Recruitment¶

The current document describes the stages of recruitment and the various evaluation points that occur during the process.

Launch of a recruitment round¶

The epic planning managers are responsible for determining when the availability needs of their cells will require launching a recruitment round. They communicate this need as much as possible in advance to the recruitment manager and the CEO - ideally at least 1 month before the availability is required, to provide enough time to complete the round.
- A cell should always target having some extra availability, to allow to accept new projects without requiring too much last-minute recruitment, which is more stressful for the cell and the recruitment manager. On top of the required availability, plan for 1-2+ extra newcomers for availability margin, plus planning ahead to replace any newcomer that doesn't pass their trial.
The CEO publishes the job ad, which direct candidates to submit the recruitment form.
The CEO informs the team's recruitment manager of the upcoming start of a recruitment round, and creates a workflow board to track the progression of the round's process.
The recruitment manager includes a ticket in their upcoming sprint for it, and mentions in the comments of the workflow board how many newcomers they are looking for.
The candidatures are available to the recruitment manager immediately upon submission, without filtering. The recruitment manager assigns the unassigned candidatures to themselves, starting with the oldest submissions.
This self-assignment operation can be repeated up to every two days by the recruitment manager (which might be necessary if recruitment needs are high and/or candidatures are being reviewed quickly).

Pre-selection of candidates for interviews¶

The recruitment manager does a pre-selection of candidatures to invite for an interview. It is a very basic filter over the candidatures - we don't want to be too selective at this stage, as it can still be quite hard to tell whether a candidate would be a good fit just from that information. So there are few criteria, but they are strict - if a candidate fails to pass any of these, they are eliminated:

Contribution to third party projects¶

We want to see at least one contribution (PR/patch) to a third party project, which isn't completely trivial (a small bug fix is fine, but just fixing a typo, spacing or a missing import isn't enough, you want to be able to have something to evaluate), and which has been merged by the third party project.

No exceptions on this, it's a hard rule. This is the main filter of the pre-selection. So we check this first, and generally someone saying explicitly that they don't have contributions is enough to rule them out -- in these cases we save time by not having to look at the rest of the candidature.

Precisions:

The type of work/tech from the contributions don't need to be related to our work.
The recipient project can be small, but should be something that has users (see its number of stars & forks - there should be at least 10-20 of each).
PRs done as part of an employment are ok (that's also what we do!), but it should really be done openly, and still preferably to a third party. If the PRs are all silently merged, it means there was either no review, or it happened privately, and this doesn't really qualify as an open source contribution
There should also be at least a PR description, and some comments/discussions with upstream - we are looking for people who communicate.
We are trying to filter for people who care about contributing to someone else's project, so merely releasing code on their github, or even contributions to a project they are a maintainer of, doesn't count.
Since often candidates just point at their github account, we get all their third-party PRs by visiting this URL (we check this for both the github & gitlab accounts when they are provided):
- Github: https://github.com/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Aviadanna+-org%3Aviadanna
- Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/dashboard/merge_requests/?scope=all&state=all&author_username=antoviaque

Proper writing skills¶

Candidates don't need to have flawless spelling & grammar, but it needs to be reasonable. We think about whether the type of writting would work with a client for example. We aren't too harsh though - it can be hard to tell at times, and we can give the benefit of the doubt.

Python, Django & React¶

We require experience in at least Python & Django, plus preferably React. Sometimes it's unclear - some candidates don't specify some of their experience... So we wouldn't necessarily eliminate a promising candidate who doesn't list one of those (and React is not mandatory either, just very appreciated), but we will take a note of any doubt on these, to ask during the interview.

Although if there is no mention or sign of any practice of Python, the candidate almost certainly has no Python experience, so we reject the candidature in these cases. Some candidates omit mentioning Django when they have only a small amount of experience with it, and it's still fine in that case after verification, but nobody fluent in a language omits mentioning it in their list of skills, especially when other languages are mentioned.

Seniority¶

We also currently don't hire junior developers - from past experiences, the remote environment combined to the expected quality and efficiency doesn't work well with junior profiles, at least with our current organization. We might revisit this in the future, but we would need to put in place a specific process to allow them to acquire the required skills and experience.

At the moment, we require at least 2-3 years of professional experience as a hired developer. We sometimes make an exception for a prolific open source contributor who has demonstrated great technical and social skills in his contributions, and thus already shows a senior profile.

Also, we accept candidates who have been recently been employed by another Open edX provider, but we check for exclusivity clauses in their contract before proceeding with an interview (to be discussed with the CEO when someone from another provider applies).

Fields to fill¶

In the spreadsheet containing the candidatures, besides the answers submitted by candidates, the recruitment manager will see a few additional columns to fill:

Status: The current status of the candidature (drop-down).
Python, Django, React: This is a reminder to write in the cell any of those skills for which the candidate isn't clearly experimented And then, during the interview, we ask the candidate about it. Sample value: "Django? React?" => which would be completed with the answer during the interview. For candidates which have all three pre-requirements, we put "OK" in this column - this helps ensuring that we remembered to check (or to ask).
Comments: Meant to contain the explanation for the recruitment manager's decision.
The other fields are for the interview itself - see below.

Scheduling interviews¶

Emailing selected candidates¶

The recruitment manager sends an email to each candidate that they selected. We use a standard email template for the content of that email. Make sure to CC the recruitment@ mailing-list in your exchanges with candidates, to allow others to follow.

Scheduling through Calendly¶

We use Calendly to schedule interviews. Get an account from Xavier if you don't already have one, and setup a dedicated event for interviews:

Open for the week following the pre-selection
At times which allow a reasonable coverage of most timezones (the afternoon UTC time is usually good for that)
Make sure to keep the times narrow, to allow to batch the interviews - it's best for focus to not end up having them spread all over your days
Enable Calendar invitations, to automatically send Google Calendar invites
Link it to the OpenCraft Zoom account (to allow to host longer meetings), and enable the automated inclusion of a Zoom URL in the meeting invite

Ensure scheduled meetings have recording enabled with gallery view¶

We need to record interviews to allow for later review by other team members. To ensure we don't forget to start the recording during the meeting, we enable the option ahead of time, in the scheduled meeting details. The setting for each individual scheduled meeting should look like this:

Recording in the cloud offer the best/most reliable way to ensure the meeting will have been recorded.

To be able to keep the candidate's reactions visible in the recording, even when they are not talking, make sure to select "Record gallery view with shared screen" in your account settings:

Interviews¶

Script¶

The interviews lasts 30 minutes, and we use a script. The script is private, to not demesurably advantage candidates who read the handbook ahead of the interview.

We don't necessarily say exactly and only the content of the script (we are not a call center ;p), but we try to stick to it, as the more similar it is across interviews, the better we are able to compare them with each other. This is especially true of the code exercise, where the way to explain it can influence significantly what the candidate will understand and how they will approach it.

Grading¶

During the interview, we progressively grade the candidate in the corresponding columns of the spreasheet, with a short comment on each. The rating is 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. E.g. "5 - aced the exercise!".

Video recording upload¶

We then upload the video recording of the interview to our private file drive, using the 'Gallery view' file. Also add a link in the candidate's spreadsheet entry, in the dedicated column. This will allow other team members to review it.

Final selection of newcomers¶

The recruitment manager takes a decision on whether to hire the candidate as a newcomer.
The Admin Specialist reviews the profile. If an application is accepted following the technical interview, the Admin Specialist meets with the candidate for a second interview, to take a decision and to discuss contracting terms. These additional steps can be viewed right below.
The recruitment manager sends a rejection email to the candidates who have been refused.

Administrative onboarding¶

Second interview & contract¶

The process of hiring a newcomer is shared between the Recruitment Manager and the Admin Specialist. This section details the steps to follow once a candidate has passed their first (technical) interview.

Candidate selection and preparing for 2nd interview (Recruitment Manager)¶

Once a candidate has passed their first (technical) interview with the Recruitment Manager, the Recruitment Manager pings the Admin Specialist to set up a 2nd interview. The Admin reviews the candidate profile from the applications spreadsheet. No need to do any specific review, since the Recruitment Manager already confirmed that the profile would match -- though of course, like everyone involved, the Admin has a right to refuse a candidate at any time (1 "no" is enough to disqualify a candidate).

2nd interview invitation (Admin)¶

Schedule an interview with the candidate, using the following template:

Hi FIRSTNAME,

My name is Gabriel, and I am an Administration Specialist at OpenCraft. I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to follow up after your technical interview with RECRUITMENT-MANAGER and congratulate you on passing! You have now advanced to the final round of our hiring process.

I would like to schedule a call with you to discuss the personal, cultural, and contractual aspects of working at OpenCraft. During the call, we will cover the following points:

Learning more about you - your background and interests, especially your relationship to open source.

Addressing any questions you may have about our way of working to ensure that we are a good fit for you. Please review our handbook at https://handbook.opencraft.com/ before our meeting and write down any questions you may have so we can discuss them.

Discussing contract terms. I have attached our contract template, which I kindly ask you to review thoroughly. During the meeting, we will also confirm your hourly rate (in Euros). As remuneration is based on actual time spent working and not a fixed weekly or monthly amount, please factor in all costs, including taxes, vacation, and benefits when making your calculations. Your rate will allow us to make a final decision on your hiring. Please make sure that it's going to be your final rate, since you won't be able to change it later on in the process. We won't try to negotiate: we prefer to work with you at the rate you want, and not any lower. After the call, we will check and confirm if it is within our budget. You can see how we handle remuneration in our handbook at https://handbook.opencraft.com/en/latest/team_compensation/.

Helping you determine your rate. We understand that you may not know how to best price yourself, so we have built a tool to help you determine your rate. Please make a copy of this spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XI47TfbWo623ZKT-XfChKu-lX6QlxbcdH0xgTIkRqdY/) and fill it out as completely and thoroughly as you can. We will not ask you for the spreadsheet or its results, but given what you enter, it will suggest a rate for you.

To schedule the call, please use this CALENDLY-LINK . If you have any questions in the meantime, don't hesitate to reach out. I look forward to our call!

Best regards,

2nd interview call (Admin)¶

Conduct an interview with the candidate.

Check if:
- They show a real interest for open source, as well as an history of contributing by collaborating with others
- They have any pending questions about how OpenCraft works, or about their contract -- answer them, and verify that they don't have a significant blocker or incompatibility
- Their hourly rate is within the acceptable range (don't react about it during the meeting though, to avoid negotiations)
Confirm:
- Their starting date: the first day of the next sprint the newcomer is available - try to keep the delay as short as possible, including asking to negotiate the notice period with their employer, if it is long
- Their weekly volume of hours
- That they can send an invoice manually for the trial project (not handled through the Billing app).
- That they understand that compensation is conditional to delivering actual work (i.e. if someone spends 10h just reading doc and not delivering any usable code, we won't pay them).
- That any outstanding question or gap in the application details spreadsheet for this candidate have been resolved & added to the spreadsheet notes

If all is good, then move on to contract signature.

Contract signature (Admin)¶

Send the following email:

Hi FIRSTNAME,

Glad to have met you (/TIME)! And congratulations -- we're accepting your application, and we think you will make a great addition to the team : )

To finalize the contractual part, we will send you a contract through Docusign. Please review the contract throughly. If everything looks good, fill the information fields and sign. We'll return an executed copy shortly.

Please let me know if you have questions about any of this.

Hoping to see you on the team soon!

Then:

Log into DocuSign
Go to Templates in the top menu
Next to the "Framework contract" template, select Use
From the template overview page, edit the recipients as needed. In most cases, the set order should be -> Admin (to add contract terms) -> Contractor (info & signature) -> CEO (signature). Make sure you add the correct names and email addresses.
- Important note: If Xavier is on vacation for more than a week, use billing@opencraft.com instead of Xavier's email, and sign the contract for him. Otherwise you won't be able to sign the contract since you don't have access to Xavier's inbox, and the newcomer could be left without an executed version of the contract for a long time.
Scroll down and edit the email subject line to include the Contractor's full name
Hit Sendin the bottom right corner to start the process.

First, the Admin Specialist will receive the contract. This is where we must add the contract terms, specifically:

The weekly hours commitment
The hourly rate
The newcomer's start date

Once completed, the contract will be sent to the newcomer for signature. After that, the CEO will be asked to sign.

At this point, the Admin Specialist schedules a MNG ticket for the CEO to sign the contract (or add this signature to an existing task, if more than one signature is required, to process things in batch). This might incur a delay in the execution process, but we can start onboarding the newcomer as soon as they have signed their copy.

Once the newcomer has signed their copy, send them the following email, and add the Recruitment Manager and recruitment@opencraft.com in CC so they can take over:

Hi FIRSTNAME,

Thanks for signing the contract! We will return an executed copy shortly, if not done already.

I'm looping RECRUITMENT-MANAGER back in, who will send you more details before your start date on START DATE.

Welcome to the team, and please don't hesitate if you have any questions!

Onboarding kickoff (Admin Specialist)¶

Once the contract signature email (above) has been sent, the Admin Specialist starts the newcomer onboarding process -- this should ideally be done ahead of the Thursday before the beginning of the sprint where the newcomer starts, to give time to the different roles involved to complete the onboarding and create the initial tasks.

Go to the onboarding checklists directory on the drive
Create a new blank checklist for the newcomer, using the template: "New" -> "Google Doc" -> "From a template" -> "Create" -> "_template Onboarding Checklist"
Complete the tasks assigned to the "Admin Specialist" in the checklist.

Rejection email (Admin)¶

If for some reason the candidate doesn't work out, here is a rejection template:

Hi FIRSTNAME,

Thank you again for meeting with me - it was a pleasure to talk to you.

I have just finished reviewing the candidatures, and wanted to let you know that we will unfortunately not be retaining your application. Please do not take it personally - we received a lot of strong profiles, and we do sometimes make mistakes.

In any case, I wish you good luck in your job search, and I hope you end up finding a position that you like!

Generally only provide more feedback if the candidate asks for it — it keeps the discussions simpler in most cases.

Billing onboarding¶

The following sections describe the processes used for onboarding newcomers to OpenCraft's team members billing workflow, used to compensate team members for their work. The billing process is mostly automated using OpenCraft's open-source Accounting app, also known as the "Billing app".

During trial project (no onboarding)¶

When a newcomer first joins the OpenCraft team for their trial project, they send their first invoice manually, to cover the trial project hours only. This is communicated to newcomers in advance, by the Admin Specialist during the 2nd interview.

Billing app onboarding (automated invoices)¶

Once a newcomer has successfully passed their trial project and has been confirmed as a team member, they need need to be onboarded to the Billing app. This will allow the Billing app to generate automated monthly invoices, and the newcomer will get paid automatically, every month, based on hours worked. The onboarding steps are handled by the Admin specialist.

The following section focuses exclusively on the Admin Specialist's tasks for team member onboarding and offboarding. The complete list of team member onboarding and offboarding steps are found on the onboarding and offboarding template.

The first set of tasks is when the newcomer becomes a core member of the OpenCraft team (AKA when they pass their trial).

The second set of tasks is when someone leaves OpenCraft, as we must offboard that user from our tools.

To onboard a new team member in the OpenCraft Billing app, you will need to have the team member's contract at hand. The contract can be found in the Contractors Drive folder, which is only shared with the CEO and the Admin Specialist.

Log into the Billing app to execute the following tasks:

Create a new Django user¶

Create a Django user by going to Authentication → Users → Add.

Use their Jira username as the Django username
Add a random but secure password — no need to note it.
Click Save and continue editing
Add their Full Name and their @opencraft.com email (usually firstname@opencraft.com)
Save

Create and associate a Provider account¶

Create a Provider account to associate the Django user with a Provider account (the entity that will get paid). This is done by going to Account → Accounts → Add + User→ Choose the correct Django/Jira user + Add the user's Address (can be found on the contract) + Business name should be the same as on the contract + Occupation and VAT should be left blank by default + Save

Create an invoice template¶

Create an invoice template by going to Invoices → Invoice templates → Add.

Choose the right Provider, which is the Account you just created.
Set Numbering scheme to {number} by default.
Don't touch the other fields. Newcomers will tell you if they need anything different once they see their first invoice.
Save

Add and activate an hourly rate¶

Add and activate their hourly rate by going to Accounts → Hourly rates→ Add.

Set Hourly rate. The value must be in Euros.
Choose the right Provider, which is the Account you just created.
Set Client to OpenCraft GmbH.
Check the Active box to activate the rate.
Important note on when to activate the rate: When the team members' invoice generation process starts (on the 3rd of the month), invoices will be generated for all users who have the Active box checked. If a newcomer is onboarded early in the month, and has not logged time in the previous month, do not activate their rate until after the team member invoices have been generated (after the 6th of the month). Take a note or schedule a task as a reminder. If the Active box is checked right away, the invoice-generating script will scrape the hours from the previous month and won't find any hours — it will therefore generate a €0 invoice. Our accountants hate €0 invoices, so please avoid them!
Save

Request bank information¶

Ask them for their bank and bank account information.

Always add billing@opencraft.com in CC when discussing billing with team members.

The specific bank account information that we need depends on the country where the bank account is hosted. Here's how to find out what banking information is required:

Log into your Wise account, and click Recipients in the left sidebar, and then click the Add Recipient button in the upper central menu.
Choose Currency, then check Business, and take note of the fields that appear under Bank details — this is the info that you'll need to ask.
If you cannot choose Business, then it means Wise business transfers aren't supported for that currency, and that deposits will have to be made manually by Xavier using the Volksbank account instead. In those cases, warn Xavier by email and ask him to collect the necessary details with the newcomer so that he can set up the transfers manually.

Once you have noted the bank info fields from Wise, send an email to the newcomer, asking them to provide the info, along with:

Bank's BIC/Swift number
Account number or IBAN
Account type (checking or savings)
Currency to be used for deposits. We can do EUR, USD, or local currency. If newcomer wants deposits in EUR or USD, have them confirm that their bank account will accept the currency.

Simple email template to request banking information¶

Hi FIRSTNAME, 

I'm NAME and I handle administration at OpenCraft. Welcome to the team : )

I'm preparing your profile in our billing app, and I'll need your bank information. Can you please provide the following:
(list of info)

Thank you, and let me know if you have any questions!

Once you have obtained the information, add it to the Billing app by following these steps:

Adding a new bank¶

Go to Bank → Banks → Add
Name should be formated like this : #bank_name — #team_member_name, e.g. "Cool Bank Ltd. - Joe Banana"
Add the bank's Address. The address we're looking for here is the one associated with the bank's SWIFT/BIC number. To find the address, use an online tool such as this one, and use the address that is displayed there. This process has proven to give more reliable results than asking the newcomer for their bank's address.
Important note: The country of the bank account must match the Provider's country. If the bank is located in a country that is different from the Provider's address on their contract, a proof of ownership of the bank account must be provided, such as a statement or a letter from the bank.
Save

Adding a bank account¶

Go to Bank → Bank Accounts → Add
Choose the Bank
Choose the Provider
Set account Type to checking or savings, depending on the info provide by the newcomer
The Transferwise recipient ID will be added by Xavier later in the process, no action required at this stage
The Identification field has to be filled out by editing the boilerplate text and adding the values between the quotes (BIC/SWIFT number, Account number, Currency)
Note: if the newcomer provided an IBAN, this is the Account number).
Save
Schedule a task for Xavier to generate a Wise recipient ID, which is used for automated payments. In the task description, link to the newcomer's bank account page in Billing so that Xavier has easy access to the information. If you're onboarding multiple team members within the same month, try to group all requests in the same task so that Xavier can do it in batch. Once done, Xavier will either add the ID himself in the bank account info, or he'll give you the ID and you can go and add it yourself.

Confirming a core team member¶

Add core team member's name and location to the map tool on our website¶

When a team member makes it into the core team, the Recruitment Manager will ping the Admin Specialist to add the new core team member on the website world map tool. Instructions for adding users on the map tool are found in our website theme README. This process requires using a vector drawing editor such as Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator or an online tool such as Method Draw. The team member's current location can be found in the HR contact spreadsheet.

Offboarding - When a user leaves OpenCraft¶

Change tream member's email in the Billing app to their personal email¶

This is done in the Django users config page at Authentication → Users → #user . Their personal email can be found on the last page of their contract.

Remove user from world map¶

Remove the user's name by deleting their line from about.twig (or just their name, if they're in a city where we have multiple team members) and creating a pull request. Ask another team member to review before merging.

Deactivate their rate from the billing system.¶

Once their last payment has been sent, go to the user's hourly rate and uncheck the Active box.

Note: Do this after their last invoice is generated, and before the next invoicing cycle begins (to avoid generating a €0 invoice).

Last update: 2023-03-20