Project One
Product Designer at FinTech Startup
Timeline: August 2024 (9 Day Time-to-fill)
Overview
Named one of the fastest growing startups in North America, a mobile commerce and fintech solution platform contacted Onward Search to help hire a Product Designer.
This was a critical hire for their team. They needed a full stack designer who could generate high-fidelity prototypes, partner with UX research on customer interviews, contribute UI components to existing design libraries, create animations in Figma, and present their findings to design leadership / C-Suite stakeholders.
Additional Barriers:
At the time, I had already been working on several other reqs at Onward Play (Onward Search’s Gaming Division). I was tapped in to help secure a Product Designer for this Fintech startup within a two-week timeline.
Goal One: Identify A Viable Candidate Fast
After researching the company and job intake notes, I jumped on LinkedIn Recruiter and applied a complex Boolean search string with the goal of finding a viable candidate before end of day.
Developing a personalized template that spoke succinctly and accurately to the role, I reached out to a select number of Product Designers whose experience and portfolios aligned. One of them, a former PayPal employee, responded to my message within 13 minutes to set up a prescreen.
During our initial call, she mentioned she was approaching final round interviews at three other companies, but the opportunity I presented her (the team structure, company mission, and product itself) was intriguing enough to get her into process.
Goal Two: Impress the Hiring Team
Beyond the hard skills required for this role, the hiring managers also requested a Product Designer who could optimize user conversion through data-driven experiments.
This was a very specific requirement that needed addressed. During my prescreen with the candidate, I asked her to walk me through, in granular detail, her involvement with data-driven experiments at PayPal. I condensed the information she gave me and highlighted it in a write-up that was presented to startup's hiring team.
Within 24 hours, she was selected for a first-round interview.
Goal Three: Navigate Competing Offers:
After three rounds of interviews and numerous interview preps / debriefs packed into a one-week timeframe, an offer was extended to the candidate.
She now had three offers in hand, including a very enticing one from a MAANG company. I gave her space to think it over but also scheduled a follow-up call with her. It was important we respected the startup’s hiring team with a reasonable timeline on an answer, but I also didn't want the candidate to feel overly pressured.
Prior to our final follow-up call, I advised her to reflect on the points she raised to me during our prescreen - the things that would gravitate her to taking one offer above the rest: what kind of design challenges excited her, what did her ideal team look like, what future work would she want to see on her portfolio, etc.
Before our scheduled call could even take place, the candidate preemptively reached out to inform me she was excited to take the offer 🚀
Project Two
Technical Game Designer at a AAA Game Developer
Timeline: January 2024 - April 2024
Overview
The Head of Talent Acquisition at an independent AAA studio (who was also an acquaintance I had made from networking in the gaming industry) reached out for help filling a role on her team.
They needed to hire a designer-programmer hybrid with prior experience improving core gameplay, systems, and tools in either Unreal or any C++ based proprietary game engine.
The role had been open for months with no success.
Their MMO currently had 7 million daily active users, so experience working on live games was a must. The art style of their game was also a very distinct one. This new hire would need to have a portfolio showcasing work with a similar aesthetic.
Additional Barriers:
During my intake call with their Head of TA, I was told their studio’s hiring process sometimes took up to 8 weeks, much longer than the average cycle.
Additionally, a few candidates who made it to final rounds ended up getting declined by the CEO, who was very protective of the culture they built.
Goal One: Grasping the Aesthetic
My primary objective was understanding their unique art style, which stood out from other MMO’s. I googled the title of their game along with “art style” and discovered a YouTube video where game devs from their studio explained the intentionality and process behind their designs.
One week into the search, I had identified 3 viable candidates with C++ scripting and live game experience, but one whose art style aligned best.
This Technical Game Designer had no online portfolio. Without one, he wouldn’t get an interview. I advised him to take the weekend to put together a few case studies with visual screenshots and succinct walkthroughs of his involvement in those projects. After sending his work to the hiring manager, we immediately received an HR screening request.
Goal Two: Keeping the Candidate Engaged / Prepared
What transpired next was a five-round interview process, including an intensive design/coding challenge, that spanned close to two months.
After each interview, the studio was allowed up to one week to return with feedback on next steps. This was non-negotiable on their end. The team had a heavy workload and they didn’t want to make rash decisions for this hire.
I kept a weekly cadence with both the candidate and the studio’s Head of TA. On the candidate side, I held both interview preps for any upcoming loops and interview debriefs following every chat, also checking in on any interview activity they had with other studios/companies each time we spoke. On the hiring manager side, I continuously asked for any relevant information they had to help prepare the candidate for each loop, and also inquired about any candidates they had in process on their side.
By April 1st, ten weeks after my initial outreach to the candidate, they were headed into final rounds with the CEO.
Four days after that conversation, the studio’s Head of TA came back with a verbal offer 🚀
Project Three
Senior Full Stack Engineer at HitTrax
Timeline: June 2024 - August 2024
Overview
HitTrax, a baseball simulation system that provides advanced metrics to improve player performance, approached Onward Play to help them hire a Senior Full Stack Engineer.
Their team needed someone experienced with Unity, SQL, C#, Python and exposure to networking and multiplayer environments.
Additional Barriers:
The engineer would need to work on-site in Northampton, Massachusetts, dramatically lowering the volume of viable candidates.
Goal One: Addressing the Communication Gap
Over the course of one month, the other recruiters on the Onward Play team managed to get 6 candidates in process for this role. All 6 candidates were declined after first rounds. The team clearly had issues calibrating to the profile of what HitTrax was looking for.
I decided to communicate directly with the Lead Engineer and CTO at HitTrax to get better insight as to why the candidates were all getting rejected.
In that interaction, I discovered there had been a misunderstanding on the Onward Play team member’s side during the intake call whenever they brought in this role.
The Play recruitment team had been under the impression they were looking for an Engineer with a Unity background strictly in gaming or VR.
What I learned was that HitTrax was looking for an Engineer who ideally worked on a data/analytical software as opposed to a VR product since the two development environments are fundamentally different. This changed the sourcing criteria.
Goal Two: Recalibrating
I ran a combination of various Boolean search strings on LinkedIn Recruiter and identified / reached out to an Senior Engineer who was passively on the market. They were local to the area, possessed the tech stack, and had a background in both gaming and data-rich applications.
Our prescreen call was a tense one. Here was an Engineer who clearly had bad experiences with recruiters in the past. He grilled me quite hard on the role and requirements, but I had done my research and was able to address all of his questions.
Upon presenting the engineer’s profile to the hiring team, an interview was immediately requested.
Goal Three: Candidate Control
The interview process was two steps - an initial virtual meet with the Lead Engineer, CTO, and Co-Founder, followed by an in-person conversation that involved a whiteboard exercise and demo of their product.
Because of the team’s prior commitments, there was a two and half week gap in between both interviews.
Beyond the interview preparations and debriefs I had with the candidate, I suggested a phone call with him during the longer wait period between interviews. The conversation was a multipurpose one - grab an update on the candidate’s interview activity elsewhere, reconfirm their interest in HitTrax, and further strengthen an authentic relationship with them.
Four hours after the final round interview, an offer was extended and happily accepted by the candidate. It was great to see how things evolved. The candidate had gone from guarded / untrusting during our initial interaction to warm and appreciative, even to the extent where he began referring multiple engineers my way.
Project Four
Qualitative Work at Meta
Overview
Timeline: April 2022 - May 2023
During my onboarding/calibration phase at Meta, I managed to secure a high-confidence hire decision for an IC5 (Senior Level) Product Designer. I was elated to have been ahead of the curve.
Unfortunately, all hiring for IC5 candidates froze as soon as the offer was verbally accepted.
Our team had to pivot over to sourcing IC6+ (Lead Level and above) Product Designers. During that time, I managed to get five IC6 Product Designers in final loops.
Unfortunately at this point, all hiring for IC6+ froze, along with all other roles.
With no reqs to work on for the time being, I proactively raised my hand to take on any available qualitative work.
The project I landed involved the internal audit of a research hub that impacted all Product Design Sourcers and Recruiters across the entire Meta org.
Goal One: Make A Plan
The overall goal of the Google Hub RockStar Committee was to review existing resources and links and deprecate any outdated or duplicated information.
I partnered with a sourcer on my team to audit the “Top of Funnel” section that would appear in the GDrive Resource Hub. Our intended audience were Sourcers and Recruiters across Product Design who were interested in educating themselves on Top of Funnel recruitment through the Product Design Resource Hub page. Our goal was to ensure all information in our internal GDrive was up to date by cross referencing with several other pre-existing internal folders. Because there were six folders in total to audit, I suggested to my colleague that we divide and conquer, taking three folders each.
In order to stay organized and to keep track of scope creep, I recommended starting a working document and tracker. Within the working document, I came up with driving questions to determine if it made sense to keep the content or remove. I also suggested we keep a weekly cadence with an end goal of having all 6 folders completed in a three week time frame. We completed the project in two weeks.
Goal Two: Volunteer for More Qual Work
In addition to the Top of Funnel Audit that I co-owned, I also volunteered to own the “Metaverse Updates” section of the Product Design Resource Hub. The intended audience for this project were Sourcers and Recruiters across Product Design who were interested in the latest news and resources related to the Metaverse.
I created a working document to track and give visibility of my progress with the QB of the project. Within the working document, I would include the important resources that needed to be added.
After connecting with the QB to understand more about the intentions of motivators of this project, I proceeded to scour Meta’s internal Wiki and various Workplace groups for any interesting content related to the Metaverse. I would find resources and then connect with the QB to ensure it made sense to add the resource to the GDrive.
Unfortunately, the overall project couldn’t be completed as the layoffs at Meta were announced, but there was a great deal of impact and progress we were able to make on the GDrive! 🙌🏼
Project Five
VP of Creative at Stealth Tech Startup
Timeline: October 2019 - April 2020
Overview:
A well-funded tech platform started by ex-FAANG employees had a highly confidential search for a VP, Creative.
They tapped Onward Search to help them with this critical hire.
Additional Barriers:
Their budget at the time allowed them a lower compensation point for someone at the VP level - $150k.
They were an unknown platform who hadn’t proved successful yet but wanted to hire someone from a prominent brand.
Goal 1: Convincing The Right Person
Before the job was even published online, I had an idea of who I wanted to present to the hiring team.
This candidate was already in my existing network, previously introduced to me by a mutual friend.
He worked at a prominent brand specifically mentioned by the hiring team during the intake call. He was not on the job market, though, and had been targeting $200k to entertain any interviews, which was $50k over budget.
Also - he was skittish about startups in general. But I walked him through as many general positive points as I could about the product and a vague high-level on their founders. It was enough to get him interested in an interview and sign an NDA.
Goal Two: Manage A 6-Month Timeline
In the true spirit of startup ambiguity, business needs were changing often and the scope of the role continued to evolve.
This caused a six-round interview process to drag across half a year.
The fact that this candidate wasn’t on the job market, not even passively, proved to be a blessing. I got him to agree to a cadence of communication that wasn’t too overwhelming for him.
This resulted in many email exchanges and the occasional post-dinner phone call to discuss updates on the role, how he felt about the team, and even how we were getting on in our personal lives (we became friends at this point).
No matter how radically the role changed, the candidate had unwavering patience. By the end of the 6 months, the team’s budget allowed them to make an offer to the candidate at $240k, which he happily accepted.
This situation instilled confidence in the stealth startup to partner with us on four other key hires for their team.