Everything You Need to Know About Our Hiring Process

We get it — applying for a job can be overwhelming. You take the courageous step to share your resume and then wait and wonder. You wait to hear about the next steps. You wonder about who you’ll meet. And you question if there’s anything else you can do to help your chances of landing your dream job.

This blog answers your biggest questions about our hiring process so you can have clarity and confidence throughout the journey.

We do things differently — starting with who we hire.

There’s nothing traditional about working at New Story. As a Y Combinator alumni, we practice similar principles as the most successful startups. Working here isn’t easy, but it’s healthy. Because while we work hard, we don’t overwork. We believe good rest is a part of smart work.

Want proof? Check out this graph showing our Slack activity throughout the week. You can stay offline on the weekends, knowing all of your team members are doing the same.

If you’re ready to join an ambitious team tackling the housing crisis, then here’s what you can expect during our hiring process.

Our hiring process is generally a six-step process.

1. Initial Screening | 30-minute phone interview with our recruiter
2. Zoom Interview | 30-minute Zoom interview with the hiring manager
3. Take-Home Assessment
4. Group Zoom interview | With 2-3 people who would be on your team
5. Reference Checks
6. Half-Day Interview | In-person office visit in Atlanta or Mexico City to meet with our senior leadership & your peers

The hiring process takes 6-8 weeks, depending on the position and the schedules of everyone involved.

The hiring process is a two-way street of empathy.

One of our six core values at New Story is Express Gratitude and Empathy. How do we do it?

Providing clarity.

Hiring a new team member is an opportunity to express empathy to you, our team, and the families we serve with safe housing. This starts with our job post. Every role includes a salary range and the specific skills we are looking for. As soon as you apply (and again during your initial phone interview), we will share exactly what you can expect of our hiring process including the exact interview stages for the role you’re interested in, and who, when, and how we will follow up with you.

Our hiring process is thorough. We design our process not only for us to get to know you but for you to get to know us — because we are all more than our work. This is best felt at the final step of the process, where we host you in our Atlanta or Mexico City office for a half-day. You’ll get to meet the team, experience our culture in-person, and have some fun over good food (and maybe meet a dog or two). The better we understand each other as human beings, the more enjoyable and effective we’ll be at work.

Providing opportunities to showcase more than your interviewing skills.

You’re more than your answers to interview questions. That’s why we ask candidates to do a take-home assessment. We want to see your work in action and better understand how you approach problems.

We’ll present you with a hypothetical problem we could face at New Story, give you time to work on it, and then let you communicate your results and how you got there. It may seem like a lot, but the assessment is for more than just us to see your work up close. It’s a chance for you to experience the type of work you’ll do as a New Story team member.

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Common practices of the best candidates

While we have a diverse team, many shared common practices throughout the hiring process. Here’s a short list of ways you can stand out as a candidate.

• Do your homework | You can and should stalk us. It’s not weird. In fact, we’ll help you get started. Check out our podcast, our documentary, and our blog.
• Speak to our problems | Top candidates empathize with us by understanding our problems and speaking into how to solve them.
• Ask good questions | We leave room for questions in every stage of the hiring process. Take advantage of that time by getting to the bottom of your biggest questions.
• Be proactive | Team of Founders is another core value at New Story. It’s best summarized as an ownership mindset. And we love seeing it in candidates.
• Be concise | The more clear you can communicate about yourself and your work, the better we can get to know you as a person. Direct, simple language leaves no room for us to guess your intentions and what you’re saying.
• Use examples and data to make a point | We love stories. Come ready to share stories in and out of the workplace to show how you created an impact.
• Be diligent | We are chatting with a lot of people every day. If we don’t follow up as quickly as you’d like, we promise it isn’t personal. Don’t hesitate to check-in!

If you’re ready to join our team, you can apply for an open position on our careers page. We hope to hear from you soon!