Choosing the people we work with is perhaps the most important thing we do as Mozillians. We rely on each other for insight and creativity, to doing things we could never have imagined in advance, and to execute awesome on a daily basis. And, our culture is unique. It doesn’t work for everyone. Effectively recruiting Mozillians should be a nuanced and consistent process.

Over the past few years, the Mozilla recruiting team (that’s us!) has learned a few things that have helped us identify and ultimately hire many of the extraordinary people we work with every day. We’re guessing you have a few tips of your own.

Because we know that the very best outcomes happen when many people share ideas, we’ve created a Recruiting Skills Lab. These “labs” are dedicated spaces/times where Mozilla recruiters are available to coach and be coached on a variety of recruiting-related topics. The objective of these labs is to make each of us a more effective, efficient recruiter so that the caliber of the people around you, is always going up.

Labs will offer the opportunity for face-to-face discussions, practice, and story-exchange (believe me, recruiters have the best stories) on recruiting-related topics.

1.0 Interviewing Skills Lab specifics:

If you want to get better at recruiting, Skills Labs are a great opportunity for you to get 1:1 attention in a relaxed setting, and is open to interviewers at all skill levels. Labs are informal, so you can stop by any time during the Skills Lab window to meet with a member of the team.

During Skills Labs, members of the Recruiting Team will be available in common rooms both on-site in Mountain View and San Francisco as well as remotely over Vidyo and IRC to answer your questions about the interview process and practice skills.

Some examples of the topics for discussion and practice (but we’re flexible if there’s something you want to discuss that’s not here):

• How much research to do on a potential candidate (and how)
• How to balance technical and cultural interview questions
• Understanding the value of behavioural questions and how to ask them
• What not to talk about during interviews
• How to reclaim the conversation when a candidate strays off-topic
• How to write interview feedback that will enable faster decision-making

The schedule for Recruiting Skills Labs is posted here: https://mana.mozilla.org/wiki/display/globalstaffing/Skills+Labs?src=search

If you have suggestions for topics for these labs, please let them in the comment section or ping us on IRC #recruiting.

Want to be reminded about upcoming Skills Labs? Click here.

Interested in having your team attend an in-depth Interview Skills Training session as a group? Click here.

For direct questions, please get in touch with Michelle Marovich (IRC MichelleMarovich) or Rachel Berenbaum (IRC Rachel).