Hiring with a Human Touch: Why Personalisation Matters

Sean Allen (: 00:01

Welcome to the More Than a CV podcast, the podcast where tech and talent acquisition leaders share their knowledge and experience on improving hiring practices, innovative ways to approach hiring, and how we need to look at candidates as more than a CV. I'm delighted to be joined today by Marla Ben, head of engineering at Glean. Marla has a wealth of experience working with well-known organizations, leading and building high performing teams. Glean makes study software that improves your confidence and ability to learn.

and are one of the fastest growing tech companies in the North. Good morning, Marla. Welcome. How are you?

Mala (: 00:36

Hi, Sean. I'm great. Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

Sean Allen (: 00:40

Thanks for being here. It's a pleasure to speak with you and unfortunately, unfortunately, you're guest number one on the podcast. So I really appreciate, appreciate you for that. It'd be great, I guess, before we get into the discussion, just for our listeners to learn a little bit more about you and the roles you've held and the career you've had to date, Marlon.

Mala (: 01:00

Sure. I started my career as a software developer after doing a computer science degree and worked in the embedded electronics industry, writing software for set-top boxes and did that for a fair few years before I realized that I really enjoyed leadership, tech leadership. So moved into what was known as a team lead role there and

enjoyed that, did that for a few years before I decided to learn more about Agile and therefore moved to Sky where I joined as a Scrum Master. Whereas before we did all our development in Waterfall, it was completely different. So that was a massive learning curve. And moving to Sky was really great because they gave you opportunities to try different things and move around and learn.

which I totally embrace and moved across teams and across different departments. It's a huge organization. So different departments, even within digital, like work in completely different ways and just moving teams gave you such an opportunity to learn more. And then I did.

sort of a transformation manager role for a very short time while we're going through a big transformation in the digital team. Before I applied for head of software engineering and secured that role and did it for two years. And that was a real eye opener of

how to do leadership and how to run a software department. And while in that role, my team scaled from five squads to about eight squads, and it was a really big, big team, a big experience. And then I decided I wanted a change from working in a corporate organization. And I decided to look for roles in smaller organizations and

companies that were going through the startup to scale up journey. And, and actually I also wanted to get closer to two teams and work closer to the technical team. So I actually did a bootcamp in web dev cause I'd never actually done any of that while I worked in embedded. was developing in C when I started my career. So I wanted to experience web development. So that's

After doing that bootcamp, joined clean as an engineering manager and that was a really good time to join it. It's a nice size team and, work on really interesting work and I know really good tech stack with lots of, great tooling and really good process. but sadly the head of engineering that I joined to work with, decided to leave the company and.

An opportunity arose and I stepped into it and then yeah, that's where I am now doing this role and really loving it.

Sean Allen (: 04:27

It's amazing career and I love that how you've done so many different things. You've never been sort of that one discipline and sort of vertically trying to progress. You've clearly like the Scrum Master side moved to learn new skills that you can bring and add value to something different. I love seeing a more sort of squiggly career in essence where knowledge is broadened that ultimately helps you.

in those further leadership roles doesn't it because you've got a much better understanding of everyone's positions.

Mala (: 04:56

Yeah.

And yeah, like

you often hear about T shaped individuals where you have your depth of knowledge or depth of experience in one area, but then you have a breadth of knowledge across the board. But I actually recently at a conference had someone talk about the comb framework where with a comb, you have the teeth on your comb and the teeth of

Sean Allen (: 05:20

Thank

Mala (: 05:26

So different experiences and disciplines, and you could have different lengths of experience or depth of knowledge in an area. And I thought that was a good analogy. you know, being comb shaped, but then like understanding where you have a lot of depth and where you, you don't, and who you could work with to sort of fill those gaps and compliment each other or identify areas that you can go and develop for yourself. So I thought that was a nice way to think about it.

Sean Allen (: 05:56

that. That's some googling for me this afternoon. You've been at Glean about a year now, is that right? Congratulations on your one year anniversary. What was it that sort of drew you to Glean in particular and what was that experience like going through the process? Because you mentioned some big corporates before, was it quite a similar process that you went through or was it a completely different experience?

Mala (: 06:22

completely different. So Glean, it has an in-house recruitment team. And so you, you were always speaking to a single person throughout the process and they, we really take care in making candidates feel welcome and looked after and understand the whole process and keep in touch regularly with them. And I think that whole process,

while I was interviewing at other places and you know, you would often not hear back from recruiters or there'd be a lot of silence at Glean. It was complete opposite. And I knew I could call the recruiter and speak directly to them. And so there was just, yeah, a more supportive process through that and knowing exactly where you stand within the whole process. Yeah, the thing...

The thing, the second question, the thing that attracted me to applying at Glean was really their values and what Glean do. So the whole mission is about enabling learners to be better with their learning journey and empowering them to do their best. And whereas it started off with supporting students who have disabilities and have accessibility needs.

actually the vision has changed and it's much wider and it's about helping everyone with their learning journey. So that really attracted me to applying there, but also just that their whole brand and their marketing and the tone that they use in, you know, everywhere from their website to even their job adverts. And it just drew you in because there was just a really personal touch where

even through the job advert, you got to know the people that you'd be working with. So that was just really attractive.

Sean Allen (: 08:24

And how is it like now being on the other side and I guess driving that process? as I guess, as a hiring manager and how does that work? Are you solely responsible for your team and do you follow a sort of set process that was similar to the one that you went through or is it more of a collective being smaller organization when it comes to hiring? I guess that personalization and that sort of playful tone.

that you talk about, I guess, has to weave through everybody. So how do you protect that and ensure, I guess, those values remain from that talent attraction and branding piece right through to selection and onboarding, I guess, that whole spectrum.

Mala (: 09:08

Yeah, I'd say it's

just the way the process has been designed. So across functions, we have parts of the process that's common to any role. And then we have a bit in the middle that can be like bespoke and adapted for each function.

Everyone starts off with a screening call with the recruiter and that will be the same across all functions. And then within engineering, we define the next couple of stages where we fine tune in, optimize it to understand people's skills and different kinds of skills. And then we move on to a CV review and culture and values, which is...

common and a standard set of questions, agnostic of what role you're applying for. So I think that ensures that people were bringing in sort of, you know, fit our culture and we're finding the right person with that. But then the middle part of the stages are all bespoke and we define them. And yeah, just ensuring that we are

know, keeping things fair and we have got a really diverse panel, but then also our recruitment team have that overview and ensure that tone is sort of we through every part of the process and especially job adverts.

Sean Allen (: 10:45

And you touched on there, the sort of diverse panel, and this is a subject that comes up quite a lot within the recruitment space. Sort of one, getting those diverse opinions or feedback from those on the panel, but then also trying to showcase the diversity within your organization. And some instances, especially in some companies, it can feel a bit forced.

Like it's trying to do it so the perception is there. But it sounds like it's the opposite with yours where it's a lot more organic from what you've built from, I guess, initially having that very thorough and transparent process up upfront. So there's probably two bits I want to go down here. One is on the employer brand bit, but I'd love to understand how does that work when you're interviewing candidates? How has it decided who's involved?

big problem we find in recruitment sometimes is hiring manager capacity or burnout. So how, I guess, how are they protected as well with that whole work life balance, but also trying to interviewing in, we know is always difficult when you're delivering and got a lot of deadlines to hit.

Mala (: 12:01

Yeah, we've actually expanded our rotor for interviewing and with other changes that are happening within engineering, I acknowledge that interviewing is a real skill. It's an opportunity for engineers to be able to practice talking to others and representing

our organization, but also it gives people skills if they ever need to use it. Not that I'm advocating for people to leave, but it's just a really good skill to be able to interview other people well, but then go to interviews yourself. it was clear that we wanted to expand that pool of people who were able to contribute.

mainly because we, you know, we wanted to increase that diversity. We wanted to improve people's skills, but also with any future plans of scaling, I was just really aware that, the current pool was very small and people were getting, you know, sort of burnt out with having to attend lots of interviews. We, for an engineer, we have a four stage process.

or could be five if you count the CV review and culture and values separately. And then for more senior, like principal engineers, it can add up to a six stage process. Not that engineers would be involved in all of that, but we were finding the same group of people being included in lots and lots of interviews and we just wanted to spread that out. So we increased that pool and we actually gave hands-on training to anyone who wanted to.

be part of that process. We opened it up to any level. So within our rotor or pool of interviews, we have two sets. So the experienced people who are a bit more experienced in their trade, but also in interviewing and then more junior people or people that not had any experience interviewing. And we have a bot.

an automated rotor that picks from these pools. yeah, when, when you get picked for that, then recruitment can just put the next interview into your diary and people just agree that they'd move things around to, enable that. And I think with also with the unattended test, we, we open it up to anyone across engineering to, be able to input their

their thoughts and provide any feedback on a submitted test that a candidate has put through. So it's a nice way to allow people who might not even meet the candidate and are not speaking to them in an interview to be able to see what they're submitting and the quality of their code and provide any input that way. And then a really good thing that we do is share all of these comments across all stages of interviews. So

even though you might not have reviewed somebody's unattended test, you have access to all of the comments from everyone in the team on what they submitted. And then even though you might not have met them in technical interview and you're doing maybe a culture and values, you still see all of the comments from people internally and...

Therefore we also find that with a number of stages, a candidate could meet multiple, you know, up to four or five people from across the team. And they get a feel as well, as to, you know, what the team are like, who, who they've met, you know, whether they actually want to want to come and work for us. And I always think about interviewing as a two step, or a two way thing in which it's not just.

glean looking for people, but it's also people deciding whether they want to work for glean and therefore, like really, you know, trying to put us in a positive light when we're talking to people.

Sean Allen (: 16:25

I love that. I love that. There's so many. think the first thing as a recruiter, go, wow, five or six steps. And you think I'm going to lose loads of candidates. But from what you're saying, it's, it's seems to be very well thought out, structured process where you're not getting those delays. So if I was just dealing with you and then you've got a holiday and then I'm like, that's going to delay all of that risk is mitigated and removed because you've, you're not giving.

you're not allowing yourself as an organization to have those fail points almost or those blockers by ensuring you've got a set. And I guess as a scaling business, that also means you're not growing a team in one person's or two people's particular thought of what they think good looks like. And you end up with a big chunk of very samey people, if that makes sense.

Mala (: 16:58

Thanks.

Sean Allen (: 17:20

So yeah, that's, that sounds amazing. And around that communication then sounds, and I'm going to bring it back to that employee branding. Cause it sounds like you've got a lot of transparency you're talking about and clarity upfront. from that process, candidates are aware. You know, what steps look like, what timelines look like feedback. It sounds like there's lots of feedback that goes back on every step as well. So what, what does it look like from that transparency?

from that, I guess the advertising or the employer branding, he talked around the playfulness of the language and really representing Glean's culture through that language and how it's structured. But what else is involved in there, I guess, to ensure you're attracting the right people that you want to come to Glean. And I guess put off the people that maybe Glean isn't for them. So then you're not wasting their time or your time going through a long, the six step process.

Mala (: 18:18

Yeah, guess, yeah, the transparency thing is a massive plus point for us at Glean. And actually that's also another thing that attracted me to it when I was applying and I saw the job advert that had the salary band on it, which was amazing. It was just like the first place that I've ever seen that. And you just knew where you stand. Also details about what

Sean Allen (: 18:40

You

Mala (: 18:48

the whole interview process would look like. So you can see all the stages you'll be involved in and actually who you'll be meeting during those stages, which was really nice. we, yeah, the playfulness was that it just sort of referenced people by their first name. So you kind of just knew who you were going to meet and you know,

That was a really lovely touch. We've got a blog as well. So amazing thing about Glean is that they've got a blog and anyone can contribute to it. We've got different streams. So it's themed in a way that covers, you know, either the product, the brand, different functions. So we've got the tech teams, but also like the people side of things. So people are constantly adding new.

articles to it and we sort of signpost towards it. So you actually get a feel when you're researching the company, the kinds of things that people are talking about different topics. So in the engineering blog, there's a lot about our stack, our engineering principles, the way that we do our engineering conferences. So there's a lot of other detail that gives you a flavour of how we work.

we care about and what's important to us. And you you hear from different voices, not just senior people, but you know, junior people as well. that, I think is a key and everyone who's come into interview always talks about, you know, a blog or an article that they read. Yeah, just for me personally, I read an article by one of our

engineers in the team, a lady who works term time only, which, know, I'm so proud to work for a company that, you know, enabled somebody to, you know, adapt their contract to be able to work term time for that work life balance and, you know, support her children. And just reading that opened my eyes to actually get a feel for

actually how the company supports people and what flexible working means and, you know, like really living true to what they say. yeah, that seeing that on the blog was really comforting. So I think, yeah, referencing our values as well. So we use and hold our values really close to our day to day. And we talk about them a lot.

And, you know, in the referenced in, in, lots of town halls and other company meetings that we go to. so using those in our, in our job adverts and referencing them a lot. And actually the culture and values, stage is all about understanding your own personal values and you know, what, what they mean to you was a really, nice way of like getting to know the culture really and what the company holds.

important.

Sean Allen (: 22:02

love that. I love the blog piece and actually real people behind it because I think a lot of the time when you look at branding, can be, you're just weaving in company values. Not everyone has company values, but a lot of people couldn't tell you what all five are or whatever. A lot of the times are sort of made and then pushed out and that's the end of that project. Whereas that's being true to who you are, but also by showcasing those blogs publicly and making them accessible very,

easily through the app. You're buying into real people and a real mission as opposed to, well this sounds great and then you're waiting to go through the steps to see if it actually the company backs up what it's telling you online. Whereas you're sort of driving that find out about us, learn about us, reach out to us before applying if you want to. This is how accessible we are and how open we are about.

what we do and what our mission is. And I love that, because that immediately gives you, by the moment we had our first chat, was like, it just sounds amazing that, right? It's so refreshing. You sort of leave a conversation wanting to find out more. And I love that that's how you've tailored your processes, given the candidate everything and that culture and alignment first, technology second.

is really refreshing as well because a lot of places you can see GME technically and then we'll do more about if we're a fit. And I like that you go for fit first, then we can deep dive into the technical aspect. Is there anything else that particularly stood out or stands out from what you're doing that's a bit different or even technology that you use that enables you to...

to have such a seamless process and those constant communication points with candidates so they know exactly where they're at at all stages.

Mala (: 24:03

I think using the tooling we use as Greenhouse, I never had access to before, but it's really brilliant and it gives you different views on the data as candidates are moving through.

Sean Allen (: 24:10

of greenhouses.

Mala (: 24:26

the pipeline so you get like a Kanban view of which candidate is at which stage and you're able to you know quickly identify if there's anyone waiting to be responded to. Greenhouse also is a nice way of collecting feedback in one place for a candidate so you can quickly access information about them and you know there's different levels of permissions so

I was recently involved in, hiring for a senior C-suite candidate, which, you know, meant that, I could provide feedback into, you know, after the meet, the interview I was involved in, but then I don't have access to other sort of personal information. So there's a real, understanding of data protection and protecting information about the candidate, but also, you know, in a

in a nice way, collecting all feedback from anyone who's been involved in those interviews. Yeah, actually, I can talk to you a bit about that C-suite hiring process. It was done and it was coordinated really well by a recruiter, Sarah Ford, who works internally. And she organized a full day of different kinds of interviews with different people.

So it was a feat of organization. You know, probably tens of people from the organization met with each candidate and had different discussion points. So the heads of were talking and asking questions, you know, relative to them. And then they were, you know, doing other presentations and interview stages with senior leadership. But just the way it was.

you know, run by clockwork. We had candidates in the office all together, meeting different people, moving from room to room, and just also giving them a flavor of how we do things. They attended our company meeting. They had the opportunity to talk to other individuals who were in the office there that day, and then also come together and have lunch with different people from the organization.

It was almost like a workshop day where the candidate gets a feel for Glean, but then Glean also gets a feel for the candidate to be able to decide whether they're a right fit. And I thought, yeah, that was done really nice. It wasn't just behind closed doors, you know, with specific senior people. was actually, yeah, meeting people they would be working with day to day and taking input from everyone, which was a really nice way of doing it.

Sean Allen (: 27:13

Cool,

And it must be nice, I hopefully found the right person and all of that. I guess it's nice for them, isn't it? Because they're coming in and because I've met people, it will make their first day a lot easier. Even at senior levels, it's difficult, isn't it? You see businesses, it's a confidential hire under the C-suite now and then they just announced and just start and it must be quite daunting even for them, right? Certainly standing up and facing.

Mala (: 27:29

Thank

Sean Allen (: 27:43

a whole business that they've not met, so that'll be easier for them. And just on that feedback point and it all goes in, how does it work with challenging each other? I guess we all have our own biases, whether we like to admit it or not. what's the culture like for constructive challenge, should I say? If there's anything particularly someone's putting, maybe feedback or...

whether it's a CV review or code review interview that maybe doesn't sit right with other people on that panel.

Mala (: 28:22

Yeah, so the approach that we take is after interviews, we ask the panel not to discuss anything and just get their feedback written straight into Greenhouse. And then when everyone has submitted, the hiring manager, so I would go in and review all of the feedback and...

Before I make any offer, I bring together everyone who was involved or met with that candidate. So if they'd done their unattended test review, as well as if they'd met them, and we have a quick 10 minute chat on, you know, just discussing whether, you know, there was anything, any concerns, anything we particularly liked.

And then, you know, if, it was also between two candidates, we'd also, I'd bring the full number of panel that were involved and you know, we'd have like a really open discussion and constructive discussion on who we should go with and who we shouldn't. And I think it's yeah, just a nice way in which having more people involved in the process just means you feel more comfortable and confident with the

with the decision you're about to make. And, you these are people within the team who I trust, who, you know, understand clean culture, understand our engineering culture and principles, and therefore probably have an even better idea than I do on whether they're the right fit. And so I really trust their input and really take it and consider it seriously.

Sean Allen (: 30:05

It sounds like you've truly got a psychologically safe space or environment to, I guess, check each other in those instances, which can be daunting sometimes if I know I've been on the in-house TA side, on agency side, but sometimes you want to challenge some feedback and some people take it really well and you have a good conversation and other people can put defenses up and be quite a difficult conversation.

have so I guess creating the safe culture you've got to do that just enables a lovely way to to just bottom it out quite quickly and get the right result. Perfect. I'm conscious of time because I could talk to you forever about this. there anything else you'd like to call out in particular around this process that we've missed that I may not have probed on? Have we covered it well?

Mala (: 31:06

I, I think we, yeah, just so something to mention around like developing the whole process. And we recently hired for a really specific principal engineer who was going to work in a, in a slightly different team. was, it's a skunk works team working on a new project. And we recognize that it was a different type of role to,

a P who was part of the whole engineering team. And so we, we actually designed and crafted that whole job advert job description and interviewing process. You know, bespoke for that, that role. And I think, yeah, just taking the time to think about exactly what kind of skills and the kind of person you're looking for, and then crafting and designing that.

process around that is really helpful and doing it in a collaborative way. So we just pull together a document where we collaborate and, you know, ideate on the kinds of stages we need and what sorts of things we would run through and what the process would look like. And just, you know, like taking, spending time to think about that so that you end up with the right fit.

and the right kind of person was really important. As I mentioned before, the first and last part of the stages are standard for any role, those are the stages in between. And trying to get the balance between spending a lot of time with the candidate and asking them to come in for lots of stages, but then also understanding that that can be quite daunting and people have to invest time to prepare and...

pull together any presentations or do on attended tests. So just being really conscious that people are investing time, you don't have to take too much from them, but also you want to spend enough time with them to be able to assess and get the best candidate was really important. So yeah, continuously asking for feedback from candidates to understand what that process felt for them and even for

you know, candidates who are not successful, you know, taking feedback from them was really important. And, you know, so far, had really positive feedback from candidates that have also not been successful, which is kind of feels a bit weird because you feel bad for, you know, not putting them through, but then also feel good to get really positive feedback about the whole process. So I think, yeah, the key things is always

get feedback, iterate your processes and keep in touch with your candidates as they go through the process.

Sean Allen (: 34:05

I was going to ask you what your top tips would be for anybody looking at this but I think you've just summarized it there perfectly and I think that's the ultimate goal isn't it as business or as hiring managers and recruiters is if somebody's not successful at any point of the process have they had a good experience because you've got a real potential to get advocates for your business. Then I have friends or colleagues that want to look at you and go yeah you know what I wasn't successful but it's amazing go for it.

As opposed to I've had such a bad experience, I'm going to tell my closest network never to go there, which you do see within the market. But I love the accountability that you all hold on yourself. Use that feedback from candidates. So if something isn't working, you're able to review it, change it, improve it, and keep moving along. That's I think that's so cool.

Mala (: 34:58

Yeah, I'd

say also the process after you've offered them the role is really important. So at that point, hand over to our EX team, so employee experience and they take on and continue with that sort of connection and, you know, starting that onboarding process and continually communicating with the candidate and we identify a line manager.

straight away and then put them in touch with the candidate before they start. So the line manager is then communicating with them and talking about, you know, any travel they might need to do or when they're going to come into the office to meet with them about their kit, etc. So that, you know, that's, that's really important. Like continue, pass that button to the right person and then, you know, continue communicating with them.

Sean Allen (: 35:54

And as critical as I was caught the pre-boarding phase, you know that gap between when they've resigned and where they join often becomes the dip where they go through people go through quite an automated on boarding but comms can be quiet after all the time and work invested on both sides That's such a key point because if they've got any anxiety about moving or they've resigned they've got an offer the problem more susceptible to have their head turned potentially aren't they if something else comes along

Mala (: 36:21

Absolutely.

Sean Allen (: 36:23

But no, I love that. I still need to come down and see your office because it sounds really cool. So I will come and take you for lunch so I can get a little look around. I guess on that note, to end, what's the best way for people to get in touch, Marla, if they've got any questions or want to learn more about how Glean have built and their...

approach to hiring, but also if there's anyone listening who wants to work at Glean, what's the best way for them to check out what jobs are there and how to apply.

Mala (: 36:56

So our careers site has all of our current open roles. So at the moment we are hiring for principal engineer and a platform engineer that just went live this week.

You know, connect with me on LinkedIn as well. I'm always posting about the fun stuff that we do and any roles that we might have open. And yeah, get in touch. me an email on marla.ben at gleam.co. be happy to speak to you.

Sean Allen (: 37:31

I will make sure your email and your LinkedIn are in the show notes so it's nice and easy for everybody to access. But I'd like to say a massive thank you for your time, Arla. It's been an absolute pleasure as it always is chatting with you and I'm excited to keep seeing your career grow but also keep a sharp eye on Glean and how they keep growing as well.

Mala (: 37:56

Thanks Sean, it's been a pleasure talking to you.

Sean Allen (: 37:58

Awesome. Take care, Mala. Thank you.

Mala (: 38:00

Thanks.