Archive for the ‘Recruiting’ Category
October 17, 2007
Redfin just wrapped up its first big day of on-campus recruiting, in Palo Alto. Since we didn’t actually reserve a room on Stanford’s campus, this involved sitting in a café for nearly seven hours straight and guzzling hot chocolates made from asphalt by surly French baristas.
Listening to the students’ poised recitation of accomplishments in robot-programming competitions and other obscure academic Olympics, it was hard not to think of my own summers spent mowing lawns and washing dishes, and my post-collegiate ambition to get a girlfriend, and to work in a climate-controlled facility (I became a bike messenger).
We met a national chess champion, a drum major, a fencer, an entrepreneur starting her second company, an Israeli diplomat, the daughter of a Mongol shepherd, a documentary film aficionado and, most tragically, a one-time vegetarian now addicted to Jack in the Box.
One student wore a nice little suit. Everyone else came in shorts, or a baseball cap turned backwards, or sandals (but not without explaining that he would have worn socks if any had been clean). Of course, one of us was wearing a t-shirt, so we could hardly complain.
We asked the students how they liked school, and instead of seeming beaten down by the question as a Berkeley student would, they all brightened up. We offered to buy them a warm drink b
ut several insisted on paying, furrowing their brow kindly at my slowly drawn wallet.
And then we tried to ask about their classes, but instead they asked us: how will we attract customers to our site, when do we expect to make profits, which investors are supporting us? It made me feel like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in “Airplane,” accosted by a nine-year old about his defense against the Celtics.
Finally at 6:15, we finished up. On the drive along 101, in a borrowed Suzuki Samurai whose door handle drooped down halfway home, we compared notes. My colleague, Sasha Aickin, himself a terrifyingly precocious Stanford graduate, an award-winning documentary film-maker and an aspiring cookbook author, said the students seemed pretty good. They were ok, I mumbled. “For Stanford students, I mean.”
Truth be told, you were all wonderful. If there are any of you at Stanford or elsewhere whom we missed, especially in the often-overlooked liberal arts, let us know. We had a really nice time talking to you all and would have enjoyed it even more if we hadn’t had to listen to ourselves say the same things over and over again.
December 15, 2006
The start-up I joined out of college was co-founded by Jon Kraft, nicknamed Beef, whose neck was so big and his arms so short that he had to walk around with his sleeves rolled up. He managed to convey to us lesser mortals a sense of both derision and kindness, for which we were always grateful.
The first question Jon ever asked me changed my life. Sticking his head over my cube wall as if he’d just made a happy but probably useless discovery he said, “Hey Kelman… do you RALLY?”
We spent the rest of the night stapling brochures. And even though I’ve always been more a lollygagger, I began to think of myself as a rallyer. Jon has gone on to make a massive multi-player pornographic game, the amazing Pandora, Mozart-chiming stuffed animals, and now a technology that will allow you to insert your own face into Grand Theft Auto.
Jon is the reason I found myself on Thursday night at a Redmond Azteca as a gigantic windstorm shut down the city. We originally scheduled a meet-up there to talk to customers, partners and job-seekers. Then John Cook saw our blog announcement and sent the memo to Nerd-Land that there was a Seahawks game that night. Then the storm hit.
Matt Goyer, the product manager leading the charge, was unphased. “Maybe we should leave fifteen minutes early,” he said. “Maybe we should wimp out,” I said. He assumed I wasn’t serious. But the truth is, if I could have stayed home and still thought of myself as someone who rallied, I would have.
From our Pioneer Square office, we waded through hordes of Seahawks fans in blue firemen’s helmets and garbage bags, who seemed even happier because of the rain. It felt like one of those zoos where you walk among the animals.
Matt’s beat-up Neon from Winnipeg began burning oil after fifteen minutes on the road. We saw a waterfall pouring over the freeway wall from Capitol Hill. The lights of the city looked so beautiful in the storm that it suddenly seemed like we were seeing them through tears. Matt took advantage of the time to tell me all the ways Redfin has to be better.
When we got to the Azteca, our CTO (Michael Young) had already ordered a half-dozen beers with little lime wedges and some rancid mexi-meat, in anticipation of the crowds to come. Sitting calmly in front of a little Redfin placard he had made himself, he looked as if he had never experienced a moment of self-doubt in his life. I wondered if I could drink all six beers myself.
But we discovered that the kind of people who use Redfin to buck the real estate industry are OK bucking some bad weather too. There was JD, the big guy who used Redfin to find a place in Kirkland when he moved here from Vallejo. The two entrepreneurs who started a hosted service for printing Christmas cards. The customer who just closed on a condo through Redfin and came to tell us we had to add home-owners’ fees to the site (check back in a month). The guys from Level 3 who came by to say our site was too slow.
Even though it was half the reason we were there, I didn’t get the guts to ask anybody if he wanted a job. When we got back to the Neon and tallied up what we got out of the night, the one thing that didn’t add up but meant the whole world was this realization about Redfin’s customers: you guys, rally too. Thanks for coming out. Jon Kraft would have been proud.
December 14, 2006
Recruiting is an odd human activity. All the social rituals we use to assuage people’s insecurities are put aside.
Examples are near at hand. With GATTACA-like efficiency, Google requires recruits ten years out of college to produce an official copy of their SAT scores. Investment bankers asked a friend if he ever punched someone in the face (”and if not, why not?”). At one particularly sad juncture in my life, interviewing for a job as a bicycle messenger, I was asked to run in place for two minutes.
In that Hobbesian spirit, Redfin is running a big coding contest for the college students whom we hope to recruit. To win, you just have to build a maps mash-up using a real estate data-set that we put out on the Internet. It should be really fun: you could build one that includes geo-coded photos with the “naked” tag from Flickr, or nearby Taco Bells. Don’t feel like you have to do anything fancy; quality of code is what counts.
The grand prize, given at every college campus we visit, is a souped-up MacBook Pro. Anyone with an entry good enough to get an interview wins a Nano (my one instinctive contribution to this contest was the insistence that the losers should get something, too).
The deadline for the first two campuses, Berkeley and Stanford, is January 16. We’ve been asked if non-college students can compete too. To tell the truth, if you can build a really sweet real estate mashup, we don’t even care if you went to college. So throw your hat in the ring!
(I just realized that the stop for the #3 bus I take on days it’s too rainy to ride a bike — many of these blog entries are written on a bus — is at the county clink. My whole life is like the beginning of a Blues Brothers’ movie.)
And don’t forget that tonight is Redfin Chimichanga Night at Azteca on the Seattle Eastside.
March 9, 2006
Redfin Direct is a hit and we want to make sure we have enough high-quality agents on staff to give every deal 110% customer support.
If you are an experienced agent who is dedicated to customer service, but tired of playing taxi cab driver we want to hear from you. Redfin offers a unique opportunity for agents to apply their real estate expertise in a consumer-oriented environment. Redfin agents are compensated with a competitive base salary and rewarded with bonuses based on customer satisfaction, not commissions.
We are looking for smart, experienced team players to help us define the future of real estate. If this makes your heart beat faster, check out this job description and drop us a line.
