Partner Q&A with Greenhouse

Here at Spark Hire, we love working with leading organizations in the HR tech community. That’s why we are very excited to announce our partnership with cutting-edge applicant tracking system, Greenhouse. Customers can now take advantage of having Spark Hire’s video interviewing platform integrated with Greenhouse’s applicant tracking system. To spread the word about the integration and for our customers to learn more about Greenhouse, below is a Q&A we did with Barbra Gago, Director of Marketing at Greenhouse.

What is Greenhouse?

Greenhouse is the first Recruiting Optimization Platform. We didn’t want to build another electronic filing cabinet for resumes. Instead, we built a platform that helps companies scale and hire the best people, quickly. It’s a performance-based solution and works best for companies that get everyone involved in recruiting.

Greenhouse lets you run and optimize sourcing campaigns, standardize your interview process and collect feedback seamlessly. It also keeps everyone on the same page about where you are in the process and provides visibility into the pipeline (how many candidates are in each stage, how many interviews conducted, etc.).

How did Greenhouse get started?

Our Founder and CEO, Dan Chait, ran recruiting and HR at his previous startup – not because he had the background, but because they needed someone to do it! He scaled the company globally but all along was thinking “there must be a better way.” He and our Co-Founder and President, Jon Stross, spent a year talking to CEOs and executive leadership at companies across the board to understand where their biggest pain points were – what they found, time and again, was that recruiting was a top priority but a low capability. Everyone they talked to emphasized the importance of talent, yet organizationally there wasn’t the infrastructure or processes in place to support that initiative. That seemed like a pretty big opportunity! Today we are helping 350+ companies get better at recruiting and build the kind of talent operations organizations that every company aspires to have (think Airbnb, Tower Research, Uber, Pinterest, Twilio and OnDeck Capital).

Where are Greenhouse’s offices located?

Our headquarters are in NYC, but we also have satellite offices in San Francisco and Denver.

How many employees work at Greenhouse?

At this time last year we were 12, now we are just over 50 and new people are joining everyday it seems!

Who is the typical customer at Greenhouse?

The early adopters of Greenhouse have been tech companies growth-mode. They don’t have time to waste on technology that gets in the way. They needed something that will help them build a scalable process that could be iterated on easily to adjust to growth and organizational change, all while hiring the best talent – and fast! Many are in the Bay Area or New York where competition for top talent is cut throat. We are now seeing a lot more companies in Financial Services, Retail, Non-growth Stage Tech, Healthcare and Manufacturing. It’s certainly a spectrum, but the one thing they all have in common is a strong belief that recruiting is a strategic function, not a reactionary one, and from the CEO to the intern, everyone is passionate about helping to build a better company through better recruiting.

What is a great customer success story you’d like to share?

OnDeck is a great example of a company needing the right recruiting platform at the right time. This February they were 200 people, by the end of the year they’ll be 450. They doubled their headcount in less than 8 months–quadrupled their sales headcount, hired 30 engineers and grew every other aspect of their organization as well. From the Recruiting team, to Sales or Engineering, everyone is aligned on recruiting. Hiring managers know what’s happening and there is a constant feedback loop between interviewers, hiring managers and recruiters so that they make the best hires as quickly as possible. It’s fair to say they’ve been extremely pleased with Greenhouse!

What are some features you offer that your customers love most?

Customizable Interview Plans and Kits: Greenhouse makes it really easy for recruiters to sit down with hiring managers and plan for every new job they want to hire for. They can simply drag and drop interview stages, decide who will do what interviews and build a scorecard that details out all the skills, qualifications and traits they’ll be looking for in each candidate.

Once interviews are set up, interviewers get a link in the calendar invite right to an interview kit that includes the candidate’s resume, interview prep and questions, and a scorecard to submit all their feedback in a simple and timely manner.

Reporting: For any strategic recruiting organization, reporting is going to be huge. Three favorite reports I hear often from customers are:

Pipeline report: How many candidates in each stage, week over week, etc. (by job, region, or company wide)

Interviewer calibration: Helps identify coaching opportunities for interviewers – gives a sense of who always says ‘yes’ and who always says ‘no’ or who is generally right or wrong about candidates)

Sourcing quality: This is a great report that simply shows you from all your source, how many candidates did you get and how far in the pipeline did they get. People love this report as it gives them a good sense not just where candidates are coming from, but where the best candidates come from.

Process Automation: Built-in process automation and task management is another big one that isn’t sexy but makes everyone’s life easier. Once you’ve made a decision about a candidate (advance or reject at a given stage), Greenhouse automatically provides a set of next steps or tasks like; send rejection email, or schedule the next interview, etc. Everything in Greenhouse is very action-oriented, so you always know what needs to be done and you’re always moving people through the pipeline.

If a potential customer wants to learn more about Greenhouse, what should they do?

We recently re-launched our website and have a ton of content there to browse. From best practices to customer stories or details about features, that’s the best place to start. If you’d like to catch a demo, you can request one here.

What are Greenhouse’s goals for 2015 and beyond?

In 2015 we will focus on scaling up our organization internally to serve new markets and verticals, and to help support our customers through customer success, training and professional services. From a product perspective, we will continue to improve on what we do best, and focus on building what features have the biggest impact for our customers.

If you’re interested in checking out the Spark Hire and Greenhouse integration or are an existing customer that wants to get set up, contact us today!