How Expensify hires at Warp speed without compromising company culture

2 mins, 56 secs read time

As the fastest growing company in the expense management industry, Expensify has learned how to hire at warp speed without sacrificing quality or compromising our culture. With over $32 billion processed in 2016 and headcount jumping by 80+ in the last two years alone, we’re in a full sprint to spread “expense reports that don’t suck” across the globe.

So how have we supercharged worldwide hiring and kept our culture intact? We’ve crafted a lean, decisive, and transparent candidate experience infused with company values by following three simple principles.

1. Skip the formalities

Expensify’s hiring process begins off the beaten path, as we present the applicant with a series of qualifying questions in lieu of requesting a résumé. We build a profile of each candidate by supplementing role-specific prompts with questions like:

● What do you want to do with your life, and how is Expensify a step toward those long-term goals?

● Pretend you had a month to do whatever you wanted. What would you do? And would this be sufficient time to accomplish the goals you set out to achieve?

The questions are meant to uncover what makes a candidate tick—beyond the bullet points—and create a comfortable, conversational setting for applicants to reveal their character alongside their skill set.

2. Be responsive and available

We don’t like to see candidates stuck in our pipeline, and we’re well aware of those broken hiring processes that stretch for weeks only to spit out an automated rejection email. If we don’t think you’re the right fit at any point, we’ll tell you as soon as we know. If we do think you’re the right fit, we won’t leave you wondering what’s to come. Our average time-to-hire takes three weeks or less!

Internally, we hold ourselves to strict response schedules because we respect the time and effort candidates put into the application process, and we don’t want to leave them waiting longer than necessary or unprepared for the next step. Additionally, regardless of the outcome, all applications are reviewed—yes, by humans—and afforded at least one (again, human) response.

3. Go all in

Once you make it through the initial screening and phone calls, the final step in our hiring process is an all-day immersive interview in one of our global offices. The onsite consists of one-on-one chats and situational challenges that mimic a day in the Expensify life. With the entire team at your side both physically and virtually, you’re provided an immediate support network—and an authentic atmosphere—to use as you see fit throughout your time in the hot seat. It’s the perfect opportunity for both parties to swipe right or left.

At Expensify, we’ve used these three principles to craft a hiring process that swaps the small talk for the big picture, and keeps applicants engaged throughout the pipeline until they’re collaborating with our team during the onsite interview. As a result, we’ve ensured a genuine, thorough candidate experience that pairs nicely with our core cultural values and consistently raises the bar with each new hire.

Expensify is a company focused on sustainable growth in all forms, so we’ve customized a hiring process to fit our needs far into the future. Does your company take a unique approach to hiring as well? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

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