We're Hiring! : SPIT-MCA interviews...

As we begin to ramp up activities at our young but effervescent start-up, we realized we'll need a few more hands (and brains) to help us achieve our targets. So, we reached out to the MCA students at Sardar Patel Institute of Technology with the opportunity to intern with Last-Bench! and get a taste of the start-up environment. We were thrilled with the response and the talent on display left us quite impressed. Here's a gist of the entire experience...

At Last-Bench!, we love reaching out to people! Why?, you might ask. Well, it's quite simple! Since our inception we've realized a couple things- first, when you interact with people you always LEARN something new (and we're all gung-ho about learning, remember? :P) and second, people are the centre of all our activities! So, when the memo came by to add more personnel to strengthen the LB fort, we decided that people would be the best choice for the job (though we are BIG fans of Animal Farm). [Yes, we apologize  for the below-par humour and would like to add that we are in the process of hiring an intern who is funnier than we are :D]

But, on a more serious note, there's a lot happening at Last-Bench! and we've reached a point where we need to expand our team to ensure our plans don't go awry. Being a start-up, we strive to attain that perfect balance of ability (of team members) , efficiency and allocation of resources! Get one aspect wrong and you could see your plans come crashing down to earth faster than a Concorde. So, when we heard from SPIT that their MCA batch would be available for internships starting next year, we heaved a sigh of relief. We were looking for graphic designers, web engineers and mobile developers and knew right away that we would be able to get some fresh ideas flowing in without having to crack open our piggy bank.  The students of SPIT-MCA were, simply put, the perfect fit. 

The Hiring Process:

Life in a startup is exciting. There's no two ways about that. The experience and work environment is undoubtedly the biggest attraction, but we still need to provide all the applicants with an idea of what they can expect at the job. So, we decided to give a short pre-placement talk to all the applicants and clearly highlight the company ethos and work culture. Rajeev , our CEO, spoke about all things Last-Bench!- our story, mission and philosophy and Venkat , our CMO, spoke about our current offering- MANAGE WHAT. 

In order to bring out the best in each applicant (and also to level the playing field), we thought it is imperative to test their application and creativity along with their technical expertise. We decided to use a three-stage hiring process for each of the positions we were looking to fill, as shown below : 

Final Thoughts:

The first round (interviews) was held immediately after the pre-placement talk. The Graphic designers/Animators were interviewed by Sajid, our COO, while the remaining applicants were interviewed by Rajeev. The applicants who made the cut and progressed to the second round, were e-mailed the short assignment (depending on the position they applied to). We now await their completed assignments before creating the final list of interns. 

Here is what Rajeev & Sajid had to say about their interviewing experience:

Rajeev:

Overall, the experience was very interesting yet very varied! For many of them it was their first ever interview. I saw smiling faces, nervous faces, happy faces, even one angry face! I was basically looking, in each candidate, the desire to learn and implement, some technical experience/knowledge, confidence, risk-taking capability, openness/flexibility and enthusiasm. These qualities would help them accomplish a lot and help them fit into the work culture at Last-Bench! (and, last but not the least, gel with my eccentric colleagues :P)..

I was most impressed by the passion and drive of some candidates. They had a willingness to learn and use this experience to further their ambitions and it also seemed like compensation was not an issue for many, instead they just wanted a starting point for their career.  

However, there were a few striking observations I made from the entire interview process. First, that most of the students wanted to do something else with their career but had to opt for a job that can get them 'started' in life. Second, I found a serious dearth in communication skills in English. Three of the candidates could not express themselves in English but when I asked them to answer in Hindi, they were very expressive. There was a general trend of low confidence, nervousness and lack of conversational skills! Of course, neither of these were pre-requisites for the job openings but it provided me with an opinion that Last-Bench! could possibly offer these students (whether they get the job or not) a lot of help and guidance through Manage What..

 Sajid:

Sajid was his usual verbose, grandiloquent self and left us a note that read- "I practice what I preach! I'm a doer not just a sayer"

By the time we wondered what THAT was all about, we got an e-mail that led us to this... Have a look below :

If you would like to work for Last-Bench! as a graphic designer/animator, web engineer, mobile developer or in marketing/sales (yes, we have openings!) just leave a comment with your NAME, THE POSITION (you would like to apply to) and YOUR CONTACT INFO and we'll get in touch with you. Alternatively, you can e-mail us all your details (along with you résumé) at chalktalk@last-bench.com