Startups competing with other startups for talent, not big companies

• Set comp brackets, and break them when you want to. Compensation brackets give you confidence that you're offering a highly competitive package and enable you to pay engineers fairly.
• Individual connections make a difference.
• Going the extra mile shows candidates tha...

After three years of recruiting for Kapwing, I've learned that creating a positive impression of your company through content marketing, publicity, and thought leadership is the highest ROI with hiring.

At Kapwing, nearly every candidates who joins mentions the company blog,

Our close rate has gone down after the pandemic (50%) compared to before the pandemic (64%). Since we've been working and recruiting remotely, we've had 11 engineers join, but we made 21 engineering of...

In reality, no one has a 100% close rate. Underneath the bravado of Silicon Valley, there are many entrepreneurs who either struggle to close, and it's a topic that's not talked about enough.

Josh, our first engineer, told me "No," but changed his mind a week later. We sensed Josh'...

After you make an offer to a candidate, they are in "Consideration" phase of the job search, and like a customer making a big purchase they will do thorough research to decide if they should make the leap. They will Google your company and read what others have to say about it.

product rev...

"Closing" a candidate refers to convincing someone to join your company after you've decided that you want to hire them. For Kapwing and many other startups, the closing efforts refer to things we do after a candidate gets through our interview process. Since our interview process includes a week...

Dramatically ramp up communication after a hiring manager gives the green light. Once we have conviction, we move forward quickly to make candidates feel valued and communicate with the candidate to check in before they make a decision.

• Offer letter with details : it i...

I notice in the data that engineers sourced from in-house referrals (mostly friends of the cofounders) have a lower close rate - 36% - than inbound applicants, sourced, or externally referred candidates. It’s possible that our friends are more likely to go through the interview process before the...

Kapwing is a Series A company with 16 engineers all based in San Francisco. Overall, we've closed 56% of the engineering candidates who made it all the way through our interview funnel.

Most of the reasons why candidates told us they decided not to take an offer fell in one...