I work as HR at DataLine, including overseeing the recruitment of engineers on duty for the technical support team. We have already talked about the importance of this position for the company. We entrust the duty engineers to check the equipment in the data center and work with clients on the first line. In this position, newcomers gain experience and replenish technical departments: operations, virtualization, networking, cyber defense, and others. For us, the "duty room" is the first step of the career ladder.
Spring 2020 brought two difficulties at once: self-isolation and rapid growth of the company. We need even more people on duty for new data centers, but it is no longer possible to recruit in the usual ways.
Today I will tell you how my colleague Alexandra and I searched for the best engineers at a distance - and, most importantly, found them.
What came before: group selection, excursions, exam
Previously, all engineers on duty were selected in 2 stages before signing the contract: a group interview and introductory training.
On the group interview we invited 12-15 people. The candidates got acquainted with the company and future colleagues, and then solved several cases. In the IT world, many people are skeptical about such interviews. But for us, the format is useful for three reasons:
- We quickly find the right number of "friends". This is the starting position: we are recruiting 5-10 people at once among students and graduates of technical universities. We look less at a resume with work experience, more we evaluate motivation and interest in our field.
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The interview took 6 hours - almost a full working day. But as a result, a ready-made group for training was immediately recruited.
The introductory training lasted 3 days. We took you on a tour of the data center, introduced you to the duties of an engineer on duty, and gave you practical tasks, such as connecting equipment. Future engineers could prove themselves in business and check "mine is not mine."
At the end, the candidates took an exam in theory and practice. If the result is at least 70% of the maximum number of points, you are welcome to a paid internship. Heads of departments were involved in the training: this way you can immediately find interesting candidates for one of the related technical groups.
By the time they were enrolled in the internship, the newcomers already knew what awaited them and what they wanted from the job. Most have used this position to jump-start their IT careers and many have progressed to senior engineers and executives.
What surprises 2020 brought
Long standby
After the introduction of the lockdown, we suspended the recruitment into the duty room and waited until the situation cleared up. But we did not stop building new data centers, so in the summer it took 15 engineers on duty for new sites. It became clear that we could not avoid interviews in the social distance mode.In order not to lose efficiency, it was necessary to solve several difficult tasks in a new format:
- leave cases so that candidates can demonstrate team interaction;
- show our data centers where we have to work;
- introduce future engineers to managers who are located at different sites;
- from the selection, send several people to training at once to organize a group and conduct an exam for everyone at once;
- register employees for an internship in one day. It is enough for a HR specialist to come to the office for one day a week and not risk it again.
We did not consider individual interviews: this would several times increase the amount of work for managers, HR specialists and course teachers.
First online kit: confusion instead of cases
In June, we announced a new set of Duty Engineers online. Interview Scheduled at Cisco Webex: We use this system for remote meetings within the company. How it looked in our head:
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Reality has failed. The acquaintance with the candidates in the common room dragged on. It took more than an hour to listen to 25 people in a row with all the technical overlays. By the end of the interview, we were already having difficulty absorbing information.
On the cases, we needed to split up into groups, but in Webex it turned out to be inconvenient. We used a personalized Webex Personal Room. It was impossible to quickly divide everyone into halls.
Telegram has become a good find for such organizational moments. We added candidate numbers to contacts in advance for quick communication. For cases, we posted lists of candidates by room in the general chat: "You follow the link to Ekaterina's room, you stay in Alexandra's room." But still, people got confused, lost, connected in the wrong place.
The chat also came in handy during the introductory training. The teacher taught the class in Webex and sent lecture notes and additional materials to Telegram, answered questions. The tour of the data center was replaced with a video tour and saved a day of training. Of course, it didn’t turn out as vividly as during the excursion. But you can follow the links and look at a convenient time.
The final exam was conducted on Webex. The senior site engineer stayed in his personal room, while 15 people connected in turns. Not without overlays, too. All newbies had the same link - if you mix up the time, you will get to someone else's exam. For the examiner, the workload was high. At some point, our Anton even began to rejoice at truants.
Towards the end of the first set, we began to look for a Webex replacement so that we could conveniently divide everyone into groups and not overload anyone.
Second online set: impersonal squares
In July, we reviewed our experience and improved a few things:
- We connected more of our employees to the recruitment in order to do several streams of interviews and training.
- changed the site and switched to a corporate account at Zoom. It was more convenient there to divide candidates into 4-5 session halls with one button.
So we immediately reduced the time for an online interview from 4 hours to 2.
In each session room one HR and a senior shift engineer worked. We wanted each candidate to be evaluated by several people and formed an objective opinion. Therefore, after meeting the first group, the HRs and engineers moved to a neighboring group and listened to cases in a new composition.
With the transition to Zoom, there were also technical features. It turned out that attendees with the Zoom web client cannot go to the session rooms. In the text of the invitation letter, we began to add a link to the correct client.
And at first we did not require candidates to connect to a camera. But when one of the calls consisted almost entirely of faceless squares, we added this requirement to the letter. Otherwise it was difficult to understand who was saying what, to remember people.
Online training was conducted in two streams. The study group was divided between two senior engineers, who also took the exam. Before the exam, the children were given a weekend to prepare and a schedule was drawn up in advance. So no one waited for their turn and just connected at the appointed time. The hassle is less.
The second time, everything went faster: we announced recruitment on July 10, and already on July 27, five engineers came to our internship. In the third enrollment in 2 weeks, 15 engineers on duty have already been admitted.
What came of it
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We were afraid that some of the candidates would be eliminated due to technical problems, but this turned out to be insignificant. There was one participant who was unable to connect from the web client and missed all cases. We decided to give him the floor at the very end of the qualifying round. The candidate has solved all the cases and is already training with us.
The answer to the offer from the candidate.
After three streams, we now have working online tools: letters, chat scripts, an interview and training algorithm in Zoom. Now we have packaged this product and are using the developments together with the Rostelecom-DPC team. We plan to recruit people on duty already in our new joint data centers. Spoiler alert: the next such set will be held in St. Petersburg.
Most likely, the format will stay with us for a long time, and we continue to improve it. If someone has had a similar experience, share it in the comments.