I interviewed for several positions in the last few months, and that too fresh from listening to people like Paul English who have finessed the practice of hiring to an incredible art+science. I had drunk the kool-aid and only interviewed for positions I was passionate about and with companies that I thought I could make significant contributions to. My experience and the prescribed best practices were a world apart.
It started with a company trying to source authoritative information from the wikipedia, assuming it would not have crossed my mind to Google myself. They topped it off by sending me an email (which I have saved) questioning my integrity and intelligence. Struck rather speechless and extremely offended, I escalated the issue to a certain level within their organization, and then moved on, overwhelmed by the negative energy, making a mental note to never ever cross paths again. I was off to a great start at the races.
It was followed by an experience where it took a full 6.5 weeks from the date of initial contact to hear the outcome and this experience was even more strange - they requested FIVE references overnight after 2 rounds of interviews, and I pinged a lot of very busy people who were very gracious and agreed to serve as my reference at such short notice. These references were then made to wait a week, in some cases called late, in other cases had their requests for preferred communication modes ignored. Each reference was interrogated for at least 45 minutes and *then*, I was told that I didn’t meet the basic job description after all. I had already completed 2 round of interviews before this. I might be forgiven for thinking they’d figure out I didn’t meet their basic criteria a lot sooner than this! Chalk that down as weird experience #2.
Then came two interview experiences where no one would tell me what POSITION I was interviewing for, or even which group within the company, but instead repeatedly kept asking me “what would you like to do?"! Apparently this is a part of their strategy to assess where I would fit best and to prevent candidates from giving canned answers. (Yes, I had applied for a specific position - but the minute I walked in, my interviewers made it clear that it’s not necessarily the position I was being interviewed for and wouldn’t tell me what else I was being considered for!). Seriously, if the candidate doesn’t even know which group they’re interviewing for, leave alone the position, how on earth are they supposed to tell you what they can do for you?! Maybe this strategy might work if they only interviewed people with the exact background and skill set needed, in which case they will be able to hear what they want to hear. But given my diverse background, I need to know what it is you want done before I can tell you whether I have any relevant experience, and how I can help! It’s simply not possible to list every skill, kitchen-sink style, on a one page resume, and not confuse the heck out of the reader. I was surprised to come across not one, but two companies that followed this interview method.
Next came another interesting experience - this company made me go through 3 rounds of interviews, including a take-home exam! I invested over 20 hours interviewing with this company. I thought the interviews went extremely went well and was therefore shocked to hear that I hadn’t made the cut. I requested feedback and got none. I then tried escalating my request for feedback and got no response - not even a polite email explaining it’s not company policy to provide feedback. Really? And this is considered acceptable? You ask a candidate to invest 20+ hours of their time interviewing, but will not take 10 minutes to provide one-time feedback even after I had made it clear, in writing, that verbal feedback is perfectly fine (in case they’re worried about liability issues) and I was strictly asking for self-improvement purposes only. That completely turned me off the company culture.
I muse about this for a couple of reasons:
1. Are our hiring practices so screwed up in this country (I have no outside the US interview experience) that interested AND qualified candidates must jump through ridiculous hoops in order to get hired? Maybe it’s a function of the economy - hiring managers only want to hire people who are an exact skill fit. It flies against Paul’s wisdom (which I agree with) about hiring for
intelligence, attitude, lack of dysfunctional behavior and the ability to get stuff done.
2. Is my experience just an unlucky coincidence or have others experienced something similar?
3. Why is there such a huge disconnect between the theory and practice of hiring?
When it’s my turn to hire, I intend to hang Paul’s advice on my wall and make it my mantra.
UPDATE: I heard from a number of friends after they read this post. The story has a happy ending fortunately: I will be joining a stealth start-up come January.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Wesabe vs. Mint
Wesabe and Mint were both financial services start-up that aimed to make it easy for consumers to manage their finances. They were “born” at around the same time, whereas Mint was acquired by Intuit about a year ago and Wesabe shut down a couple of months ago. I came across this thoughtful post by one of the founders of Wesabe on why Wesabe lost to Mint and it made sense to include it in my “lessons learned” blog. The takeaway sounds very simple but is not, as can be attested by many a start-up founder who did not succeed:
"Focus on what really matters: making users happy with your product as quickly as you can, and helping them as much as you can after that. If you do those better than anyone else out there you'll win."
"Focus on what really matters: making users happy with your product as quickly as you can, and helping them as much as you can after that. If you do those better than anyone else out there you'll win."
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Online checkout - what not to do
I came across this excellent article on 10 worst things than can happen during the online checkout process. It inspired me to add to the list:
1. An "over-persistent" cookie: If a consumer added something to their cart in the last visit and came back later to buy other items, allow the consumer the option to delete the items without jumping through hoops and don’t be a nag and try to push the item.
2. If an item is available in multiple colors/sizes, offer the option to change color/size of order in the shopping cart itself. Or, at least make it easy to go back and change the order. Like the article says, don’t trap customers in the checkout and force them to open a new tab to go back to the shopping page.
3. Make it easy to identify the “Ship to” address and make the customer confirm the address before confirming the order. This will save both the customer and the vendor hassle, time and money.
4. Offer options for partial payment: the customer may have a gift card or store credit that they want to use, and may only want to pay the balance with a credit card. Many sites offer the option but don’t explain that they do this. If you do something customer-friendly, advertise it!
5. If an item is out of stock, offer to notify the customer when fresh stock arrives. It’s easy to do, costs the vendor very little and is an excellent marketing opportunity to bring a customer back to your site where they might end up ordering other things while they’re there.
6. If you have a brick and mortar store in addition to an online store, emphasize it. This is a great feature to emphasize particularly if returns can be dropped off at the store and don’t have to be mailed back, or if customer can get free shipping if (s)he offers to pick-up in store. In-store pick-ups/returns maximize the opportunity for impulse buys.
1. An "over-persistent" cookie: If a consumer added something to their cart in the last visit and came back later to buy other items, allow the consumer the option to delete the items without jumping through hoops and don’t be a nag and try to push the item.
2. If an item is available in multiple colors/sizes, offer the option to change color/size of order in the shopping cart itself. Or, at least make it easy to go back and change the order. Like the article says, don’t trap customers in the checkout and force them to open a new tab to go back to the shopping page.
3. Make it easy to identify the “Ship to” address and make the customer confirm the address before confirming the order. This will save both the customer and the vendor hassle, time and money.
4. Offer options for partial payment: the customer may have a gift card or store credit that they want to use, and may only want to pay the balance with a credit card. Many sites offer the option but don’t explain that they do this. If you do something customer-friendly, advertise it!
5. If an item is out of stock, offer to notify the customer when fresh stock arrives. It’s easy to do, costs the vendor very little and is an excellent marketing opportunity to bring a customer back to your site where they might end up ordering other things while they’re there.
6. If you have a brick and mortar store in addition to an online store, emphasize it. This is a great feature to emphasize particularly if returns can be dropped off at the store and don’t have to be mailed back, or if customer can get free shipping if (s)he offers to pick-up in store. In-store pick-ups/returns maximize the opportunity for impulse buys.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Thoughts on pricing
I recently had to fly into Oakland airport and needed to get to the South Bay as soon as possible after I landed. As I started exploring my transportation options, I was reminded of a service I signed up for recently called "TaskRabbit". I logged on to TaskRabbit and happily enough, one of the errands I was allowed to request was a ride from one place to another. I therefore decided to put out a request for a ride, mentioned that I need to get to the South Bay ASAP, and requested errand runners to bid on my task.
The responses I got left me puzzled. I got quotes ranging from $65 to $90 for a one way ride of about 45 miles. A taxi ride would have cost me $60. If I had picked up a rental car (one way), I got a quote of $50 and if I were willing to make a round trip to return the rental car, the cost of my transport was approximately $30. This made me think as to how the errand runners might have priced their services. It seems they each based it on their costs (time + gas + mileage).
It occurred to me that they perhaps missed a fundamental point about pricing - they were actively competing against other transportation alternatives available to me, in order to earn my business. While I was willing to pay a small premium for the convenience of having someone wait for me as I walked out the door and not having to pick-up/return a rental car, I was not willing to pay a 100% premium. Instead of pricing competitively from the customer's perspective, they priced it based upon their costs.
This seemed like a great example to share with my blog readers about how to think about pricing, and the importance of examining business decisions from the shoes of customers!
The responses I got left me puzzled. I got quotes ranging from $65 to $90 for a one way ride of about 45 miles. A taxi ride would have cost me $60. If I had picked up a rental car (one way), I got a quote of $50 and if I were willing to make a round trip to return the rental car, the cost of my transport was approximately $30. This made me think as to how the errand runners might have priced their services. It seems they each based it on their costs (time + gas + mileage).
It occurred to me that they perhaps missed a fundamental point about pricing - they were actively competing against other transportation alternatives available to me, in order to earn my business. While I was willing to pay a small premium for the convenience of having someone wait for me as I walked out the door and not having to pick-up/return a rental car, I was not willing to pay a 100% premium. Instead of pricing competitively from the customer's perspective, they priced it based upon their costs.
This seemed like a great example to share with my blog readers about how to think about pricing, and the importance of examining business decisions from the shoes of customers!
Friday, July 9, 2010
5 critical skills entrepreneurs need
Venturebeat has an excellent article today on 5 critical skills entrepreneurs need. The speaker is serial entrepreneur Jerry Kaplan.
Jerry Kaplan highlights these as the 5 critical skills:
1. Leadership: the ability to get everyone to move in the same direction even when they disagree
2. Communication: the ability to get everyone on the same page
3. Decision making: knowing when to make a decision - neither prematurely nor too late
4. Team player: know when to delegate and,
5. Telescope: the ability to zoom in and focus on details and zoom out and focus on the big picture as needed.
Well worth watching the ~9 minute video.
Jerry Kaplan highlights these as the 5 critical skills:
1. Leadership: the ability to get everyone to move in the same direction even when they disagree
2. Communication: the ability to get everyone on the same page
3. Decision making: knowing when to make a decision - neither prematurely nor too late
4. Team player: know when to delegate and,
5. Telescope: the ability to zoom in and focus on details and zoom out and focus on the big picture as needed.
Well worth watching the ~9 minute video.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
E-mail newsletters: the new trend
I came across this post on GigaOm today that speculates it’s time to stop blogging and start an email newsletter instead. It seems to be the hot thing these days with people like Sam Lessin (the founder of drop.io) opting for paid email newsletters. I am happy to report I remain committed to blogging and disagree with the whole paid newsletter thing (and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that I am not a celebrity with a fan following willing to pay for nuggets of my wisdom :)
To my mind, knowledge is not meant to be hoarded, it’s meant to be given freely. If/whether the recipient benefits is up to the recipient. To say that someone will share their best tips with you only if you pay $2 per month and sign up for their email newsletter seems somewhat disingenuous. It’s like charging someone to make an introduction - both parties know money was involved and that can potentially diminish the relationship. Seeing as how this knowledge is most likely not proprietary and was gleaned through interaction with others (either as received wisdom or experience), I question the fairness of charging for this knowledge.
E-mail newsletters seem like a step backward in some ways.
1. One of the huge benefits of social media is its inherent viral nature. Paid e-mail newsletters are big dampers of viral loops.
2. RSS feeds are a blessing for anyone trying to keep up with the information overload. To regress and increase the email volume in already overloaded inboxes is a big step backward in my opinion.
3. How many paid newsletters is the average person going to subscribe to? Even if each of these newsletters is priced $2 or less, it very quickly multiplies if a single person only follows 25 RSS feeds which convert to paid newsletters.
4. Then there’s the matter of how these people are going to get paid - I worry about credit card security and theft, and would be very uncomfortable having so many people bill me small amounts every month (increases the probability I won’t detect fraudulent entries), even if I am willing to share my credit card/Paypal information with so many third parties!
If this is the trend, I smell a new entrepreneurial opportunity. I want to build myself an email newsletter aggregator software that will take care of aggregating all those emails in one place and parse the data per my preferences, plus will take care of the billing so that I only need to share my financial information with one company. Interested in co-founding, anyone? :)
To my mind, knowledge is not meant to be hoarded, it’s meant to be given freely. If/whether the recipient benefits is up to the recipient. To say that someone will share their best tips with you only if you pay $2 per month and sign up for their email newsletter seems somewhat disingenuous. It’s like charging someone to make an introduction - both parties know money was involved and that can potentially diminish the relationship. Seeing as how this knowledge is most likely not proprietary and was gleaned through interaction with others (either as received wisdom or experience), I question the fairness of charging for this knowledge.
E-mail newsletters seem like a step backward in some ways.
1. One of the huge benefits of social media is its inherent viral nature. Paid e-mail newsletters are big dampers of viral loops.
2. RSS feeds are a blessing for anyone trying to keep up with the information overload. To regress and increase the email volume in already overloaded inboxes is a big step backward in my opinion.
3. How many paid newsletters is the average person going to subscribe to? Even if each of these newsletters is priced $2 or less, it very quickly multiplies if a single person only follows 25 RSS feeds which convert to paid newsletters.
4. Then there’s the matter of how these people are going to get paid - I worry about credit card security and theft, and would be very uncomfortable having so many people bill me small amounts every month (increases the probability I won’t detect fraudulent entries), even if I am willing to share my credit card/Paypal information with so many third parties!
If this is the trend, I smell a new entrepreneurial opportunity. I want to build myself an email newsletter aggregator software that will take care of aggregating all those emails in one place and parse the data per my preferences, plus will take care of the billing so that I only need to share my financial information with one company. Interested in co-founding, anyone? :)
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Why ARE Asians better at Math?
This is a little different from my usual posts about entrepreneurship, but given the strong positive correlation between education levels and being a successful entrepreneur in technology, I figured it’s worth the digression.
I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” and just finished reading the chapter on why Asians are better at math. I was initially very excited to read it but upon further reflection am wondering if his theory is really true. Gladwell attributes the success of Asians in math to three major factors:
(1) He draws a parallel between the work ethic instilled by working long hours in rice fields which fostered a culture of hard work and the work ethic in today’s generation of Asians who continue to be similarly hard working.
(2) Apparently, the human mind can remember and process 2 seconds worth of numerical data points. Unlike English, Asian languages use monosyllables to describe numbers. Therefore, where the person who knows the numbers in English can typically remember 4 digits, the average Cantonese speaker can remember 10 digits.
(3) The numbering in Asian languages is logical and intuitive compared to English. For instance, in English we count eleven, twelve etc. not the logical one-teen, two-teen, three-teen etc. Whereas in Asian languages (including my own mother tongue of Tamizh), it is counted off as ten and one, ten and two, ten and three etc. Similarly, in Chinese, the fractions are literally written out as one part of four, three parts of four etc making the concept intuitively easier to grasp.
Gladwell argues that the logical numbering makes it a lot easier for young children to grasp fundamental concepts like addition where they can skip the step of translating say “eleven” into a number before they can add it, learn fractions easily because of how they are framed in their mother tongue. This in turn means they enjoy math more, do their homework with less resistance and therefore begin a virtuous cycle.
Sounds good in theory, but...
(1) I count in English. I understand numbers up to 1000 fluently in 3 different languages but always translate any other language to English in my head before I can perform any mathematical operations. For the purposes of the American census, I am Asian and I suppose as an engineer who started learning calculus in ninth grade and can do math in her head, I live up to the Asians-are-good-at-math stereotype. Several of my friends of my generation and background fit this same mold, so I am not trying to draw a generalized conclusion based upon a data set of one nor am I exceptional in any way.
(2) I know several people whose families are of Jewish origin, who have worked incredibly hard over many generations. Hard work is no stranger to their cultural fabric or the present generation, who recognize that what they enjoy today would not have been possible without the hard work of their ancestors. It seems a stretch to say that only the rice farmers of Asia know the true meaning of hard work and have therefore integrated it into their culture and passed it down to subsequent generations.
So:
If I can do the Math in English in my head just as fast as any other Asian who computes in his mother tongue, if there are other cultures that have worked equally hard to succeed and have hard work ingrained in their cultural fabric, I submit that it’s a matter of sufficient practice and hard work, which is not the exclusive domain of any one culture. To generalize it in that manner might be a disservice to the individual. This is where stereotypes come from and they’re not always a convenient thing to live up to.
What is your opinion on Gladwell’s theory?
I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” and just finished reading the chapter on why Asians are better at math. I was initially very excited to read it but upon further reflection am wondering if his theory is really true. Gladwell attributes the success of Asians in math to three major factors:
(1) He draws a parallel between the work ethic instilled by working long hours in rice fields which fostered a culture of hard work and the work ethic in today’s generation of Asians who continue to be similarly hard working.
(2) Apparently, the human mind can remember and process 2 seconds worth of numerical data points. Unlike English, Asian languages use monosyllables to describe numbers. Therefore, where the person who knows the numbers in English can typically remember 4 digits, the average Cantonese speaker can remember 10 digits.
(3) The numbering in Asian languages is logical and intuitive compared to English. For instance, in English we count eleven, twelve etc. not the logical one-teen, two-teen, three-teen etc. Whereas in Asian languages (including my own mother tongue of Tamizh), it is counted off as ten and one, ten and two, ten and three etc. Similarly, in Chinese, the fractions are literally written out as one part of four, three parts of four etc making the concept intuitively easier to grasp.
Gladwell argues that the logical numbering makes it a lot easier for young children to grasp fundamental concepts like addition where they can skip the step of translating say “eleven” into a number before they can add it, learn fractions easily because of how they are framed in their mother tongue. This in turn means they enjoy math more, do their homework with less resistance and therefore begin a virtuous cycle.
Sounds good in theory, but...
(1) I count in English. I understand numbers up to 1000 fluently in 3 different languages but always translate any other language to English in my head before I can perform any mathematical operations. For the purposes of the American census, I am Asian and I suppose as an engineer who started learning calculus in ninth grade and can do math in her head, I live up to the Asians-are-good-at-math stereotype. Several of my friends of my generation and background fit this same mold, so I am not trying to draw a generalized conclusion based upon a data set of one nor am I exceptional in any way.
(2) I know several people whose families are of Jewish origin, who have worked incredibly hard over many generations. Hard work is no stranger to their cultural fabric or the present generation, who recognize that what they enjoy today would not have been possible without the hard work of their ancestors. It seems a stretch to say that only the rice farmers of Asia know the true meaning of hard work and have therefore integrated it into their culture and passed it down to subsequent generations.
So:
If I can do the Math in English in my head just as fast as any other Asian who computes in his mother tongue, if there are other cultures that have worked equally hard to succeed and have hard work ingrained in their cultural fabric, I submit that it’s a matter of sufficient practice and hard work, which is not the exclusive domain of any one culture. To generalize it in that manner might be a disservice to the individual. This is where stereotypes come from and they’re not always a convenient thing to live up to.
What is your opinion on Gladwell’s theory?
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