Comment by rll163 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rll163 | Hacker News Reader

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Hey Jaclyn -

I think this is amazing! I'm all for challenging the existing recruiting status quo! I personally found it extremely difficult to pivot out of one industry and trying to break into another. I went through the standard process of getting a degree, doing internships, maintaining GPA, and receiving an offer upon graduation. When I graduated, my target industry essentially cratered, my offer was rescinded, and I was a bit lost. After some research/self-prep, I decided that the tech sector was where I wanted to be. After doing a temp stint in IT admin, some MOOC’s, and personal side-projects, I still found it extremely challenging to pivot into. I didn’t know what else to do other than to go back to school and basically go through the exact same funnel as before, which is what I ended up doing. This isn’t a feasible option for a lot of people and I think one (of many) ways your platform provides value is accessibility.

That being said, I had a few questions from both a candidate’s and employer’s perspective:

- How does Hatchaways compete with the timelines of the conventional recruiting method (i.e. ~1-2 months vs your model of interning)?

- If a candidate realizes that the opportunity may not be a good fit (from his/her side), will Hatchaways connect them with another prospective employer for another Hatchaways recruiting cycle (i.e. internship) once the first one is complete?

- How does Hatchaways enable employers to assess multiple candidates for the same position at once?

- Is there a penalty to employers if business needs change halfway through the assessment (i.e. the job that the candidate is being assessed for no longer exists)?

- How are employers affected when a candidate begins an internship part of the way, only to get a full time job at another company?

Would love to chat more about this and I’m really excited to see where you take this!

Best R

I was really touched to read your story. Thank you for sharing your challenges, and particularly around how you felt the only other option was to go back to school just to get the opportunities one would get by being a 'student'.

Here are answers to your questions:

-Most of our candidates will receive an offer in less than a week since we are able to shorten the interview cycle

-Yes definitely-- if a candidate doesn't like where they interned at, they are always welcome to come back on to our platform to get matched with more employers for a new internship

-We usually match employers with 2-4 candidates we think suit what they are looking for. We get them to interview them back to back (similar to the Waterloo co-op system) so they can evaluate and interview fairly, as well as make a decision quickly (hopefully by the end of that day)

-There is a penalty if an employer provides an offer to a candidate and in between the time they make an offer and the start date-- they pay half of the entire internship salary to the candidate

-Good last question-- this has not happened yet with us. Most employers are actually quite open and let our candidates know that they are allowed to interview and even accept other offers. I believe that most employers at the end of the day only want to hire candidates who want to be work for them, so if they are curious about other companies and want to take another offer, it probably wasn't a good fit to start with!

Thanks so much for your feedback, would love to answer any more questions you might have!

Thanks for the quick reply. Had a few more questions, out of curiosity!

- Does Hatchaways provide support to candidates with regards to salary negotiations? A common method is to have multiple competing offer and it may be difficult for candidates to go through conventional interviews when they are going through the more immersive Hatchaway cycle.

- Does Hatchaways provide health insurance to candidates while they are in the 'internship-phase' of the recruitment process to full time?

-- R

- we generally give an average salary to expect depending on your skill level/ experience level, so both the candidate and employer going in with a similar expectation.

-at this time we don't offer health insurance but some of our companies still do during the 'trial phase'. It's something worth thinking about for the future though, thanks!

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