Tearing up the interview rulebook

For a small, lean team like Escape, making sure we hire the right people is a top priority. But with almost 11 years of working with progressive employers and hiring people for our own team, we've learned that it can be hard to identify the best candidates for the job from a traditional interview.

This becomes even harder still when trying to build an open, inclusive culture, where differences are celebrated. Part of building a different world of work means bringing together a team who feel they are able to show up and embrace who they are. Making hiring decisions based solely on how people perform at interview isn't always the best way to find the most passionate, capable people for the job.

That's why when we hire for our team at Escape we let applicants know exactly what we'll be asking them, and how we will assess them. We share a role-specific scorecard that includes the technical and soft skills we will be looking for, in addition to a list of suggested questions and topics that we may want to talk about.

We don't think interviews should be a time to catch people out, but rather an opportunity for candidates to present the most relevant information and to be themselves. We believe that anything we can do to help with interview nerves, and remove the inclination to second guess what we're looking for will ultimately help us hire the best people for the job.

Jake recently joined the team in January as an Employer Happiness Officer. He shares his thoughts on going through this interview process, and how he's finding his new role.

👋 Say hello to Jake...

What were you up to before you joined the Escape team?

I was made redundant in August after five months of furlough, which I spent baking and delivering goods in London for my baking start-up, Fenix. I was feeling a bit lost and decided to shake off the cobwebs by walking the Camino de Santiago through the North of Spain to think about what I wanted to do career-wise. Since then I've wound up in Portugal and decided to look for a remote job that would facilitate a new life on the Atlantic Coast.

What attracted you to the Employer Happiness Officer role?

The job title! In all seriousness, I'd been a big fan of Escape since leaving my job in asset management two years ago. The array of roles for diverse and innovative companies has always excited me, so being the person to engage with such interesting organisations immediately held great appeal. It required a lot of transferable skills and involved elements of problem-solving, relationship management, and new business development, which mapped well to my previous experience. Plus it was an opportunity to work for an exciting organisation that's helping to redefine the world of work - it was a bit of a no-brainer. 

Tell us a little bit about your experience of the hiring process at Escape?

The hiring process was very transparent and thorough and involved three stages after the initial application. I had a phone interview with Skye, the COO, followed by a range of exercises designed to give me a taste of the day-to-day job and assess my ability to do the job itself. The final stage was a video interview with Dom, the founder of Escape, and Lauren, who heads up Account Management, which I had to do from a hostel garden in Portugal - a first for me!  

Did you find the scorecard and example interview questions helpful?

It was really helpful to have the scorecard and example questions when preparing for the hiring process, though it did feel a bit like I was cheating! It definitely took away a layer of nerves seeing that I would be marked just as much on my personality/team fit as on my technical knowledge and prior experience. Often job descriptions can be needlessly daunting and discourage applicants who would otherwise be a great fit, whereas this felt very much like a two-way street of assessing whether Escape was right for me, as well as if I was the right fit for the company. 

How have the first couple of weeks been? What are you excited about working on at Escape?

It's been a whirlwind first couple of weeks getting used to the Escape platform and starting to build relationships with employers and our team. Being onboarded while working remotely has been seamless and communication is far better than the other companies I've worked at, despite us all being geographically apart. I'm really excited to work with more amazing start-ups and innovative organisations that are putting the planet and their people on a par with profit. It feels as though the pandemic is causing people to reflect on what they want out of their careers so I'm anticipating a busy and fulfilling time ahead as more people look to find interesting roles with the fantastic employers that we work with. 

• If you're an employer looking to post a role with Escape, drop Jake a line: jake@escapethecity.org

• If you're an Escapee looking for more tips and guidance on how to nail your job interview, check out our job interview cliff notes template to help you prepare.