I call.
So I like to start things off just ask you a little bit about your background.
Yes.
Can you tell us who you are and what your background is.
Sure.
Hi I'm Nick Levingston co-founder and CEO of hernot spend about 10 years in this human resources industry
in Princeton and recruiting and corporate talent acquisition.
I start with the agency side and then moved in-house working at you know larger positions like MTV Networks
and then most recently hypergrowth technology firms here in the Bay Area.
I like to move on and help them grow from 60 to 360 employees and just a couple of years.
Awesome.
OK cool.
So I have one of the first questions on my mind just like what do you think is the difference between
technical and non-technical interviewing for candidates that are even more technical.
Well I think any any technical roles and this could be in finance this could be in engineering or product.
You know I think the hiring manager is looking at people's problem to solve problems solving abilities
and you know because a lot of times the there are people who can figure things out and whether that's
you know coding something that's never been built before or whether that's kind of re-engineering an
existing process to be more efficient or more beneficial to the company.
You know in looking for the mines that can help connect the dots to a new solution.
And so I think technical interviews in particular whether it be coding exercises or go white white working
they're looking for people that can can can break down a problem and elegantly speak through a solution.
And even if it's not be the right solution you can find time limits.
Not looking for someone who can take what they've given speaks through an elegant solution.
And if there's a change or something you know a curve ball and the question that they can use that information
to incorporate that into their model and then you know provide an update to whatever solution that they
recommend.
Cool.
So what do you think there's anything different about people who are looking to get started in you know
sort of more technical careers.
I mean you don't have for example I don't know a big code based show where a lot of projects.
Yeah I think one of the one of the benefits to folks interested in the transition into a career in say
engineering or web development is that there are a lot of resources out there available.
And even if your day job may not be coding you have the ability if you're interested and passionate
about making that transition to to hone your skills to learn some of those tools and technologies on
the side.
I think employers are hesitant to take a risk on hiring someone who hasn't shown enough initiative to
do that on their own.
They don't want to be the company that teaches you everything from scratch.
But they do want someone with a good foundation that they that is willing and able and motivated to
learn and enroll.
And so I think Job need a junior or recent graduate or a new coder who is transitioning from a different
career path they need to overcome the gap that is you know we know you're new.
We know we're open to training investing in our in our in our employees.
But we want to make the right bet.
And if you think about it that way you need to be able to convince the hiring manager or interview team
that you've got a good fit nation.
You've got some of the fundamentals but what more importantly do you have them.
You've shown that you can't be you know gone above and beyond staying up at night.
You've got this lab at home and you've done what you can with the tools available to you to maximize
that.
So you so you want to show that you have learned things but also build things that kind of the idea.
Yeah I mean I think every good you know every recruiter is excited when they see on a resume or a link
to a lab right that that someone has their day job and maybe they're coding something that isn't so
sexy they're working at a lot of memorization where they're focused on a very particular thing.
But it's to get this portfolio at home with the lab that shows that they are exploring new technologies
that they've dabbled with you know Python or Ruby on Rails or any of these kind of new technologies
even if it's outside of their day to day technology.
That's the kind of engineering you're looking for someone that's keeping them keeping an eye on the
next tools and technologies that are going to make that organization successful and more scalable.
That's really right.
I remember this from our previous conversations that we didn't record which is that you love this lab
you love when people have a laugh.
Well that's the that's the benefit I mean a resume you look at a resume it's it's it's you know from
the dawn of time people are applying and interviewing you know the resume is a static piece of paper
which you know has buzzwords and such but you know nowadays resumes are reviewed on computers and hyperlink
can say so much more than the text on a resume right in saying that you know designers that showcase
their dribble or advanced profiles.
That's that's their portfolio.
You've got engineers that now want to get that.
That's their real portfolio.
And one of the challenges we find is that there's a lot of other roles in organization marketing operations
sales where they don't have a portfolio working well and a lot of their you know talent that they bring
to the company are their communication and project management and some of these softer skills.
And so one of the things we're doing at home it was trying to get a sounding board to other professionals
to have a portfolio if you will to take employers to offer their resumes.
Cool.
All right.
All right well then that's a good segue because you know I want to give you a chance to tell people
who are watching this about what it's for how they can take advantage of.
Sure so Hona is a resource for jobseekers who are active or professionals who are in the middle of their
career looking to make a transition.
Maybe you're looking to change a role maybe looking at changing industry maybe or changing location.
Any one of those things alone can be very difficult in terms of career transition.
And many times we see job seekers doing more than just one of those at a time.
So what we what we've built is a marketplace that connects jobseekers with subject matter experts in
marketing finance accounting engineering et cetera that work at Great companies.
So we've got experts who worked at tumblr at Uber at Microsoft our sales force right to make themselves
available nights and weekends to do rigorous mock interviews to jobseekers.
And because these aren't tied to an actual job at their company they're able to get real time feedback
advice after the conversation takes place.
And so you know job seekers not only do you have access to these great working professionals who are
hiring managers and interview all day at their day jobs.
They get the career advice and the real time feedback that you don't typically get as part of a real
job application or job interview because there's liabilities associated with a job they don't want to
tell you why why you didn't get the job and sort's difficult to improve your skills.
So it's a tool for improving your interview skills.
Yeah not only is it a tool for improving your actual interview skills.
What we do is after the conversation takes place job seekers can extract highlights or excerpts from
that live conversation and attach those answers to their HORNIK profile and attach that profile to their
resume or cover letter.
Are you going to Linked In profile to say hey listen you have my resume.
But listen to me talking about Google Analytics listen to me talking about overcoming an objection from
a customer.
Now listen to me answering a question from her rigorous mock interview about you know putting together
a real time programmatic media buy or an online client of hers.
Ever see a friction between recruiters who may have heard about it.
You get a tweet from a candidate and say what's the tone if they know.
I don't know if I'm gonna go check that out.
Well we're actually we're actually providing a lot of value to recruiters.
Workers spent eight seconds looking at a resume to decide if they want to invest another 20 minutes
and 20 minutes would be it by the form of a phone interview.
The problem is Phone interviews are it take time and we're going to ask you so many incoordination and
so what we're giving is a chance for a recruiter to hear within 30 seconds the enthusiasm the passion
the soft skills that they really want to understand from the applicant without having to invest 30 minutes
of time talking to that person.
So maybe I mean just coming from my experience like where it's hard to get her attention to get there
being with me mean do you think that maybe this is a good tool or a good part of your profile to showcase.
Once you're sort of in a networking situation where you actually have a a message for example a job
recruiter or directly and say hey this is my portfolio you might be familiar with it yet but it's a
really cool way to get to know me a little bit more in-depth without having to actually interview me
or something like that.
Exactly that.
And also we talked about being in a career transition if you're looking to change anything about you
know if you're looking to do something different than what.
Exactly.
But for this is that platform where you can be proactive and get in front of those known weaknesses
or known gaps to say hey listen yes I've been a marketing manager of pharmaceutical industry.
I'm really passionate about getting into advertising technology and want to be a market manager there.
This is what I've done to learn about tech.
These are the events I've gone to here this is my daily groggery and you can articulate that at the
beginning of the process because a recruiter is going to look at your resume and say oh no an attack
or no industry X you know.
Yeah yeah totally.
So you know one thing I was wondering also something like Is there anything that you would want to like.
Do you tweet.
You know do you.
I don't know anything that you do.
You know you let people know what's going on in your head in the world the job.
And.
Yeah we were trying to get better at that.
You know it's interesting there's a lot of there's a lot of career advice out there.
Right.
I think what we're trying to do though is is make it a bit more realistic and more modern and rather
than hearing it from from a career coach or a career counselor.
What we want to give it you know a job seeker the ability to hear that from someone who is a hiring
manager during the day from someone who does an interview.
And you know top top flight and the company is to have a very high bar for talent.
And you know the conversation through it goes well with these experts that expert can then recommend
you to to work and to work at temblor et cetera.
So it could be that you asked.
Well it's not an interview at one of those companies.
It's a chance to you know to go through the ringer and you know if you perform well not only can you
leverage the answers that you do well on your profile but you could also you know give a good impression
with the decision maker and one of these firms.
Cool.
All right well thanks for taking the interview.
I know that people appreciate that.
All right.
Thanks for the opportunity.