Family business in IT. How we put together a team

Foreword

About a year ago we decided that the birthday of our Energoslon will be the 8th of May. Somehow it happened by itself and, I confess, I don’t remember very well why. Either that day we started inviting the first testers, or it was the day when we created the first blog entry, or some other event happened ... I do not remember. But anyway, on May 8th our Elephant blows out the candles on the birthday cake and gladly accepts gifts.

And so it happened that on the eve of the Elephant Birthday Megamind gave us an unexpected and very pleasant surprise: the ability to write articles in the corporate blog. It was this gift that pushed me to write another article from the series “Family Business in IT”. And I want to tell in this article about how we assembled the team.

“Web designer? I?! Guys, are you kidding ... "

We heard about these words from Masha 3 years ago when we offered her a job in our web studio. Masha drew a lot of fun, and sometimes we ordered her graphic design work. However, she never did website design. Yes, and did not think about it.
')
And we really needed a designer, it was impossible to find a good specialist at a remote place. With several local designers, we tried to work on a project to look at each other. But it always ended badly. Deadlines broke, the work did not reach, the prices were unfairly overestimated. As a result, I had to sit at night and redo everything from scratch. Then we realized that instead of spending time on useless searches for a designer, we need to grow this designer.

Masha was the perfect candidate. Yes, she didn’t understand web-design at all, but she approached work responsibly. And most importantly, she had a taste and just skillfully knew how to combine colors.
I remember, then Sasha and I caught an infection somewhere and got sick with pneumonia. What was the last push: the high temperature or the logo sent by Masha for our studio is hard to say. But anyway, we realized that the time had come for a serious conversation.

At the interview we convinced Masha to join us. They promised to help her become a first-class web designer, provide an opportunity to work on a flexible schedule and just fill up her interesting and challenging work. How could you say no? After 3 years, Masha looks at the design of her first sites with horror and wonders how such a thing could have been done. But we spare her subtle creative nature and do not show what horrors we had to see, working with other designers who consider themselves to be first-class specialists.

Today, despite the already quite extensive experience and high level of work, Masha is still critical of herself and continues to learn and develop. That is why we appreciate it, love and encourage it in every way.

“I practically know nothing about seo, but I am ready to study day and night”

Feel the pattern? Yes, Peter, our SEO, when he came to work in the studio, he knew about search engine optimization only what he had read before the interview on the Internet. At least then I got the impression. But let's order.

I was engaged in promotion of sites in our company. And this horror made me sick. There were more and more clients, and I still had copywriting, content, accounting, and meetings with clients. Once I realized that there was no more strength left. And, frankly, the lack of time began to affect the quality of work. Positions did not grow, customers were unhappy. I realized that it was time to take a seoshnika to the staff, my husband was not against it, but my hands still could not get to deal with this issue closely.

One day, a young man representing a company engaged in the employment of foreigners asked for a meeting at Sasha. Then our office was just one room in which we both worked and held meetings. By the edge of my ear, I overheard a conversation in which a young man praised programmers from India. And then we started talking about our studio and the guy asked: “Do you also promote websites? I just enjoy this topic and in my free time I study seo. ”

My first thought was: “This is fate!”, But it was immediately replaced by the second: “What the fuck is fate? You don't believe in all this nonsense! ” And Sasha has already made a proposal to the young man, which he could not refuse. In general, it seemed that everything was going perfectly.

However, when a month later our new employee decided that he was not at all interested in seo, and work was generally a waste of time, I was once again convinced that “destiny and signs” do not work in the real world, but you need to approach more seriously.

Therefore, I posted a vacancy on hh.ru and prepared to conduct an interview. In general, the search for employees, the selection of resumes and interviews - it is quite exhausting work. If you have ever done this, you can not disagree with me. In the ad, I wrote that the level of knowledge in the field of seo is not so important, the desire to grow and develop is important.

I was just flooded with letters from the resume. There were actually a lot of them. In total, we conducted about 20 interviews, I selected three of the most appropriate candidates and were already inclined to choose one of them.
But then the phone rang and a male voice asked if it was still possible to send your resume or he was already late. In fact, the reception of the resume was closed the day before, but why not communicate with another candidate?

You know, it was one of the most difficult decisions that I had to make during the whole existence of our studio. After talking with Petya (namely, he was the applicant who sent the resume at the last moment), I didn’t sleep almost all night. I had to make a choice. To hire a specialist with good experience in seo, but who dreams to move to Moscow. Or, to give preference to a person who really wants to work in our company, but at the same time I have to spend time and energy on his training.

I chose the second. And I am sure that I was not mistaken. We will not know how long the first candidate would have worked in our company; perhaps we would also work wonderfully. However, I know for sure that it would be a big mistake to miss such an able and responsible employee as Peter.

Peter has been with the company for almost 2 years. During this time he has achieved great success in the field of seo, he constantly studies and tries something new and already teaches me all kinds of seo tricks.

“If you now believe in me and give me a chance, I will invest myself in the development of your project!”

We were not looking for a developer in a web studio, but specifically for Energoslon. Frankly, it was a sore subject. We just had no luck with the developers. Previously, several web-programmers had already worked in the studio, but none of them stayed in the team for more than six months. Now the task was even more difficult: we had to find a specialist to work on such a large project. Someone had to take the front of work on the Elephant, and the sooner we solve this problem, the faster our service will be launched.

I posted ads on Huntim and hh.ru. There were no responses. After a full house when searching for a SEO, such a lull seemed like a disaster. Then I bought access to the base of the resume on the same HeadHunter and started calling the potential candidates.

Practically in 90% of cases I was told that the job was already found and only two candidates agreed to have an interview. But none of them made an impression on us. We are desperate ...

And then I received a letter from another candidate, who said that he noticed that we were reviewing his resume and would be happy to come for an interview. Having opened my resume, I remembered that I had really seen it before, but I did not take it seriously. The young man knew a bunch of languages, studied in Japan, worked in China, recently moved to Krasnodar from Moscow. Had a bunch of diplomas and some other certificates. But at the same time there was practically no programming experience, and there was no experience at all in web programming. I reacted with doubt to such a candidate, as it seemed that we were dealing with a theorist who loves to receive diplomas and diplomas, but with absolutely no practical skills.

Sent a resume to Sasha, he said: "Hmm, well, let's talk.". So we met with Egor.
After the interview, I changed my mind about this candidate.

First of all, Egor appeared to be a really smart person with logical thinking and a high level of intellect. And in my opinion, it is these qualities that a good developer should possess.
Secondly, in front of me was an adult and serious man who set himself the goal: “to become a high-class expert in the field of web-programming”. And he asked us to help him achieve this goal.

We took a break, it was necessary to think it over carefully. In fact, we understood that taking on a specialist staff with little or no experience, we postpone the launch date of our project. And besides, we risk getting low-quality code that will kill the whole idea.

But on the other hand, what was the alternative? A whole month of searching for a developer has not given any results yet. And it is not known whether we can find this developer at all. We decided to take a chance and gave Yegor a probationary period of 1 month.

I will not say that we were immediately convinced of the correctness of the decision made. A month has passed, but we still doubted. Egor tried very hard, but the result was not yet. We decided to extend the trial period for another month. Constantly evaluated and discussed his work. And probably only after 3 months of working together, we realized that the decision was made. Egor joined the team and began to cope with their work. We breathed a sigh of relief.

Almost 1.5 years have passed since then, and it seems that during this time the World has received another good back-end programmer.

Small summary

It so happened that none of our employees had experience in the area in which we offered jobs. But each of them really wanted to develop and become a professional. And all three of them turned out great.

Does this mean that in the future we will give preference to candidates with burning eyes and a desire to grow and develop, but without experience? I do not know, the question is very complicated. In a small company, every employee is worth its weight in gold. And if the employee is not ready yet to take on the entire front of work, most often this means that some of the managers have to work for two. But on the other hand, of course, the relationships that develop with such an employee are worth the effort.

By the way, another common feature that unites our colleagues is having work experience in other companies. They know what working conditions may be and that is why they value what we offer.

• First, we have no work schedule. There is only a request to come to work no later than 12. At the same time, you will not find Masha before 11 in the office, but Peter is already at the post at 8:00.
• Secondly, we have no sick leave. Not in the sense that we do not allow ill. Just the opposite: sick - stay at home. We do not force to go to the doctors for papers. If you come to the office of the patient and infect someone, you will get a hat. And the absence at work does not affect the pay, the salary is paid in full.
• Thirdly, we calmly take time off and requests to leave. The main thing is that the tasks are carried out, and not that the employee is sitting in the office.
• Fourth, all corporate events are paid from the company's budget, with the exception of March 8 and February 23. Employees organize these two holidays on their own.
• Fifth, we are always ready to pay for any courses or study materials, we regularly buy books to the office. In general, we try to do everything so that employees grow and develop.

Of course, in return, we also demand a lot. All tasks must be completed on time. Do not have time or skimped - be kind, stay and bring the matter to mind. And if there are no urgent tasks, you can safely rest or engage in self-development. At the same time, work on unleash is not allowed, we work for the result and do everything to the maximum.

Conclusion

You know, until you encounter such a task as finding employees, you will not understand how difficult it is. I really think that in the work of a manager the most difficult thing is the organization of work in a team. And I am very glad that we managed to assemble such a team. Thank you guys for helping Energlon to grow and develop! Without you, nothing would have happened!

PS In November, another employee joined our small team. You ask, why is it for us, if the team is so complete? The fact is that we decided on another bold step. Which one Bye secret. Learn in 3 weeks! Keep track of publications in our new blog.