Hiring

Details of Rocketium's hiring process

Guiding principles

These are a few guiding principles for the hiring team at Rocketium.

• Treat candidates the way you want to be treated - Interviews are a source of stress even for the most confident and accomplished candidates. We have all been on the other side of the table with good and bad interviewers. Be the sort of interviewer that you want to have.

• Candidates are evaluating you as much as you are evaluating them - Do not make the entire interview a one-way evaluation. Give candidates the opportunity to learn more about you, your work, and your vision.

• Give feedback when you can - Not everyone likes getting feedback especially if they did poorly in an interview. Feedback is a precious gift that few people give. Skip the "Your profile did not fit with the role" and give real feedback that tells candidates why you were unable to proceed further with them.

• Standardise what you evaluate and how you do it - It is good to tailor the conversation so it does not feel robotic. However, it is important to maintain a standard set of evaluation criteria that depend on the role and seniority to avoid subtle biases. This also simplifies the debriefing process by ensuring that everyone is talking the same language.

• Prioritise culture fit - Our Prime Directives are a good guide to the sort of person who will be successful at Rocketium. They are broad enough to encourage diversity of thought and action but specific enough to disqualify people who will likely not see Rocketium as the right place for themselves.

Stages in the hiring process

Rocketium's typical hiring process involves the following steps:-

1. Discovery call (Video/Phone call)

2. Interview I (Video call)

3. Take-home project (Case-by-case basis)

4. Interview II - Team Interactions (In-person)

5. Other Interactions

Discovery call

This call is with our people success team or the hiring manager. The purpose of this call is to establish a broad fit for both, you and us. We try to establish whether we meet your expectations of role, culture, responsibilities, compensation, and any other areas important for you to know before investing time into the process. We intend to understand how can the role you're interviewing for help in meeting both of our expectations.

During this conversation, you can also learn about some of our product's use cases, the kind of customers we work with, team size & structure, and more...

Interview I

These interviews happen with one or two teammates at a time and are intended to understand your technical grasp of competencies imperative for the role. This is also a good opportunity to brainstorm ideas and have a good back-and-forth about how your experience from past projects can bring innovative solutions to the problems we're trying to solve.

Take-home project (case-by-case basis)

This is a controversial topic. As a candidate, we would hate to do "homework" for every company we speak with. However, we believe this is a critical part of the process. We make sure projects are representative of the eventual work that you will do at Rocketium. Sometimes, these projects are nothing more than a planning exercise for your actual job. This gives both parties clarity about what you will eventually do, how you will do it, what support you need, and if this partnership will eventually be successful. We try to be respectful of your time - we pick projects that will take 3-5 hours of effort and let you tell us when you will complete it.

This stage is not mandatory for all roles and is looped in the process for positions that demand a kickstart for deeper technical discussions. For e.g. Product, Sales, Customer Success.

Interview II - Team Interactions (In-person)

We believe in more than just hiring employees – we're building a team of exceptional performers. That's why we've designed the second stage of our interview process to be a unique and interactive experience, tailored to bring out the best in our candidates.

During this stage, you'll have the opportunity to connect with as many stakeholders as possible. You'll engage in meaningful conversations and learn about the pain points and opportunity areas in each of their functions. But, it's not just about the formalities. It's about having genuine conversations, sharing ideas, and demonstrating your ability to adapt and collaborate with different teams. It's not just about impressing us with your skills and qualifications; it's about showing us who you are, and your thought process.

The end goal is for you to present you to put your learnings together and present them in the form of a solution as a whole.

Other interactions

We typically schedule time with members of other teams with whom you will work or founders. This gives them an opportunity to evaluate culture fit and candidates the opportunity to get a sneak peek of the other teammates with whom they will work. This is a good place to have candid conversations about what they like, what they saw change, and what they would like to see change.

Note: The nuances in each of these stages can be influenced by the seniority of the position or the nature of the function you’re interviewing for.

Interview tips

This advice is specific to Rocketium because of how we operate. Other companies may not respond the same way that we do. However, we think this is good career advice in general.

• Be clear about why you are looking for a change - We are not looking for the "right" answer. What we care about are the specific reasons that made you consider moving instead of changing things in your current role. For all you know, Rocketium will have the same conditions that made you leave your current role. Being as open as possible here will help us avoid pitfalls down the road.

• Read up on the company, especially its culture - You are more than your home, car, gadgets, and other belongings. The same way, a company is more than its offices, revenue, or stock price. The company is the people who are working in it. This means it is critical for you to know how they work and why they work a certain way. Our culture code captures some of our guiding principles.
• Remember that you are making a big investment - Investors invest in multiple companies but you work only for one at a time. In many ways, you are making a far bigger investment than investors by committing your reputation, time, and mind space to the company. Do your research and ask enough questions so you are convinced this is the right step.