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Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

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Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#71

Your story really resonated with me, because of how similar it is to my own. I also graduated from Canada with a subpar gpa, and struggled a lot finding employment. In the end doing grad school in the US is what opened many doors into the tech industry for me, but I wish I hadn't wasted so many years looking for jobs between undergrad and grad school. I think your startup will do a lot of good in the world. Best of l…

Thank you for sharing and it sucks that you feel you 'wasted' years. I'm glad you found your way into tech and wishing you the best as well :)

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#73
I would like to point out that many people give online assessment tests in groups (cheating). Each person solves one question for the interviewee. That is how most people get jobs. So, assessment tests should be conducted onsite and not online (If possible).

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#75

I would like to point out that many people give online assessment tests in groups (cheating). Each person solves one question for the interviewee. That is how most people get jobs. So, assessment tests should be conducted onsite and not online (If possible).

Yep definitely a fair point. Our assessments are building out full projects (so it's less easy to share answers/ get one person to do one question and another person to do another).

Secondly, we do meet each candidate for a 1-hour virtual call as well just to ensure their skills in person align with those online!

We just know candidates are more comfortable completing assessments in their own environment (which is what they would be doing on the job anyway) so we don't want to dock out points for people who get anxiety for onsite tests.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#76
Hey Jaclyn, congrats on launching this - I think it's a wonderful idea.

Are you based in Canada / Toronto? I'd be happy to meet you and give you some suggestions based on my experience, if you visit the Bay area. My email is my HN username at gmail.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#77

I seriously hope you folks succeed. All the luck to you! Here's my non-traditional story: I've worked on my own personal projects for 10 years, always looking for new challenges. I've dropped out of college after 2 years since it was crystal clear to me that I learned much more when working on my own stuff. I would learn new things in college, but at a much slower pace. I guess it was useful to learn calculus... Anyw…

In my experience, you don't need to be a major contributor to an open source project to gain notice. I've only 3-5 minor contributions (work rules generally preclude me from being more active) While my contributions haven't been large in terms of LOC, nor have I added new features, I have identified, debugged and supplied patches for bugs. I mean, I did this out of self interest, of course. A defect in a certain DB l…

I would add one more thing: if you contribute patches to an OSS, you are already working with people who can help you find a job and skip the HR part.

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#79
Hey Jaclyn -

I think this is amazing! I'm all for challenging the existing recruiting status quo! I personally found it extremely difficult to pivot out of one industry and trying to break into another. I went through the standard process of getting a degree, doing internships, maintaining GPA, and receiving an offer upon graduation. When I graduated, my target industry essentially cratered, my offer was rescinded, and I was a bit lost. After some research/self-prep, I decided that the tech sector was where I wanted to be. After doing a temp stint in IT admin, some MOOC’s, and personal side-projects, I still found it extremely challenging to pivot into. I didn’t know what else to do other than to go back to school and basically go through the exact same funnel as before, which is what I ended up doing. This isn’t a feasible option for a lot of people and I think one (of many) ways your platform provides value is accessibility.

That being said, I had a few questions from both a candidate’s and employer’s perspective:

- How does Hatchaways compete with the timelines of the conventional recruiting method (i.e. ~1-2 months vs your model of interning)?

- If a candidate realizes that the opportunity may not be a good fit (from his/her side), will Hatchaways connect them with another prospective employer for another Hatchaways recruiting cycle (i.e. internship) once the first one is complete?

- How does Hatchaways enable employers to assess multiple candidates for the same position at once?

- Is there a penalty to employers if business needs change halfway through the assessment (i.e. the job that the candidate is being assessed for no longer exists)?

- How are employers affected when a candidate begins an internship part of the way, only to get a full time job at another company?

Would love to chat more about this and I’m really excited to see where you take this!

Best R

Re: Launch HN: Hatchways (YC S19) – Internships Instead of Interviews

#80
post #79

Hey Jaclyn - I think this is amazing! I'm all for challenging the existing recruiting status quo! I personally found it extremely difficult to pivot out of one industry and trying to break into another. I went through the standard process of getting a degree, doing internships, maintaining GPA, and receiving an offer upon graduation. When I graduated, my target industry essentially cratered, my offer was rescinded, a…

I was really touched to read your story. Thank you for sharing your challenges, and particularly around how you felt the only other option was to go back to school just to get the opportunities one would get by being a 'student'.

Here are answers to your questions:

-Most of our candidates will receive an offer in less than a week since we are able to shorten the interview cycle

-Yes definitely-- if a candidate doesn't like where they interned at, they are always welcome to come back on to our platform to get matched with more employers for a new internship

-We usually match employers with 2-4 candidates we think suit what they are looking for. We get them to interview them back to back (similar to the Waterloo co-op system) so they can evaluate and interview fairly, as well as make a decision quickly (hopefully by the end of that day)

-There is a penalty if an employer provides an offer to a candidate and in between the time they make an offer and the start date-- they pay half of the entire internship salary to the candidate

-Good last question-- this has not happened yet with us. Most employers are actually quite open and let our candidates know that they are allowed to interview and even accept other offers. I believe that most employers at the end of the day only want to hire candidates who want to be work for them, so if they are curious about other companies and want to take another offer, it probably wasn't a good fit to start with!

Thanks so much for your feedback, would love to answer any more questions you might have!

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