How we recruit effectively at Text Blaze (using Text Blaze)

Tech hiring is challenging these days. At Text Blaze, we struggled to find and attract great talent until we decided to tackle it head-on as a top priority challenge.

Here's what's working for us:

Owning the process end to end
Sourcing effectively - personalizing at scale
A process that assesses the right things

Owning the process end to end

We realized that we need to do things ourselves and figure out what’s working for us before we’re comfortable handing off parts of the process.

Owning every step of the process comes with many benefits:

Sourcing - predicting fit based on candidates’ profiles is an art and typically goes beyond simply checking boxes.
Initial outreach - people are more likely to respond to a personal message from a founder (see below).
Introductory meeting - no one knows how to "sell" the company better than the founders.
Communication throughout the process - to simplify the process and build a relationship.

Sourcing effectively - personalizing at scale

The goal is to maximize interest from high-quality candidates for the time investment = outreach velocity x response rate.

To stand out and maximize the response rate, we try to convey to each candidate that we’re reaching out because we took the time to get to know them, and we believe they’re an excellent fit for the role and the company.

Of course, personalizing at scale is what Text Blaze is all about. I created snippets that help me send the right message in a fraction of the time. See the video below and links to examples in the comments.

email full-stack engineer

{formtext: name=first name} - Be a Full Stack Engineer @ Text Blaze (YC W'21){key: tab}Hi {formtext: name=first name},
My name is Dan and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Text Blaze. {formparagraph: name=personal message; default=I wanted to reach out in person because you seem like the perfect fit for Text Blaze.; cols=40; rows=2}. Based on your {note}{formmenu: name=profile; multiple=yes; LinkedIn; AngelList; default=Work@Startup; Hacker News; GitHub}{endnote}{=join(profile,"BLAZE_AND")} profile it seems like you have the {note}{formmenu: name=skills; multiple=yes; default=Javascript; React; Google Cloud; SQL}{endnote} {=join(skills,"BLAZE_AND")} skills we're looking for and I sense that you'll fit right in.

Text Blaze promotes efficient communications for individuals and teams. We recently completed Y-Combinators and raised a great Seed round (TechCrunch article). You can hear Scott, My co-founder and CTO, discuss Text Blaze here.

We are not a typical Seed-stage startup - We already established product-market fit and acquired users that LOVE us in some of the largest companies in the world.

This is an amazing opportunity to join the founding team of an early-stage startup with major traction and fast revenue growth that's generating a lot of interest, and shape its future part of the founding team.

We're looking for a strong and experienced full-stack developer, who can take ownership and drive impact.

We're a remote company, so if you're looking to have a worldwide impact from the comfort of your home - we're the company for you.

Let me know if you think this is a good fit for you, and let's chat this week. Let me know what times work for you.

Thanks,

LinkedIn full-stack engineer

{linkedin-firstname} - Be a Full Stack Engineer @ Text Blaze (YC W'21)- remote, rewarding, rigorous{key: tab}{key: tab}My name is Dan and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Text Blaze.

{formparagraph: name=personal message; default=I wanted to reach out in person because you seem like the perfect fit for Text Blaze.\ ; cols=40; rows=2}. Based on your LinkedIn profile {formtoggle: default=no}and your profile on {note}{formmenu: name=profile; multiple=yes; LinkedIn; AngelList; default=Work@Startup; Hacker News; GitHub}{endnote}{=join(profile,"BLAZE_AND")}{endformtoggle} it seems like you have the {note}{formmenu: name=skills; multiple=yes; default=Javascript; React; Google Cloud; SQL}{endnote} {=join(skills,"BLAZE_AND")} skills we're looking for and I sense that you'll fit right in.

Text Blaze promotes efficient communications for individuals and teams. We recently completed Y-Combinators and raised a great Seed round (link to TC coverage below). You can hear Scott (https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottfr/), My co-founder and CTO, discuss Text Blaze here: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2021/07/03/text-blaze-text-shortcuts-with-scott-fortmann-roe/

We are not a typical Seed-stage startup - We already proved product-market fit and have users in some of the largest companies in the world.

This is an amazing opportunity to join the founding team of an early-stage startup with major traction and fast revenue growth that's generating a lot of interest and shape its future part of the founding team.

We're looking for a strong and experienced Full Stack Developer (JavaScript, React, etc.) who can take ownership and drive impact.

We're a remote company, so if you're looking to have a worldwide impact from the comfort of your home - we're the company for you. We're selective in our interview process, and we reward our employees.

Let me know if you think this is a good fit for you, and let's chat this week. Let me know what times work for you.

Thanks, TC article - https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/05/text-blaze-raises-3-3m-for-its-speed-writing-automation-service/

A process that assesses the right things

To do well in a remote and asynchronous company like Text Blaze candidates need to be more than just capable coders. Identifying the ideal personality traits and soft skills and assessing them is an ongoing challenge. At Text Blaze, we constantly evolve our process and combine different tactics (e.g. interview + coding project) to optimize our success prediction powers.