Post job. Read resume. Schedule interview. Ask generic questions. Hire for a job. Repeat. 

Having trouble growing a team of incredible, innovative, and whip-smart talent to help your company grow? It might be time to dust off the stale recruiting process we’ve all fallen victim to over the years. 

But, how do you break out of the hiring rut to grow a team of remarkable talent? Here are five ways we at HubSpot are challenging ourselves to break away from the ‘rinse and repeat’ model to grow a global team of people who don’t just fit our culture, but further it.

1. Test specifically for your company values. 

At HubSpot, we try to avoid culture fit and instead hire for culture add, as we want new employees to challenge our culture with unique experiences, ideas, and backgrounds while still exemplifying our HEART values found in HubSpot’s Culture Code. Focus on behavioral interview questions that allow candidates to share their own experiences that can translate to your company’s values. For example, to test for humility, we may ask a candidate “Tell me about a time you made someone else look brilliant.”

2. Hire for potential vs. experience.

Roles will always have certain requirements and experience necessary, but no candidate will check every box on a list of “must-haves”, so recruiting teams need to become adept at hiring for potential. Before evaluating candidates, identify what skills and competencies are truly required and identify what can be coached. Delete unnecessary requirements that may deter incredible candidates from applying. We added context around confidence to encourage candidates to be themselves in the process:

“Confidence can sometimes hold us back from applying for a job. But we'll let you in on a secret: there's no such thing as a 'perfect' candidate. HubSpot is a place where everyone can grow. So however you identify and whatever background you bring with you, please apply if this is a role that would make you excited to come into work every day.”

3. Hire a diverse workforce.

So, how can you ensure that the way you are hiring is inclusive to diverse and underrepresented candidates? Diversity goes beyond ethnicity, race, and gender - it also extends to backgrounds, experiences, and identities. At HubSpot, we continue to work on creating an interview process where each candidate has a consistent interviewer experience to help minimize unconscious biases. Last year we invested in incorporating some scientific guardrails through our Applicant Tracking System to help our recruiters, hiring managers, and interviewers decrease mental shortcuts. 

We also have leaned heavily into behavioral interview questions, so candidates can use their unique past experiences as examples that translate to your company’s values. 

4. Consider everyone at your company a recruiter.

At HubSpot, we believe that everyone is a recruiter, regardless of title or tenure. Whether it’s grabbing coffee with a friend that may be interested in a role, volunteering to network at events, or sharing a post on LinkedIn about an award or new podcast, every touchpoint can help attract candidates. We try to make this as frictionless as possible for our teammates by sharing any opportunities where people can pitch in and provide content that can be easily shared.