Thank you very much for taking the time to read my piece closely and leave such a detailed remark Isabela!
Your comment here and the article to which you link both point to various important factors that startup founders should consider whenever engaged in hiring, including:
- Why, exactly, are you assigning (late-stage) candidates small projects or tasks? That is, what is the major objective of having potential hires complete one or more assignments before you possibly hire them? The reason(s) underlying your request for a demonstration of work are directly relevant to the kind of work you can appropriately ask them to execute.
- When, if ever, is it reasonable to expect potential hires to complete free work for you? And what is the status of that work — especially from the perspective of ownership — when a candidate is ultimately not hired for the position?
- When, if ever, is it appropriate to assign candidates one or more projects as a substitution for their portfolios? In other words, when is a candidate’s portfolio an insufficient indication of his/her abilities and talents? (Here I’m using the word “portfolio” in a generic sense to refer to a candidate’s collection of past work).
Finally, I absolutely agree with what you say in the following text:
“The candidate should have the opportunity to see your office, meet the potential colleagues, and have a conversation with you before committing to doing extra work for you. They need to decide if they want to work for you, and that’s hard to do without actually having an on-site meeting. … [H]ow can [late stage potential hires] decide if they really want to work for you, if they haven’t even visited the office yet?”.
This underscores something that perhaps I could have emphasized a bit more strongly in my article, i.e., that going beyond merely interviewing candidates to the point of having them engage in on-site (and potentially at-home) projects should essentially only ever take place once a founder has significantly narrowed down the number of people he/she is considering for the position and must then make a final decision on who to hire.
