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Ryan Burgess
Welcome to another episode of the front end Happy Hour podcast. In today's episode, we are joined by two special guests, Jen and Bianca to talk with us about how interviewing has changed in our new COVID remote world. Bianca and Jen, can you give brief introductions of who you are and what you do and what your favorite happier beverages?

Jen Pi
Hi, I'm Jen, technical recruiter, recruiting partner with the partner ecosystem ecosystem team. My favorite Happy Hour beverage is I have a homemade CBD chai latte in front of me. So it's a blend of like ginger, black pepper, nutmeg, all spice black tea, little ashwagandha and obviously CBD.

Ryan Burgess
Nice. I think that's a first that someone's had a CBD drink on our podcast. So well done.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, I'm Bianca, I, one of the technical recruiters here at Netflix. I support client and user base engineering with Jem and Ryan. And I only have water in front of me. This is so lame. But I still have some work to complete. But normally I would have a nice glass of red wine.

Ryan Burgess
Right on give a favorite red wine? No,

Bianca Bortolussi
no.

Ryan Burgess
Anyway, we'll cut it.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, anyone? Come on. It's COVID.

Ryan Burgess
Hey, that's fair. All right. Well, let's also give introductions of today's panelists. Jem, I'll start it off.

Jem Young
Jem Young Senior Software Engineer at Netflix.

Ryan Burgess
Now I'm Ryan Burgess. I'm a software engineering manager at Netflix. In each episode, the front end Happy Hour podcast, we'd like to choose a keyword, that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we will all take a drink, whether it's water CVD, or I'm drinking beer today. Gemma, I know what you're drinking, but I'm assuming you'll be taking a drink along with us. What did we decide today's keyword is video? Video. All right, so if we say the word video, which I'm pretty sure we're gonna say, when we're talking remote, you all take a drink. So I'm curious to just start off, we've all done our share volume of interviews, and recruiting efforts, all these different things that kind of go along with hiring people. What has changed now that we have been forced into COVID and being remote,

Bianca Bortolussi
well, a lot has changed, all of us are working remotely. For one. Maybe not everyone, but at Netflix we are at least, which has introduced new and different challenges in terms of interviewing, we do have to use video a lot more often now, in terms of interviewing, and cheers have to get really creative in terms of how the candidate experience and time that it even takes for candidates to interview. So a lot of things that are different, you don't get to meet your team in person anymore. You don't get to meet your manager in person, you don't get to onboard in person anymore, which is

Jen Pi
new, I would say they're different. It's a different level of expectation setting, both internally and externally in terms of what we're asking from candidates, as well as what we're we're asking panelists as well, everyone's just facing different things at home, in their lives. You know, there's obviously a lot of things going on in like the cultural landscape. So a lot of it has been leaning into just the empathy and over communicating and having much more of a high touch as much as we can, during this really challenging time. And I would say if anything, everyone's really kind of craving connection. So what does that look like during this time, especially while we're assessing candidates and vice versa?

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, like to hear that there's, it sounds like there's a lot of flexibility to when you're thinking about those things. Because when I think of interviewing, or even just my job in general is like things are unpredictable, right? Like, my child could walk into the background while I'm interviewing. And that could be really awkward. But I think as long as everyone understand that, that's just a normal thing that we're right now we're all stuck in our houses, where we're not able to really manage those expectations, as well as that we would be if I was coming into a company to interview

Jen Pi
I would say with that also, is this there's just a little bit more grace and patience. And I think I've appreciated getting a sense of a different dimension to people even though it's not part of how we would assess them. But sometimes there's humor involved in that's in that's not necessarily a bad thing, right?

Ryan Burgess
Like, do you ever see some interesting backgrounds now? You're like peeping into someone's house while you're interviewing them?

Jen Pi
Oh, for sure. Well, I've definitely had naked toddlers running around in the background and then people are just deeply apologetic and feel terrible, but it's hilarious and wonderful and it's a part of them. So you know, there's no shame there but it is it is different and a change.

Ryan Burgess
I feel like I agree like an outsider. I'd be like, I'm going to remember that candidate because they have the naked child running in the background. For sure,

Bianca Bortolussi
it definitely creates a new level of getting to know people, which is, I guess one of the benefits of this time,

Ryan Burgess
that's fair, we kind of have to be a little bit comfortable with the intimate, letting people in your house that you may not know just through the virtual video a call, cheers.

Jem Young
Cheers. Do you all feel that people are more their authentic selves remotely or less,

Bianca Bortolussi
I think that topics that may not have come up, come up a little bit more organically. You know, it's very rare that people will talk to me about their kids normally, and the situation but when you have your kids screaming in the background, or in my instance, my baby screaming in the background, it kind of opens a level of conversation and camaraderie with you know, different instances of your life that probably wouldn't have been present, if you were interviewing, not at home, with whatever circumstances you're in.

Jen Pi
And there's resonance, right. Like if someone has a crying baby in the background, there's something that someone can identify with, because they have their own situations going on. And I think there's like almost a safety blanket of sometimes being behind a screen that is really different than an in person. So in some ways, walls do come down a little bit. But you know, it also also comes back to the candidate too.

Ryan Burgess
I mean, you don't have to wear pants to an interview, right? Like, nobody's gonna know. Exactly. Just dress up the top and you're good. You know, the rest of it doesn't matter so much.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, nowadays, I've worn leggings. I don't even know the last time I put jeans on.

Ryan Burgess
When when we go into this like march like I have not worn jeans since then. It's like I wear shorts every day. I'm like, What's the point in wearing pants? I don't know what's gonna happen when it starts to get colder. I like, I don't know what to do.

Jen Pi
Well, San Francisco, you're still inside. So I mean, the the temperature variance might not be that big. It's not

Ryan Burgess
not a huge one. That's true. I think you both have mentioned some challenges, or at least I heard like, it's different. Absolutely heard that from each of you on the interviewing side. But what's been the biggest challenge? Like I know, you've mentioned it takes longer. But are there other large challenges that you've had to maybe pivot on how you interview?

Jen Pi
I think one of it is just acclimating to different tools, and really being very focused about the signals we're looking for. Right? So different cues that you would pick up in person really leaning into communication during this time. How does that different over a video chat versus someone in person and being very, very focused on that? And tools have have been a challenge as well, I can, I can say for our teams, really setting people up for success as much as possible, having people play with them giving feedback, as well as having candidates also use tools prior to the actual interviews themselves. And also provide feedback on how, how the, you know, the tools are working, and if they feel they feel good or not.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, and especially for engineers, you know, you're typically engineering interviews have a whiteboarding session where you're coding on a whiteboard, or you're building architecture, and you can't exactly do that same thing over video, our zoom, chairs tears. So that's another I think, from a candidate perspective, something that you have to think about of how you will interview and do some solve some of these problems in a different way. Jen mentioned we're using different tools, I'm sure other companies are using the same ones like jam board or something similar. But preparing for that is different than preparing for a whiteboarding exercise. So it kind of does take more prep and making sure you understand how the tool works prior to jumping on that call. And then the other thing I think, for candidates who are interviewing and we've talked about this a little bit is just the fatigue of being on Zoom is a little bit different than the fatigue of being in person. And there's just that added layer of complexity to being on a video all day and interviewing versus being in person and kind of feeling that energy of being in the same room as somebody or you might not be that type of person who eats off of that energy. But there is something different about being in person and kind of having that connection versus Zoom, zoom or video. That is hard. Cheers. There's me and I'm rocking this up.

Ryan Burgess
afternoon. It's great.

Jem Young
All right, you both think interesting points. I brought this up in a small team meeting we had the other day about some of the challenges of working remotely and these are people that I've met in person quit Get on the same team for many years now. And there's still challenges that come up with team cohesion, things like that. And I a lot of that I chalked up to the fact that we all spend, I don't know how old everybody is all to say three decades of living, understanding, like the human condition and minor body language and subtle cues and nuances and things like that are completely lost over video chat. So it's kind of like losing one of your senses, when you have to go meet new people, and make a good impression. But it's all completely through like this one channel, and we lose like everything else. So I talked to people are interviewing, and they said, it's just extremely challenging, because you can't tell how you're doing. You can't get that like, oh, yeah, they're nodding. So I must be doing something well, are they Oh, they're kind of looking down. So I might be doing poorly. Let me adjust like my, my tone, or my cadence or something like that. You just lose all that knowledge and helpfulness. And it's just solely dependent on how well the person is paying attention to you. And they might not even be paying attention to you. They might be checking their phone. They might be the first and family on some whiteboard problem. Let me just check what's going on on Slack or something like that. And like, I don't know, I'm on secondary on call this week. But like, there could have been a huge outage in the middle of an interview. And I'm like, and I'm looking at my screen looking concern. And the person's like, Oh, no. And as a interviewer, I have to be respectful of that and just stay focused. But I know not everybody. Like I know, Netflix has the best interviews, obviously. But I know not every company has that same opportunity to have that focus. So I What's the story? Like? I'm sorry, that was a long rant up to this question. What do you feel the general story for remote interviewing is at maybe smaller companies? Do you have a sense on that pulse? Is it easier because they're more flexible? Or is it more difficult, because they may have more things going on? You all have the pulse of this of the valley, like you know, I'm an engineer, I've no idea what's happening outside my bubble.

Jen Pi
I think it's a mix. I feel fortunate that I feel like we probably have more resources and tools around trying to, you know, navigate this new landscape of remote hiring and interviewing. For smaller organizations, I believe they're doing things very similarly. But probably maybe a lot of solo more scrappily by nature, but also they have different things to struggle with, based on the climate of what's happening, the stability of things. So things might just have take a different tone,

Ryan Burgess
some companies have heard or slowed down completely on interviewing and hiring altogether, because of a lot of these challenges that are coming up not just the technical challenge and everything, but also just the the current state of things, and nature of is our business going to survive this and they might have to slow down on hiring. Yeah, I

Bianca Bortolussi
think it's a really challenging time. Right now for a lot of companies, especially the smaller ones.

Ryan Burgess
I love that you bought brought up the body language part, though, I think that one is a tough one, no matter what is like I even think it just in meetings in general, but like your eye contact is so important. I don't know, if you all are actually like looking into my eyes, or you're like looking off into some other portion of the screen those signals, or do you just miss like all the time. And that's really difficult.

Jen Pi
I'm actually very aware in meetings, even not just like I'm very hyper conscious of it. And we've given interview training, specifically around this time, so that we can communicate to interviewers that your attention is that much more important during this time. Because I have noticed when I've spoken to people and their eyeballs slightly moves to the left or the right, or there's a different reflection of flight. Like I know something's popping up on their screen, or they're like typing and they're like, Aha, and they're reacting, but I know that they're typing, because I've done it before. So it's those types of things that we've had to reinforce to especially our interviewers, when we think about candidate experience, and really being empathetic about being present. And you know, just being there in the moment.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, cuz to Jem's point is like, normally, if you're an engineer and you are on call, you're in an interview, you're not getting alerted like you don't see that. But when you're on your screen, that Slack message pops up that like email pops up all those alerts can distract you and absolutely throw off the person on the other end who's just trying to answer your question. And if you're not really giving it your full attention, that can throw someone off. And it

Bianca Bortolussi
really only takes one time for that to happen to just throw that whole interview off.

Ryan Burgess
Another one that I'm curious to hear. I know like I've definitely spent time talking with Jem and Bianca, about this. Jen, you and I talked about events a while ago. But I'm curious, like events are a big portion where you not only get to network with people, you get to meet potential people hiring you get to meet each other. How are you all thinking about events, conferences, all those things that we're now doing? Don't really have I know, there's remote conferences. But you missed that networking portion. Like how are you all dealing with that, especially from a recruiting standpoint?

Bianca Bortolussi
It's hard. Yeah. I think one of the trickiest parts of this whole thing is what the goal is from an event. So right now, we could host a large event, but you missed the networking portion, most likely, or we could host a small event. But, you know, you risk people not wanting to show up, because again, people are fatigued from being well working all day in general, but also being on video conferencing and all day. So joining another event, networking over video conference is difficult. I'm seriously I'm like the person using the word. So I think we're not the only ones dealing with that I, you know, we've seen events in general, just decline, most of them are large scale events that don't have as much opportunity for networking, or they just have kind of the chat that goes off. But it's not as much of an opportunity to connect with people,

Jen Pi
I would add on the other end of that, you know, people, you know, humans as very social creatures, this is an incredibly challenging time for us to be so you know, limited in the specific parameters that we're in. So people are really craving connection at this time. So we can't forget that. You know, during this climate, even though it's like zooms, and whatnot, there's also potentially just a lower barrier of entry of reaching out to people just to have a casual conversation. And I've known other people just doing like social distance walks, or maybe it is like a virtual zoom Coffee Chat to just talk about whatever it is not necessarily a role or anything. And I think it's kind of a, a really ripe opportunity to be able to connect, versus other times where people are just really, really busy. And they haven't been as necessarily optimal Upper New opportunistic than maybe some are now,

Ryan Burgess
I do agree with you that there is a lower bar to entry in some ways. Oftentimes, I'll think about it from a perspective of I like to meet other engineers and hear what they're working on. Maybe I am hiring, but a lot of times I'm not, it could just be like, eventually, I'm going to have to be hiring for a certain role. So it's always good to talk with various people that are out there. And oftentimes, I get if they're in the Bay Area, I'm always like, well, let's grab coffee, let's meet up in San Francisco, come to the Netflix office. And that always takes a little bit of coordination tax. It's always great to meet in person, but there's a lot of like, well, what works for you. There's a travel time, there's like, we got to meet watch location. There's all this back and forth. But it's so much easier to say, Hey, do you have 30 minutes, like this week? And sure that works. And you can just jump on a video call so much easier. Cheers. Cheers. But so that has been a little bit easier. In early March, I actually had quite a few coffees set up for some like, No, I don't always have coffees set up. But for some reason, I had quite a few of them that it was just like we kept pushing them. We're like, Well, we were told not to be in like we shouldn't be meeting up. So let's push it out maybe a month. And just like now it's like, let's just jump on a video because we should not be meeting up. It's like this is going on long enough.

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, I think the one on one connection is a lot easier. I know we're still working through on our side, like the larger events. But I totally agree, the barrier for the one on one or maybe even smaller, group connection is lower.

Jen Pi
And the cultural norms have shifted, right? Maybe what used to be imposing might actually be more welcome, like a welcome invitation to just connect during this time. And I think part of that is also encouraging our leaders and teams also whoever ends up connecting to be really thoughtful about, you know, the stories and the narrative around our work life. People are genuinely very interested in how companies are perceiving their workforce. How do we view mental health during this time? And how do we think about our teams and how we care for our teams has come up, I

Ryan Burgess
think it's kind of cool to is it's a unique situation that we're all dealing with, right? Like there's rarely times where you all are dealing with the same thing in life,

Jem Young
and you brought it up in. It's funny. I think during this whole crisis, there are many reasons to be positive, there's a lot of negative and that's really easy to fall into that. But focusing on the positive is a bit more difficult. And Jen, you actually brought up a positive point, which is it's easier to to connect with people that previously would have been harder to connect with just because we all know where we're at right now. We're all at home, in front of our computers all day. So have you have you found that universally be true as in like, it's just easy to reach candidates from different backgrounds or just different companies that historically would have been a little trickier to live because just because of various reasons,

Jen Pi
I have found that to be true with the specific business that I'm working on. I'm sure Bianca can kind of speak to that side. But yeah, it has been easier to connect. It's still challenging, though, because I think a lot of companies are thinking the same thing, right. And so a lot of that is still a pretty competitive landscape. And then there's the conversation around remote hiring and the opportunities around that, how are people thinking about where they want to be located, especially when the situation is indefinite. But you'll always have those people who are just don't want, don't want to be a connecting, which is totally fine. But we have noticed people being a little bit more receptive to reach out.

Bianca Bortolussi
I think, right now in particular is such a great time to network, even if you are not looking for a new role. As a lot of people have mentioned so far, just the connection point of being on equal ground in terms of, you know, we're all dealing with different things, but we're all dealing with the same thing at the same time, is just a great place to start. And you never know, like what's gonna come out of those connection points. And I think people are starting, especially because of this. Jenny mentioned this crave for more connection, because more so socially distanced. I think people have been a little bit more open to some of those networking opportunities to learn more. And even if it's for the future, a lot of people are saying right now, this isn't the right time, which is completely understandable. But it does open the door for the future. And you never know, like when that door is going to swing wide open for the right timing to be.

Jen Pi
I imagine companies should be very weary of that. You know, with everyone working from home, it allows more flexibility for people to take opportunistic calls, not because they're looking but because why not? I'm a little bit more in control of my schedule, I'm working from home, why not to just a half an hour chat with someone I don't really know, but love to get to know them and just understand their story, even though I have no interest in leaving where Yeah. It's probably just keeps companies on their toes a little in terms of how they're thinking about retention.

Ryan Burgess
That's a valid point. Because it is there is a lower barrier to entry. If you're not trying to find duck out into like, some meeting room to take a call or like oh, I can't can't make that meeting because I have some, some appointments. Or I always joked and people dress fancy and they come to the office, and then they're like, I have an appointment later this afternoon. You're like, Oh, are you interviewing it's like, you know, but you don't have to worry about all those little details. It's a little bit easier to actually take those calls, which is kind of really good for the candidate experience,

Jem Young
I guess counter to all that experience is like me personally, I genuinely try to explore my options, like once a year, a few times a year, I think that's wise, if you're, I don't only advise them. Of course.

Jem Young
Just kidding, hire me back. I mean, you You are the only person that cares the most about your career. So I do think it's wise to always keep your options open. However, I found personally, I am less bullish on exploring new opportunities now, just because there's a lot of uncertainty. So in uncertain times, you cling to what you know, not saying Netflix is a terrible place to work. It's a terrible place to know. It. I just like, don't care to put in the effort. Whereas previously, I'm like, Yeah, you know, interview I'm not actually leaving, but I'll interview for my own sake. And now that is not the case. I'm like, I'm good. Have you found that to be true? Or people exploring more? Or do they seem, especially people from the larger tech companies? Do they seem less inclined to leave?

Bianca Bortolussi
I have not seen any change? Like level wise, I haven't seen a change. It's been pretty similar to previous years. I think actually, more people are responding to me telling me that they are not interested versus in the years or the timings not right versus in years past they probably would have just ignored the request. That is a little bit different, at least from the roles that I've worked on. But I I've been surprised to see how many people are willing to explore new opportunity because I fall into that same camp gem of like, I've no desire to put in the effort to apply have conversations. I'm really happy in my role. I love my job. So I think it just depends I think the people who would have explored this year regardless are still exploring and the people who might have explored this year are maybe staying put a little bit more because of everything that you mentioned stability. They know what they know people, not a lot of people are obviously wanting to onboard remote and meet everybody remotely, necessarily some people But not everybody

Ryan Burgess
is fair, I think like, for me, I probably taken less calls, I'm still open to talking to people who potentially might be interested come to work at Netflix. But for my own situation, like, I just don't have the energy, like, even jumping on for, you know, like, I've had friends, like, let's grab the happy hour, things like that. I'm burnt out, like I don't like, you know what my break is like, I don't want to be on another video call. Cheers. Cheers.

Jem Young
So, like a big thing, especially when you're someone with some levels of experience is things you care about would be the culture of a particular company or organization that you're trying to join. And given that we can't, as candidates, like we can't visit offices and meet the team and shake hands, and like, you know, all those other like cultural modalities that we count on for getting a sense of what this company is and what it represents. For the hires that you do make, how do we follow up? Or how does Netflix follow up, and just ensure that like, they're messing with the culture, and it's everything that you said it was, and that it's still messing with them, like things that we wouldn't historically have to put so much effort into. But now, we should just make sure they're fitting in with the culture and the culture fits in with them.

Jen Pi
Yeah, onboarding has been a huge, a huge kind of undertaking for us, which I feel like we've made a lot of progress on. Because when you think about the experience itself, right, it's about bonding, managing emotions day to day, when you're dealing, especially with remote work, and people wanting to feel connected and invested to new teams and new companies. So it's been challenging. And so a lot of that has been having to navigate around the creativity of really having the, you know, more one on ones. Also more just like random, either zoom dinners or things are ways to kind of create connection opportunities to the teams. And I know that hiring managers are having, you know, daily one on ones check ins, just to see how they're feeling and doing, there have been candidates who have actually had the opportunity to go to the office themselves just to get a feel, because they are open technically. But it's a little bit different, just so they can get some signal and feel about the environment. That could be but otherwise, a lot of it has been incredibly high touch. And we always get feedback based on like, How can this be better? How can this be improved. But they're, they're pretty aware of the challenges of the situation, and we're doing the best that we can to make it feel as personal as possible to make them feel welcomed.

Jem Young
And you mentioned investment? Like how do you how do you ensure that because that, to me, that would be extremely difficult, join a new company and to feel invested in the company, when you haven't seen the office? You haven't met anybody? You're now just essentially doing the same job you're doing before. But for in a different codebase, essentially, for engineers?

Jen Pi
Yeah, I mean, I think investment is pretty multifaceted, right? A lot of that is understanding who's on your team? Who are gonna be your partners, who's your manager, who were the cross functional partners, understanding the business, what are you going to be working on were the different problems like just being patient and having grace with yourself in terms of knowing that this is going to take some time to ramp up on and even more so to to just allow for time to absorb it all versus feeling like from day one, you're going to need to build all these things to feel invested in a company, right. So oftentimes, the investment comes from like progressive over time, understanding and familiarity. And a lot of that is is understanding like who you're working with, as well as the business itself. And that takes time naturally, let alone virtually when you're when you're onboarding remotely.

Bianca Bortolussi
I totally agree with everything that Jen said. But with Netflix in particular, I don't think many people would join Netflix because of our buildings, just to be completely awesome.

Ryan Burgess
I'm not a fan of the buildings. They're

Bianca Bortolussi
very Yeah, I'm not. I'm not trying to bash on that. But we don't operate similar to a lot of the other big tech companies that we're often you know, we don't have the Apple campus, we don't have the Facebook campus, we have a beautiful campus that's functional. And it's well designed, obviously. But most people joined Netflix because of our culture. And that's something I think that's very specific to Netflix. But we have so many touch points and opportunities throughout the interview process to really showcase that culture and get people bought into the culture. And I think that's really our selling point in particular, and every company is going to have a different selling point, I would hope that culture is a big selling point for the majority of people. So if you can get people excited about the environment, the culture that they're walking into, I think that that makes them pretty invested from the start, even though you're right, like they're not going to get to see the building. They're not going to get to see where they sit. You know, obviously you guys have a great view of our campus, but those are some of the other ways that I think we can make up during this room. About Time and any company really can make up is finding those things that are really special to them that would make somebody excited outside of thing, the environment, the working environment, because no one's going to be able to provide that right now.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up that culture aspect. Because I think that naturally, especially in the Netflix culture, it naturally shifted. So it's like, this is a little bit weird for all of us. We're very transparent and talking through those things. And it demonstrates in when you're interviewing, but then even like, I've had to onboard, an engineer on my team early, early into this COVID world, where he was fully remote. And it was awkward. Like, I felt like this was really hard. I feel like I wasn't doing a good enough job as a leader. But a lot of what started to play out was like our culture came through, in the sense that like, this is how things work. And it just naturally kind of showed up in how the onboarding worked, or how the day to day worked. And I think that to me, was really helpful to see that it just naturally happened. Like I was stressed out about it personally. But on the other end, it played out really well. And like the engineer on my team, constantly said, he felt like things were going really well, he was on boarded Well, whereas in my case, I was worried that no, we don't do a good job, because we've never done this. But a lot of those things started to play out. And a lot of it because of the culture kind of

Jen Pi
think especially with our onboarding, I remember I on boarded not that long ago, last November. And I remember feeling like this could easily be done remotely. And it's not about the physicality or attachment to the, you know, the location necessarily, and of course, meeting my peers and colleagues and everything was really important. But everything that I needed to do my work was, could easily have been done just except for like sending me my laptop. But otherwise, it was a really seamless process with instructions and the series and everything. So oh, it's

Ryan Burgess
gotten better. I've been at Netflix for over five years, it was not not as nicely planned out. So we've evolved, which is good. I think that's the thing is even in this remote world, I think back to an engineer that started early on my team. If an engineer starts on my team tomorrow, that is going to be even better. Because we asked for feedback. We learned like what works, what doesn't, there's even been times this week that I've heard of some engineers that have started, where because there's a lot of fires going on in California, their laptops were delayed. So that's a challenge. You're like, Great you started today, you know, the first session is we set up your laptop that you don't have, like those types of things. And we just pivot and try and figure that out as we go. It's a challenge. But it has definitely been interesting.

Bianca Bortolussi
One of the things that I think is super important right now, if you're interviewing or looking for a company is thinking through what that company can provide you obviously during this time, but the flexibility point about culture, I think is just monumental for folks to consider as they're applying to or thinking about changing companies. Because that's kind of a make or break right now. And if companies can adapt to the current environment, and, you know, flex in new ways and evolve, as we've talked about, I think that that's a really great sign of a healthy company in this time. But if it's very rigid still or is unable to have those inflection points, then I don't know, it might not be something that would be interesting to pursue

Ryan Burgess
Yonka how would you suggest as you know, I'm an engineer applying to Company X, how do I assess that they've they're doing that? Like how do I actually evaluate that?

Bianca Bortolussi
Like a question. There might be signals on the careers page or their jobs page that they talk through how they're managing or handling COVID, they might have videos, they might have blogs, or they might even have suggestions about what their interview process looks like. Sometimes it might just take talking to a recruiter to find that out or manager who reaches out to you. There's I don't think that there's one right way to do that. But I think that it's an important question to broach with any conversation that you have, at this point to find out what companies are doing to be flexible, to be supportive to be empathetic to situations because you might find that the new company that you're looking at actually is more supportive than your current company or more flexible. And that might even be a bigger sell for you to consider on a move.

Ryan Burgess
How should engineers think differently about applying for roles? We talked about interviewing, but obviously networking, we've talked about that. But even if I'm approaching a new role, how should I be thinking about it differently than in the normal? I just go to jobs page and apply? Is there things that we should be thinking about differently as applying for remote roles?

Jen Pi
I think what we look for remains the same in terms of what what is something different or what is unique about your story about your experience about your perspective that will contribute to our teams. And especially this is a very unique time to be really evaluating and reflecting on what you want your story to be, we often get flooded with resumes, or people who say they can just the baseline is doing the job, right and like or the technical skills, your your software engineer. But what is different about the way that you approach problems or your you know, the, you know, your story or the experiences you've had before, that will be that much more compelling than the next resume that has exactly the same languages and the same companies listed, that will help you to stand out. And so it's, I think, really important to take that time, and really figure out that narrative versus just like impulsively or reactively, just apply just to get a job,

Bianca Bortolussi
because I totally agree. And I actually saw an applicant today, I have not seen this in so long. And I probably said on the last podcast not to do this. But I saw a cover letter and I have not seen a cover letter in ages. And I read it. And it was so interesting. And I I think if you really want to roll, that's something that you should consider because as a recruiter, I don't see cover letters anymore. So something to consider to differentiate yourself potentially come back

Jen Pi
to partner ecosystem, I see plenty of cover letters.

Ryan Burgess
interested? Yeah, I can't remember the last time I've seen a cover letter.

Jem Young
Jed, I love your point I wish we had met before. Because you're just making so many points I'm agreeing with today, I'd love just what you said about the Netflix soldiers. The baseline is the ability to do the job. I think people miss that. I think for any company. It's just like, yeah, if you made it into the interview, in the interviewing round, we know you can do the job. Now we're just assessing like how much above and beyond, you will make our company and team better. If we hire you. I get a lot of reach outs on LinkedIn and Twitter. And people say like, oh, how can I stand out? How can I think myself representative of myself for these companies, that point of being able to stand out and say, like, here's what I bring, in addition to being able to do the job is a really powerful point.

Jen Pi
Yeah. And I think I usually appreciate when people have done their research on, hey, I've read all of these engineering blogs, or there's this one thing that really stuck out to me about the way that they're approaching this problem. I'm kind of curious about XYZ. And it really kind of just embeds them in part of the conversation and the way that our teams are working. So what perspective can you bring to the table, that'd be really different versus I love Netflix. My reason for wanting to work here is I'm a Netflix user. And my whole family loves Netflix, which is pretty much a majority of many answers that we get,

Ryan Burgess
which is also a majority of people are I mean, a lot of people watch Netflix. Yeah. So before we get into pics, I'm really interested to hear now someone's interviewing are like, or they've kind of got past a few calls. They've spoken with the manager, the recruiting team, and they're kind of coming on their quote unquote, on site, which is not really a thing right now. What advice do you give to prepare? Is there? Is it the same type of advice to prepare for the interview? Or is there nuance into the fence sense that it's now remote?

Bianca Bortolussi
I think there's obviously the tactical advice that we mentioned earlier of like, play around with the tools, make sure that your internet's working, okay. Those types of things.

Ryan Burgess
Our internet is so key like internet's like, if it is choppy, like I've definitely had conversations, people, it's choppy, it's hard. I'm like, How am I supposed to evaluate this?

Bianca Bortolussi
Yeah, totally. I know, my husband and I have to text each other to get off video. Sometimes I'm like frozen, but on the actual preparation for how to show up, I think, you know, right now, everyone, we've talked about this multiple times, but everyone wants more authenticity, and showing up your complete self and being vulnerable in that way. And it's okay, you know, for kids are running in the background sometimes. And it's okay, if you're not in a fully private space, if you can't be, I think for the most part, the companies that you want to join are going to understand that and be supportive of those ways, areas of your life. And the companies that aren't as supportive, like maybe that's a sign for you that it's not going to be a great fit. But I think the more that you, you know, show up authentic, that really is coming through and video and I think we've mentioned this multiple times throughout this session. And then obviously, there's the other things of like, read more about the company, like Jen just mentioned, like, understand, like how you might insert yourself into this role, or what you might bring to this role. One of my favorite questions I asked people is, now that you've learned about learn the team that the team like, what do you think you're going to bring, and it's like your opportunity to really brag on yourself and and understand what you will bring to the table. We want to see that on our end. And I'm assuming other companies would too, I feel like the

Jen Pi
remote format also it like indexes higher even more. So and I mentioned this earlier on the communication aspects of things. There are less cues and signals for teams to really get a sense for how you are in person so really be able to To convey and communicate and articulate your ideas is even more key during this time, even though it's behind, you know, a screen. And, you know, measuring just adaptability as well, as you know, in some of our interviews, problem solving is really important. And we use these tools, but how are you able to kind of communicate what you would be like to work with on a day to day that will leave our team really excited and impressed over over zoom? I think it's sometimes an excuse that like, well, it's a VC interview. So I can only do so well. But in some ways, we've also seen incredible interviews during this time and incredible creativity and curiosity. So definitely leaning into that, and, and don't be afraid to ask questions. And it's nothing is strange or weird. And I think people are usually still a little bit timid during this time to, to ask more clarification for things. One

Bianca Bortolussi
thing to always remember is you're interviewing the company as much as they're interviewing you. And if it doesn't come across that way, then again, maybe that's a signal for you to consider.

Ryan Burgess
I love all that. Those are such good pieces of advice. Each episode of the front end happier podcast, we'd love to choose picks that we'd like to share with you all that we found interesting. It may have to do with recruiting or interviewing, and it may not so I'm curious to hear everyone's picks for today. Jen, do you want to start it off? Sure.

Jen Pi
I recently just saw the octopus teacher on Netflix. I'm an avid diver. So I love anything, just under the water. And it was I thought it was very beautiful. So I'd recommend watching it's a documentary. And I'm currently reading several of Robin Sharma has books specifically the monk who sold his Ferrari and the 5am.

Ryan Burgess
Club. Nice. Which one? Do you recommend more?

Jen Pi
Um, I'm leaning towards the monk who sold his Ferrari I feel like it's one more

Ryan Burgess
broad. Also, I mean, the titles amazing. Like, I would just read it because of that title.

Bianca Bortolussi
My first pick are polymer clay Ariens. I've been obsessed with these. There's so many small makers on social media platforms. So I don't know if anyone's interested in the range. But they've been so great. Do they make

Ryan Burgess
large for like big holes and everything to you know,

Bianca Bortolussi
Ryan? I don't think that they do just yet. But I will market that for you.

Ryan Burgess
Jem, what do you have for us this episode for Pixabay?

Jem Young
I don't have that much interesting. I have two that are pretty fun. One is a website by someone named Pippin bar. It's called it's as if you were doing work. And it's pretty much an endless game. I don't know if you call the game if there's no ending. But essentially, you're you play an office worker of some sort. And you're just constantly trying to finish tasks. But the minute you get close to finishing a task, another one pops up. And it's it's built in such a way that you're always so close to like clearly all your tasks, but you never quite can. It's a little addicting just because you just it's like this, this endless loop.

Jen Pi
Hey, small tasks in your day to day Are they like pretend tasks, they're pretend

Jem Young
tasks, but they almost seem like real work. The way it's written. It's a lot of fun. I recommend everybody just just checking out. I'm terrible at describing fun UI because I'm attorney.

Ryan Burgess
Jem, are you saying you don't have enough work to do? Yeah, but you are having to take on more work.

Jem Young
That's what I'm saying. Right? Fortunately, you're not my manager anymore. So they don't listen to the podcast. My second pick is, you know, I really want to pick the boys Season Two. It's a show on Amazon Prime. I really enjoyed season one, I thought it was like fresh, and a more realistic take on what would happen to superheroes actually existed. Even though we have a million superhero movies, none of them are quite realistic, as you know, they don't involve anything like capitalism and real world scenarios. And the boys captured that really well in season one. Season two is just I'm not gonna spoil it. It hasn't been as strong. So my pick would have been the boy season two, we'll see how it ends. But so far, since they're doing an episode a week, which is really annoying to I don't know, I guess my auntie pick. I don't know, if you're listening and you work at Amazon Prime Video. Come on. But that's it. That's what I saw. I hope it come on.

Jen Pi
I agree. Season two is not as I don't. I'm waiting. I'm trying to just have give it some time.

Ryan Burgess
I like that you're both are just being optimistic about it, like at least that you're gonna stick it out, try and see if it's good. So I guess it's not quite the anti tech yet. You're not saying don't go watch it. Maybe it will be good. Maybe it won't give it

Jem Young
given the history of 2020. So far, I think we are desperate to cling on any messages of hope or optimism that we can so we're really, really holding on for the boys season theory to come through and be like, Yes, this is the show that we needed right now. But so far it has not delivered.

Ryan Burgess
Alright, well, I'm curious to hear how it turns out for you. I still have yet to watch season one. I just didn't get around to it yet. But now you're not really selling it as much like I don't have Season Two to look forward to yet so maybe after there's two seasons I'll be more excited. If you say it's good. If it's not then what's the point?

Jem Young
No Season One is worth watching. Okay, it

Jen Pi
was actually better than I thought it would be. We randomly just started watching it and finishing the whole weekend after it came out. So it was very surprising.

Ryan Burgess
Play That's right. Anytime that someone's like, I've been injured a lot in one weekend, I'm like, that's a pretty good selling point. So I probably do need to go check it out. I've heard good things, I have two picks one that it's a more expensive router. But I feel like it has made my life better in this whole remote world I was struggling with, like we've mentioned earlier with like internet connections video not being the greatest. And it was mainly because my wife and I are both constantly on video meetings. So it's like you're both trying to do this all at once. And of course, like the Internet of Things, your house is covered in a bunch of things that are just pulling the internet, we're struggling, like, I feel like there's connection problems all the time, I ended up upgrading to the AMPLIFi alien mesh router, it's amazing, got the Wi Fi six capabilities, things are a lot faster, I'm getting faster speeds, and I have not had a connection problem. And it's been a good week or two that I've had this. So definitely recommend it. It's a little on the pricey side, but has made my life easier. So that's all worth it. And then I have a show that I found really light and easy to watch, which is absolutely something that you need in 2020 right now, which is the American barbecue showdown. It is basically a barbecue contest show. It's great. It's on Netflix just came out. So highly recommend checking that one out really nice, easy thing to watch.

Jen Pi
Is it like trying to consume as much barbecue as possible or just is there are their menu because he's based on like, how your barbecue? Can I know if I find that? Like I don't know if that's a relaxing thing for me to see people just stuffing

Ryan Burgess
Oh no, it's good that you ask that clarifying question. It is actual like cooks that are barbecue and that they are faced with certain challenges that they have to cook with a certain protein and maybe use certain things that they're not used to. So it's kind of got its like twists and turns on. It's just it's a fairly easy watch. I liked it actually learned a few things. I've been doing a lot of smoking over the past like summer, and I've learned a few things through it. Before we end the episode. I want to thank both Bianca and Jen for joining us. Where can people get in touch with you?

Jen Pi
LinkedIn? Jen pi is probably the best place.

Bianca Bortolussi
You can find me on LinkedIn, Bianca Bartolozzi, kind of hard to spell or you can reach out to me directly. My email is B Borley. c@netflix.com.

Ryan Burgess
Great. Well, it was a pleasure having you both on a lot of great insights and we're continuing to learn how to really interview remotely. I'm excited for us to be back in person. But we're figuring it out. Jem, where can people get in touch with you?

Jem Young
I'm on Twitter at Jem Young. I'm on GitHub at young I do not have an Instagram. If you see me on Instagram that is not me.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, it's funny. I've seen a few gem Young's or gem. There's a lot of Instagrams but it's not gem I keep telling him he needs to just join the clan on Instagram just get with the times. But yes, he is not on Instagram. I know I'm cool. You can find me at @burgessdryan on Twitter on my Instagram I believe it is Ryan Burgess. I post photos from time to time not a ton but once in a while. Thank you all for listening today's episode you can find us at front end Happy Hour comm subscribe to us on really whatever you like to listen to our podcasts on. And you can follow us on Twitter at front end. Ah, we are on Instagram as well. I've run nhh any last words.

Jen Pi
Thanks for having us. Let's fun do it again. Yeah, lattes.