We wanted to be totally different and in addition to open communication with all candidates, we decided to offer them and the market something that no one else has.
As part of their recruitment process, IT agency from Zagreb, Croatia, Async Labs, provides technical feedback on the completed task to all candidates, regardless of their further progress in the selection process. No matter the outcome of the task and passage to the next round of selection, all candidates who submitted a solution within the given deadline, receive a detailed review and technical guidance for progress from the Async Labs team.
The importance and impact that a good selection process can have on talent acquisition and general business success, have long been recognized at Async Labs. According to the agency, accessible communication and timely response to all applicants are self-evident, but this part of the process is a completely different story.
Transparency and feedback
Async Labs has been actively implementing this practice of the selection process for four years, making it one of the first and currently rare agencies that implements this practice.
Processes are exactly what makes Async Labs stand out on the market and what gives us continued credibility and ensures success. This type of recruitment process is one of the things that we are extremely proud of as an agency and which has proven to be successful, both for us as an agency and for our potential (and current) team members. – Alen Huskanović, CEO.
Unfortunately, contacting candidates who fall out of the selection, let alone giving them a detailed overview of their success in the selection process and advice on what skills and things they need to work on, is far from common practice in the current market.
The agency points out: People invest their time and energy trying to become part of our team, especially when solving a technical task, which in most cases is a crucial part of the selection process. Letting them know that they didn’t make it to the next round is simply a matter of politeness. However, in many cases, candidates wait weeks, even months, for feedback on the selection, and many never receive it. We wanted to be totally different, and in addition to open communication with candidates, we decided to offer them and the market something that no one else has.
Why should sending technical feedback be considered?
Technical feedback or so-called Code Review has been an important part of the selection process at Async Labs for some time. Transparent and open communication is taken very seriously and they try to implement it in as many internal and external processes as possible.
This means that technical review and feedback is provided to all candidates, in all departments, regardless of whether they have made it to the next round of selection or not. While Code Review is a term related to IT and programming, the principle is the same for any workplace and position.
Head of Development at Async Labs, Vilim Stubičan, has been on the IT scene for many years now. His impression is that there are not many companies that have good and transparent selection processes, and even fewer have a practice of sending technical reviews to all candidates:
It’s not hard to imagine why. The process itself takes a lot of time and resources and with all your daily and weekly work and deadlines, it’s hard to escape the mindset of why to invest extra time and effort into candidates we won’t hire anyway. A good thank you and goodbye email will suffice, right? But the thing is, by providing candidates with feedback and instructions on what to work on, you actually might hire them in the long run.
The best profitable investment is the one in knowledge
Many candidates are pleasantly surprised when they receive detailed feedback on their technical solution, even if they did not make it to the next round of selection. Some of the current employees at Async Labs were hired after the second or third selection process. Now they are the ones who provide technical feedback or Code Reviews to their current and future colleagues.
Every well-done feedback directly or indirectly creates added value, both for us and for the candidate who is part of the process. It happened more than once that candidates applied for the same position more than once, but the second time they were more prepared and applied our constructive criticism. We are always glad to be a part of someone’s growth, especially when we can derive mutual benefit from it. As a team leader, such a process definitely benefits me, because the quality of my colleagues always contributes to my own progress and efficiency in the work itself, points out Bruno Krnetić, Backend Team Lead at Async Labs.
Luka Roštan got a job at Async Labs in his second selection round and has been working as a Frontend Developer for more than a year:
I applied to Async Labs for the first time at the end of 2020, while I was applying to other companies as well. I was surprised by the detailed feedback, because I had never seen it before with any other company. As I was a beginner at the time, the feedback was very useful because it explained to me exactly what would be good to improve or change and where I could find information about it.
The primary goal of providing in-depth technical reviews and growth guidance to all candidates, regardless of the selection result, is to encourage them to work on their skills and possibly reapply in a few months, point out from the agency.
Initial interview with the Cs
Another interesting feature of the selection process at Async Labs is that the initial interview is conducted with the company’s CEO or COO, Alena or Luka. In most cases, this step, if it is even part of the selection process at all, is the last one, while the initial interviews are carried out by HR experts or team leaders.
We want to make a good first impression and present ourselves in a good light to candidates as much as they want to us. This initial interview, as the first step of our selection process, serves as introduction but not only of the candidate, but also us as an agency and an employer, Alen Huskanović, CEO
