From Xero to Hero

Edit: My thanks to Philip from Xero for adding a comment to this blog post, and then sending me his feedback from the interview process yesterday afternoon. I'd like to add that I think the Xero guys do a fantastic job and that I wish them every success in their search for more fantastic people, and their progress to the top table of web applications - they do great work and my experiences in the process I outlined below are I'm sure anomalous to the way the company operates in general terms.

Having decided a couple of months ago that I would begin to look for a new challenge in my professional life, I had dealings with two companies with whom positions were available for someone fitting my broad description. Those two companies were Xero, and booking.com, and I'd like to just offer here a comparison of the processes I encountered with the two organisations.

nb: I should say at the outset that I have been offered and have accepted a job at booking.com, though I hope that fact does not get in the way of my accurate reporting of my experiences with both companies. I appreciate that I could seem embittered by my experiences; I have made deliberate efforts to offer a factual representation of events, and my considered opinion as to their significance.

I learnt that Xero were looking for design staff through twitter, and made arrangements with the head of the design team to drop in to their Wellington office to have an initial, informal chat about what I was looking for, my processes and philosophies and what xero were looking for in the role they were seeking to fill. It was a pleasant chat, I talked about my work for my current employer, the key tenets of my professional outlook and the things I consider important for my satisfaction in my work. I guess it must have gone well since the folks at xero next asked me to do some spec work for them in the guise of a practical test of my skills.

The task was two-fold: Conduct some research into the xero product and offer feedback as to what did and didn't work with the site and product, and then propose an overhaul of a single page within the xero application using wireframes, sketches or design work as I saw fit. I was reluctant to agree, spec work being spec work, but decided that the potential position at the end of the process would be worth the unease I'd feel at completing work for xero without any form of compensation.

In all I spent about eight hours completing the task.

I submitted interactive sketches notated with my thinking, block level wireframes outlining the key aspects of my approach and my report on the xero site. I waited a while for feedback and after a bit of discussion was asked to do a further piece of work, this time a more complete design piece for the same page of the xero product at the centre of the previous task. Again, I was reluctant. Purely from the point of view of fitting this stuff in around my busy job and busy life was tricky - but again the increasingly more likely prospect of securing a position with a company so feted for ‘doing things right' was too big a lure to ignore. I spent another eight or so hours working on design work, which I submitted a few days later to the Head of Design at Xero. I didn't hear anything back for a while, and followed up, keen to make sure that my 16 hours of work was indeed being appraised and that a process was ongoing within Xero which I hoped would lead to my being offered a job, or at the least being invited for a further, formal interview.

A couple of weeks passed and I got an email from the Head of Design at Xero to inform me that they would not be continuing with the process due to ‘some concerns', and that they would be ‘happy to provide some feedback at to what they were should I wish'. I was surprised to say the least, having been very generous with my time and having submitted a high quality of work on a blind task. I asked for the afore mentioned feedback; suggesting that I should like to know what areas they felt I could improve upon, as much for my professional progress as anything else. That feedback failed to materialise despite my following up on that offer on at least two further occasions.

To say the process left a sour taste would be an understatement, and I should have listened to the conventional wisdom which suggests one should never work for free, even if there is a potentially lucrative position at the end of it. I should have inferred from the request that this company - a shining light in the New Zealand digital industry - were perhaps less than I had expected in that regard. I was however accepting of the decision. Sometimes you're just not a good fit, or your technical styles aren't a good match for an organisation, or any number of acceptable and understandable and often sensible reasons.

What I don't accept however is that having occupied my time and effort in 16 hours of free work - plus the additional time spent attending the informal interview - is that it is too much to expect the courtesy of an email explaining why at the summation of that process it had been decided that I was not a good fit for the organisation. That strikes me as being a pretty shoddy way of operating, and not something one would expect if they were - as I am - familiar with the image Xero portrays of itself as an organisation and an employer. An email was the least I could expect in return for my considerable effort. I didn't get one, I didn't get anything from Xero at all. The next I saw of them was at Webstock where they would be again on the lookout for design staff who would no doubt also be asked to give up a slice of their free time for the same process to which I now feel unfortunate to have consented.

Having moved on from that rather souring experience, I decided for a number of personal and professional reasons that my next career move would be back in Europe, and put the feelers out across my professional network for potential roles in that part of the world. I was invited to submit my CV to booking.com where positions were available and after sitting for a phone interview with two members of the technical team was invited to fly to Amsterdam to interview formally for the position.

In all I had three interviews, two concentrating on my technical abilities as they related to the specific job, and my suitability in working in the unique environment of the company. The third interview was with one of the directors, focusing on how I would fit into the business and offering a glimpse into how it operated. I spent three days at the company's expense in Amsterdam, and flew back to New Zealand with a job offer in hand and enthusiastic about working for a company which had seemed at every point to be operating in a respectful, sensible manner to even those people who weren't yet on the payroll.

To say that the two processes were miles apart would be to understate the distinction. Booking.com treated me throughout the process as a skilled individual who could add value and expertise to their team, and treated the interview process as an opportunity to examine how I as a person would fit into their organisation.

The feeling was that whilst I could prove easily that I had the technical ability to do the job, mentality was an equally important consideration for booking.com in making their hiring decisions. With Xero the process seemed to concentrate entirely on the technical aspects of the position available; obsessing over the minutiae and ignoring the fact that someone who has been working in our industry for a decade is able to adapt, and that what is actually important is if that person is passionate about their profession and wants above all else to do great work.

Without the privilege of knowing what Xero's reservations in hiring me were I can only speculate, but I would suggest that given the nature of the hiring process I outlined above, it could only be of some technical consideration which I contest to the importance of. I'm not so old a dog & in our field of work one is always learning new tricks. That is why this is such a great profession to be in - to be constantly learning, improving and progressing. I have said in previous posts here that as far as I'm concerned an organisation should be looking for the best people they can find, wherever and whatever they happen to be. Without wanting to seem cocksure and immodest, I'd suggest Xero might have missed a trick in my case.

That all being said, I'm delighted, thrilled and really quite excited to be leaving Wellington for Amsterdam and starting a new job with a company who impressed me so greatly in the hiring process. I always think that treating people (staff, suppliers, customers, employees) right is half of the battle for any business; it speaks volumes for a potential employer when they treat their prospective employees with the respect that I was shown in Amsterdam. I'd suggest that Xero could learn a lesson or two from the likes of booking.com if they truly aspire to be held in that same regard. If they really want to attract the most talented people from all over the world, they need to have better processes in place to (a) not insult them with the kind of shoddy treatment I've talked about here, and (b) to deal with those who aren't a suitable fit for the company in the correct, respectful manner which they are right to expect.