About the Foundation for Public Code

Process for recruiting and hiring candidates

This resource

Contents

  1. Roles in this process
  2. Announcing job opening
  3. Processing reactions of people expressing interest
  4. Planned recruitment and hiring process
  5. Resources for interviewers

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Roles in this process

  • The operations coordinator, is responsible for the hiring process
  • Coordinators or lead codebase steward, for the first round of interviews
  • Chief executive, responsible for who we hire
  • Directors of the Foundation for Public Code, responsible for oversight

Read more about our staff roles.

Announcing job opening

We publish all job postings on the careers section on the homepage, and publicize them on our Twitter account (@publiccodenet).

We also use the current team’s network to spread awareness of the job opening (via email, LinkedIn, social media). We may use (specialized) job sites and recruiters including Idealist and fossjobs.net open source jobs board.

Between summer 2019 and summer 2021, most of our new hires discovered us through LinkedIn job ads.

Processing reactions of people expressing interest

Questions about the content of the position are routed to chief executive or the role’s future supervisor. Questions about the hiring procedure and the conditions are routed to the operations coordinator who also takes care of processing and pre-selection.

Planned recruitment and hiring process

  1. Current job openings have no closing date and applications are considered on a rolling basis. When we find a suitable candidate, we hire and close the opening. This means applications are considered ‘by themselves’ and not ‘in competition’ with a certain set of other applications.
  2. Operations coordinator confirms receipt to candidates and does first round of evaluation.
  3. Operations coordinator brings possibly suitable candidates to the role’s future supervisor and a second senior staff person. Both make a proceed/do not proceed decision, without consulting each other. If they do not agree, a short discussion follows and a consensus is reached.
  4. Operations coordinator notifies candidates (thank you or invitation for interview).
  5. First interview: a lead codebase steward or operations coordinator, depending on the role, and another senior staff person, approximately 1 hr, partially on the basis of a pre-established list of desirable competences and other characteristics (i.e. fit for role, fit for organization - including culture, growth, leadership, long/short term). Half of the interview is spent presenting the Foundation for Public Code, in the other half, the candidate has a chance to present themselves. Immediately after the interview the interviewers score the candidate on the items on the list and determine if the candidate should progress to a second interview. Operations coordinator will contact the candidate to inform them.
  6. Second interview: chief executive with operations coordinator, also partially based on the pre-established list, and with attention to issues not discussed in the first interview.
  7. Approximately 80-90% of the time is spent on questioning the candidate. Immediately after the interview the interviewers score the candidate, based on the list and other impressions gathered. Chief executive and operations coordinator decide if the candidate should be offered the job.
  8. Chief executive and operations coordinator determination of the specific offer, including salary range and benefits.
  9. Third interview, hopefully a formality, of the preferred candidate with operations coordinator and a director. Decision on making an offer is made after third interview.
  10. Operations coordinator makes the offer to the candidate and negotiates, always in consultation with chief executive and the director(s).
  11. Signing of contract and starting by the new team member, supervised by the role’s supervisor.

Resources for interviewers

If you are inexperienced in interviewing on behalf of the Foundation for Public Code, consider preparing the interview with someone with more experience. This could include practicing some of the steps and questions, discussing how the interview will go, and what kind of atmosphere is suitable. It is recommended to always conduct the interview with at least one member of staff who is experienced in interviewing on behalf of the Foundation for Public Code.

For interviewers the following resources are available. Access to these documents, since it might give an candidate insights into the questions we want to ask, is secret and limited to interviewers.