Chapter 07: On The Job Video: Money Desktop-Interviewing TRANSCRIPT

>> We actually are located in Provo, Utah, right. And so culturally there's actually a perspective that there's a lot of, you know, that this area could be pretty homogenous, but what we look for are people who actually can contribute not just to the side of the business where we are actually building, but also the cultural side of the business where they sort of say, "How do we innovate and be creative internally in this organization to stimulate innovation externally", right? How do we find individuals who have really interesting, or sort of intellectually curious. Hi, I'm Nate Gardner. I am Vice President of Client Services here at MoneyDesktop.

>> We definitely have a very conversational style. It's not like any interview I'd ever been a part of, especially on like the interviewee side. Hi, my name is Adam Hutchison and I'm an engineer at MoneyDesktop. We don't really have, we don't do tests, we don't do a lot of the standard things that a lot of people would do for engineering things, mainly because culture is more important to us than skills, right, you get kind of a feel for what people, where people are skill wise by having conversations with them. This is the kind of team that we are. What questions do you have for us? As you are looking for a place to work or whatever, to me the most important thing, takeaway, is you're interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you, and so as much as you're trying to see if your skills align with what they are looking for, it's also something that you need to be very engaged with as well, like "Do I want to work here", not "Can you give me a job".

>> Well, I've been at a lot of different companies, large and small, and really I wanted a company that would give me the ability to be in control of my work and really just kind of own something within the workplace, and a company that would allow me to grow and advance with them. Hi, I'm Britton Broderick and I'm a data analyst and client support at MoneyDesktop. It was actually a really interesting interview process. We did a group interview where about 24, 20ish people were there. They divided us into groups of four and had us all work together to kind of do an analysis of where we thought the FinTech space was going and how to really leverage financial management technology in the best way possible, and so from there what we ended up doing was presenting as a group to the other groups on our ideas of where the space was at and where it's going and how to really leverage that, and after that we then did a traditional interview with the team, hiring teams and discussed also interestingly who we most wanted to work with based on who was in our team and who the other teams that we thought were the highest performers, so I think I gave them a good look at who we thought was the best candidate as well as their own [inaudible] so. I really like the nonstandard interview approach. I've done a lot of different, I've done interviews at companies large and small again like I said, and really being able to work on a project with a potential team I think was a great way to showcase what this company wanted out of me and how they expected great team players, so--

>> Well, really it was, it just impressed me that the company didn't want do just do a get to know you interview, but they actually wanted to see what we could do in a working environment and by showcasing actual skill rather than how charming we can be sitting here talking to each other so--

>> Having a strong culture helps you identify the right type of people that help you build the company that you are looking for, and so we're not necessarily bashful about saying "Hey, let's make sure that this place is the right culture for you, and if it's not then let's make sure you find, we navigate you outside of this organization in a way that's, you know, off to something good and better for what fits you."

>> And we'll even do, in a few cases we'll do like little tryouts, like someone will join the team for under a three month contract, and that's so they can feel us out and we can feel them out. Hi, my name is Michael Moulton and I'm the Creative Director of MoneyDesktop. Sometimes there's a great person that is fantastic, they are fantastically talented, they are very charismatic, they'd be a great fit for most companies but it's just not the right time in their life. They need a little something different. And we found that people, they'll get in, sometimes they'll find out pretty quickly that it's not a right fit for them and then they'll move on.

>> By virtue of doing that we just create a much better product. We have a much more cohesive team. And literally here at MoneyDesktop what's amazing is that as you go around and you talk to people, you can really get the sense that they just are believers in what we are doing. They've bought in. They aren't just coming in to punch their card. They're actually coming in to say that today I'm going to make a difference.

PLEASE ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS BASED ON THE VIDEO TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED ABOVE.

1. Adam Hutchinson says, "We don't really have, we don't do tests, we don't do a lot of the standard things that a lot of people would do for engineering things" Do you agree with him that Money Desktop doesn't use tests? Why or why not?

2. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the type of interviewing Money Desktop does? How would you change their interviewing process to make it more effective?

3. Explain how Money Desktop measures person/environment fit during the selection process.