32:19.51
lauraklein
Like yeah yeah, no, that isn't and I think you do um you I think they might have also learned what they were looking for more through the hiring process sometimes that especially at startups and places where they maybe don't know they're still figuring out what the rest of the team looks like that can be. It can be in.
32:23.47
Cindy
And so it was very picky because I can be now.
32:36.99
Cindy
Well Humans humans are better at that. We are much better at seeing something and saying oh not that than starting from a blank slate. Absolutely we have a principle on all my teams called the the something to react to principle which is.
32:39.47
lauraklein
You know flux. Well.
32:44.59
lauraklein
Um, oh so much better. It's so much it's it's easier to edit than to write. Um, yeah.
32:52.99
lauraklein
Um, yeah, um.
32:56.72
Cindy
Like you have to explain up front that this is what you're doing so that no one thinks this is like the written in stone final version. But then you say like I'm just going to give you this thing for you to react to and correct because that will get us forward much faster like instead of an hour long meeting I'm going to send you these 8 bullet points and you're going to be like lord.
33:07.81
lauraklein
Yeah.
33:15.39
Cindy
These two are completely wrong. Let me tell you what they should be and that would have taken us 45 minutes to hash out over Zoom otherwise so look how fast this is.
33:23.81
lauraklein
I'm I'm going to throw some just random ones in there that I know are incorrect into your job to figure what they were.
33:29.74
Cindy
Right? Well, it's like that the X K Cd comic about someone is wrong on the internet. It's like we see something that is wrong on the internet and we're like I have to correct this right now and we do fast.
33:34.48
lauraklein
Um, oh so it is wrong at the internet.
(02:58):
33:41.47
lauraklein
That's yup, yeah yeah, we do I I agree Cindy this has been fantastic I have had so much fun talking to you and um I once again every time I talk to you I I learned something. So thank you so much for for agreeing to do this.
33:58.50
Cindy
Thank you for having me.
34:00.54
lauraklein
Um, that is all the tide that we have for today. Um I want to I think thanks Cindy for joining us and um I also want to thank all of you out there for listening and wish you all the best of luck with your own search whether it's for a new job or a new employee I'm rooting for you.
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