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How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

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Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#2
My 2c as a former Gusto employee:

The watermelon interview was no joke and not a rubber stamp. I wasn't on the watermelon crew but it was a real badge of honor at Gusto to "represent" Gusto's values.

When we hired 200+ people from 2015-2016 across two offices, the watermelon interview was critical to make sure we were hiring the right culture fit Gusties.

Glad to see this covered by FRV and posted on HN.

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#3
These First Round content marketing articles are uniformly ridiculous, yet they consistently make the HN front page.

I mean guys they are telling you to “groom watermelon farmers“ with a straight face as business advice. I feel like like Mike Judge would have tossed that line out as too over the top.

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#4

My 2c as a former Gusto employee: The watermelon interview was no joke and not a rubber stamp. I wasn't on the watermelon crew but it was a real badge of honor at Gusto to "represent" Gusto's values. When we hired 200+ people from 2015-2016 across two offices, the watermelon interview was critical to make sure we were hiring the right culture fit Gusties. Glad to see this covered by FRV and posted on HN.

It's not surprising that it works. It's pretty similar to how henry schein grew and kept its culture. They do the same thing in many ways, looking for compatible culture, during acquisitions as well.

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#5
post #3

These First Round content marketing articles are uniformly ridiculous, yet they consistently make the HN front page. I mean guys they are telling you to “groom watermelon farmers“ with a straight face as business advice. I feel like like Mike Judge would have tossed that line out as too over the top.

The first round writer didn't make up the watermelons. That was a tradition Gusto had since one of their first hires.

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#7
post #3

These First Round content marketing articles are uniformly ridiculous, yet they consistently make the HN front page. I mean guys they are telling you to “groom watermelon farmers“ with a straight face as business advice. I feel like like Mike Judge would have tossed that line out as too over the top.

They don't consistently make the HN front page, or even come close. Looks like 4 out of 30 articles in the last 8 months:

https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=firstround.com

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#8
post #3

These First Round content marketing articles are uniformly ridiculous, yet they consistently make the HN front page. I mean guys they are telling you to “groom watermelon farmers“ with a straight face as business advice. I feel like like Mike Judge would have tossed that line out as too over the top.

[deleted]

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#9
post #6

> "service mindset, intellectual curiosity, no ego and the ability to embrace change" How does one evaluate a candidate fairly across these 4 traits in a 30 minute interview? This type of Cultural Fit interview seem pretty fraught with unconscious bias...

How do you know if it’s a thirty minute interview? My company does a four hour set of interviews; that’s not rare.

Re: How Gusto Built Scalable Hiring Practices Rooted in Tradition

#10
post #6

> "service mindset, intellectual curiosity, no ego and the ability to embrace change" How does one evaluate a candidate fairly across these 4 traits in a 30 minute interview? This type of Cultural Fit interview seem pretty fraught with unconscious bias...

Have multiple diverse interviewers. Calibrate everyone with relatively standard questions by shadowing other interviews. Have everyone write feedback and justify their viewpoint with data from the candidate responses. Make them enter written feedback blind without talking to each other and then combine the feedback at the debrief.
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