Caroline Hynes. Hiring & growing teams that love their product: Zendesk experience

1. CAROLINE HYNES Director of Product, Zendesk @carolinehynes
2. Hiring & growing teams that love their product!
3. Hiring & Building A Team
4. Write job description Write Hiring Guide Sourcing Manager screening Technical screen (depending on role) Project assigned to candidate Panel Interview SME interviews e.g. design, engineering, PMO Debrief Decision Hiring steps at a glance
5. WHO TO HIRE “T-shaped” individuals who can do lots of different things, don’t need a lot of process & structure, comfortable in ambiguity EARLY DAYS As company grows & matures: SMEs, T-Shaped individuals, mix of industry experience LATER STAGE
6. SOURCING CANDIDATES Clear on the level of the role Clear on must have skills Clear on budget Clear on expectations with your recruiter
7. Spend the time creating quality hiring guides
8. CANDIDATE SCREENING • Know what you want to understand from the conversation • Set expectations with candidate • Follow up promptly
9. Make the homework achievable & relevant
10. CANDIDATE DEBRIEF • Know your hire/no-hire criteria • Create an safe environment to give feedback & to listen • Feedback submitted only to hiring manager & recruiter to remove bias • Thank your interviewers for giving their time & expertise
11. Values Fit Level of skill Competency1 2 3 4 Curiosity WHAT WE LOOK FOR
12. IDEAS FOR ONBOARDING Show the love with the Welcome Letter Make a friend Take a frontline seat 30-60-90 day plan
13. Changes as Companies Mature & Scale
14. CHANGE AS YOUR COMPANY GROWS • Scale is hard from a People & systems perspective • People you hired on day 1 may not have the skills / experience you need on day 700 • You need to have the courage to make the changes
15. GROWING YOUR PEOPLE • A leader is someone who: “takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.” - Brene Brown
16. GROWING YOUR PEOPLE • Create and find opportunities • Leaders can be IC or People managers • Mentorship • Build trust • Be a role model
17. Building & Maintaining Alignment
18. • Reflected in all aspects of business • Ensures teams are moving in SAME direction at SPEED WHY ALIGNMENT IS SO IMPORTANT
19. • Aligned teams know what is IMPORTANT to work on • Aligned teams focus on the RIGHT things • Misalignment can be EXPENSIVE to correct WHY ALIGNMENT IS SO IMPORTANT
20. • Don’t question what is being built/worked on - focus on their role. • May not ship what is most important or valuable. • Do not know what’s most important to focus on. • Company does not present itself coherently externally. ALIGNED TEAMS MISALIGNED TEAMS • Challenge /check-in with each other on scope, features, approach to ensure it is aligned with the direction. • Understand as a collective what is important & why. • Lean into each others’ strengths • Move with speed working on the right things THE IMPACT OF ALIGNED TEAMS vs MISALIGNED
21. How do you keep alignment? Bake your mission/your why into your process. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Be clear on what’s important & why. Hire people who understand your mission & will help evolve it. Allow teams to tweak as the learn to stay aligned. Health-check alignment in your org, your teams.
22. The importance of evangelists
23. EVANGELISTS - THE ANGELS ON EARTH • Human connections, human stories, empathy, excitement, life being made easier/better/different - the power behind that! • Humans trust other human experiences more than they do sales people :-) • Amazing for recruitment & retention
24. INCREASING TEAM LOYALTY • Explain our Why, reiterate our Why, anchor the work to our Why Autonomy & authority to make decisions, leaders quarterbacking • Speak with customers - understand the IMPACT • Deliberately collaborate & share our work
25. KNOW BEFORE YOU GO Don’t underestimate the importance of thoughtful recruitment. Leverage the onboarding experience effectively. The people you hire Day 1 may not be the people you need as the company grows. Be clear on what’s important & why. Be a role model for your employees. Allow teams to tweak as the learn to stay aligned.
26. Thank you

Notes de l'éditeur

Hello everyone! I’m Caroline, a Director of Product with Zendesk. My career has been in technology. I worked in SF during the first dot com boom learning my trade at a start-up. I have worked in various industries and companies in Europe and the US including Disney, British Telecom, WPP, Paddy Power, Intercom. I lead a project that won a digital Emmy.
I have worked in project delivery and product management.
I’m very passionate about people - how we learn, how we react, how we can come together and build something amazing, and how we are different and perfectly imperfect.
Today I’m lucky to share with you some ideas and considerations for hiring and building teams. I’ll give some insights from other organisations I’ve worked in as well as how we think about this critical activity at ZD.
This afternoon our journey will take course overt

Hiring and building a team
Considerations for scale & alignment
And the role of Evangelists
Show of hands for those here responsible for hiring?
How about those who interview?

We all know the importance of building the “right” product or service to fit the needs for our users. We invest so much time in analysing the problem we are solving, ensuring the experience is thoughtful and easy to understand, that it meets the needs of the user today and future needs. We are thoughtful. We take our time. We are deliberate.

Now, let’s ask ourselves, do we apply the same rigour and discipline when we are hiring and building our teams? Are we deliberate about the work that will be asked of them, are we thoughtful about the environment and team mix they will be working in? Do we anticipate future needs and asks of the individual?

In my experience, we are often in such a hurry to hire so that we can ship our carefully crafted product that we can rush. Hiring the people you are entrusting to build your product and grow with you is not an area where we should compromise.

Today I will share with you some of the mistakes I’ve made and seen when hiring and building teams, give you some practical takeaways that you will hopefully be able to apply to your own organisations or adapt as will be most helpful for you.
Let’s look at the hiring steps we follow at ZD

This is not perfect. We constantly review, iterate and learn, but it’s pretty effective.
When we are a small team we need “T-shaped” people - those who can do lots of different things, are comfortable with ambiguity, can help us move along with our product goals and get product into the hands of users.They may have limited experience but a tonne of enthusiasm. Having teams made up of people who are willing to roll-up their sleeves, get stuck in and focus on shipping is fantastic during the early days.

The early days may last 6 months, 12 months or a couple of years depending on where you are with your product journey. However, once you are at a stage where your product/service is more mature, you’re looking to scale it and your customer base your hiring needs will absolutely change. You will need to hire SMEs to support your growth e.g. infrastructure, security, designers. Don’t worry, there is still space in the organisation for the more generalist, but you cannot discount the importance of industry experience and other experience and specialism as your company and product grows.

You may find that some of the more generalists would like to specialise in an area and grow that way with the company. You may find that some of the early hires are no longer the right as the company grows and changes. Some people prefer the early-stage of a company where there is less structure (processes, “formality”) rather than policy and processes that are required with scale. You may find this applies to some of your senior leaders too. Ben Horowitz in his book “The hard thing about hard things” calls this out. The senior leaders of a company starting out and who help it be successful and scale may not be the right people to bring the company to the next level in their current role.
Sourcing candidates can actually be a very challenging and long process.

In the early days you might find the challenge of not having a recruitment team so are trying to balance this with your day job. It may also be the first time you’re in the role of hiring and so are figuring it out as you go. You potentially have the challenge of convincing someone to join a startup and then pay them :-)

Let’s assume you have someone who is recruiting full-time or even part time! Things to take into consideration:
Be really clear on the level of the role. Are you willing to take a more junior person who has high potential or a more senior person and squeeze the budget?
Be explicit on the must have skills but also what are really in the “nice to have” bucket
Know your budget and where you do / don’t have wiggle room
Help your recruiter by being clear on what you need from them e.g. updates, pushing you to follow up etc.

Leverage your network, blog, go have coffee with people :)
One of the most critical tools we have at ZD is the hiring guide. Does anyone here use something similar?

It is critical because it performs several roles, provides clarity, alignment & transparency.

Clarifies the process & content for the KO meeting
Interview process & expectations
Feedback expectations
Debrief expectations
Link to relevant docs - JD, assignment
Outlines the role & responsibility of the open req
Details the interview panel as well as their alternates
Is explicit in what interviewer should focus on during their session e.g. cultural fit, specific skills, communication & collaboration, industry knowledge, ability to learn & grow, agility mindset
Screening candidates is an important step. A robust screening process will help your pipeline be filled with more suitable candidates. Won’t stop mismatches getting through but should reduce them.

For the screening be clear on what you want to assess before having an in-person/multi-person interview process. Things you might want to consider at this stage:

Cultural fit
High level skills fit
Thinking style

We often have two screens. For example when hiring for a PM, the hiring manager would have a 20 min call and assess Product skills. An EM or engineer would have a 20 min call to assess if they think the person would work well with engineering.
We often give our hires exercises to complete. The purpose of this is to consider a couple of things but there is NO right answer

How they approach a problem / Strategic thinking
How they organise their thoughts and logic
How they articulate their ideas and present
How they respond / react to questions about the assignment (give example of recent interviews)

It also gives the interview panel a concrete artifact to speak to during their interviews / probe detail during their 121

Be clear with the candidate what is expected from the exercise e.g. strategic thinking, demonstration of a specific skill
Make the project interesting, achievable & aligned with what you expect to learn
Give guidance to the panel what to assess during the presentation e.g. are they all considering different aspects
The debrief should be a safe and open conversation.

Feedback should be given objectively and in relation to the area the interviewer was assessing
Feedback should be written down prior to the session, available to recruiter & hiring manager
A recommendation from the group on hire/no hire/more chats
When considering a person for a role we consider several horizons

We don’t just look for “can they do the job” we look for “can they do the job today and grow with us in the future”

We also consider do they fit with the company values and culture as that is so important. It informs and influences how we work together, how we solve problems and what we prioritise.

We love curious people. People who want to learn, crave information, what to share what they know, learn and grow together
Assume a beginners’ mindset regardless of the level joining the organisation.

At ZD, the hiring manager writes a “Welcome letter” for the new starter. This letter outlines the job description, areas of responsibility, people they should meet during their onboarding, what is expected of them during the first 30-60-90 days. This letter is not only shared/emailed with the new employee but with the teams they’ll be working with, other departments that may interact and the leaders. This is incredibly powerful as it sets expectations not only with the new team member but with those working with that individual - expectations for what is expected during their onboarding and ongoing

Having a buddy system in place is very helpful for new joiners. The buddy could be someone on the team or someone working in the same location. It’s essentially someone the new employee can go and ask questions of (where’s the printer, how do i contact hr etc)

If you have an internal CS team, its valuable for new hires to spend a day or half a day with them. Why is this beneficial? Well, it helps them hear what customer painpoints are from early on, is a good way to learn the product, is a good way to understand the company tone-of-voice when dealing with customers and speaking about the product. It’s a good way to build empathy and get context.

Planning! Working with the new hire to have a plan for the first 30-60-90 days is invaluable because it helps give focus from the start, allow the employee to feel they are learning and making progress from day 1 and they have an artefact to look back on. It is something that can be worked on together with the hiring manager and new employee contributing. It is a tool for 121 conversations in early days and a good coaching tool for the hiring manager.
Scale is hard for many reasons - for people and for the processes (or lack process from the start). Change is hard at the best of times :)

As mentioned earlier, it is important to remember that the people you hire on Day 1 may not be the right fit as the company grows. This is not because they are not good people or good at their jobs but that you may need different experiences, more SME resources, different industry experiences. Example of this include needing recruitment specialists, pricing specialists, marketing professionals. Also, people who enjoy working at early stage companies may not thrive in an environment that has more structure, policies & procedures.

As companies grow & scale it’s important for the leaders and decision makers must have courage to make the changes required. Courage and putting ego aside is crucial.
So, how can you grow the people you have and help them reach their potential?

Some of the principals I apply are these:

Remember & communicate that Leader does not equal people manager. ICs can be Leaders too
The value of of mentorship cannot be understated. Help your employee identify gaps to close or areas to strengthen and identify someone in or outside the organisation to help mentor them on these areas.
Build trust - allow them to fail but help them to learn from it. Give them projects or work that will stretch them. Recognise their individual readiness to be stretched. They will learn new things - delegation/skills
Be a role model - be a mirror for how you want your people to behave and work with others. Examples of this are being vulnerable, saying when you don’t know something etc.
Alignment (or lack of) is reflected in all aspects of your business - tone of voice, messaging, design, your product, sales approach - we often say don’t let your org chart manifest in your product, same applies to alignment
Hands up who in the last month recommended a product or service to someone? Why did you do that? What was it about it that made you want to tell someone else about it?

iPhone 11 example

if you can make someone *love* your product/service/company so much that they have to tell people about it you’re doing
something right!
Amazing for recruitment & retention [think of the kool aid] - Paddy Power, Intercom
What we’ve done in ZD to increase team loyalty to the product & the team

We are deliberate about alignment - alignment to goals, alignment on why we are building a feature/fixing an issue
We foster an environment of autonomy & authority with the leaders quarterbacking the team. This is enabled in large part because of the alignment we have achieved
We speak with customers - engineers, product, design - to understand the impact of the product - good & bad
We collaborate and partner, share our work, share what we learn along the way (the good, the bad, the ugly)

All this resulted in teams that are invested in their product, want to do the right thing and with the mission being the north star.

Caroline Hynes. Hiring & growing teams that love their product: Zendesk experience

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Caroline Hynes. Hiring & growing teams that love their product: Zendesk experience

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Caroline Hynes. Hiring & growing teams that love their product: Zendesk experience

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