As The Workshop’s Talent Acquisition Team, we work with very different perspectives every day. On one hand, we can be working with the leadership team. This involves finding out the company’s needs and upcoming projects to make sure we have the right people in the right place. On the other hand, we need to constantly look for talented people willing to join our company in either of the locations: London, or Málaga. For those who are familiar with our brand, and those who have never heard about who we are and what we do. Most importantly, we need to make the magic happen; we need to find the person who possesses all the skills, values and motivation that we are looking for, and who is equally excited to join us. It sounds so simple, but it’s so complex at the same time, as we also have to consider human factors to find a good fit.

This is why we want to be modern, human and transparent partners in everything we do. This blog post should help our candidates understand what it takes to apply to The Workshop, to go through the typical process, and how to prepare for it best.

To start with, most of our positions are open for both internal and external applicants. Should they be opened for internal candidates only, we will publish and inform only the internal candidates who’ve signed up for our Teamtailor tool. For the roles open to both external and internal candidates, we will always publish all available roles via our Careers Page, where everyone can easily apply, create their profile and even mark if they are interested in any particular area (‘Connect‘). If you connect with us via Teamtailor as an external visitor, you will be notified about any upcoming role in the area that you’re looking for. This means that even if you are unsuccessful for your first time applying, you may be taken into consideration in future.

Please bear in mind our company language is English, so make sure to submit the application documents in this language. We strive for a truly diverse and multicultural colleagues, so not everyone will be able to review the documents if they’re submitted, for example, in Spanish for Málaga-based roles.

What happens next?

We are very committed to getting back to you as soon as possible, and for that reason we estimated the duration of the ideal Candidate Journey; it should take less than a month from when you apply to when you accept our offer. We understand that nowadays different recruitment processes happen in parallel – often at the speed of light – so before opening any role, we usually define the steps to go through with different members of the Hiring Team. When you apply, typically a member of the Talent Acquisition Team, Subject Matter Expert and Hiring Manager will be able to instantly review your profile. Often it takes us a bit longer to shortlist the best applications to move onto the next steps, but typically you should receive an update from us after no more than 3 working days. What helps us assess your profile is well-written and explained answers to the Application Questions, where you can stand out from the crowd. If you are selected, you will have an initial phone or video conference interview with a member of the Talent Acquisition Team responsible for that particular business area.

Initial conversation

In this first interview, we will mostly talk about your motivation for wanting the specific role, and for joining The Workshop. If you are willing to relocate, we will certainly ask about what makes you interested in the particular location, and what kind of relocation support will you need in case you are successful. Typically, we go through your most relevant experience for the role and ask for the reasons why you took certain roles or moved onto the next ones, what drives you in life and motivates you to go to work every day. It is incredibly important for us that the successful candidate share our company values: Trust, Collaboration, Passion and Creativity. We will be looking into these values manifesting in your previous experiences, as vibrant and inclusive culture is very important for us. At the end of the interview, we will ask for your particular expectations related to the role, your notice period, and more practical questions. We will also be very happy to answer your questions about the role, the company and location, if you have any. We are keen to share our personal experiences, too; almost all of us came from different backgrounds. This conversation shouldn’t take longer than 45 minutes and you should receive feedback about the outcome up to 5 working days later.

Technical interview

If you successfully went through the first stage, we will invite you to meet with one of the Subject Matter Experts. This may be your future manager, or a colleague from the team who will be interested in understanding the breadth and depth of your technical knowledge, experience and thinking process. For the engineering roles, we will aim to run a language-agnostic interview script and exercises, as we most value your ability to solve problems, to think outside the box and come up with creative ideas while using industry best practices. In this interview, you will have a chance to meet your potential colleagues and ask questions about their typical day, what to expect, and learn more about their experience. After this conversation, we will again keep you updated about your feedback, and if it is positive you will advance to the final interview stage – an onsite meeting. Typically, we don’t take longer than 5-7 working days to reply. For some roles, during this stage or shortly afterwards we will ask you to perform a take-home test to check on some skills we were not able to test out during this interview. We’ll let you know how long it should take, and we will aim to keep it short and uncomplicated.

Onsite meeting

It is important for us that you visit our offices, get to know the working environment and more of your potential colleagues. After agreeing on a date, we will schedule a 2-3 hours session with you onsite, where you will meet your future Manager (and often other Subject Matter Experts) as well as people you will be collaborating with. When you apply for the engineering roles, it is possible that you will meet colleagues from different teams. At this point we cannot guarantee which team you will be allocated to when you start, and the important factor is if you are curious and willing to work as a full-stack developer in an environment that surprises you with everyday challenges. In the interview we may ask you to talk through your thinking process when solving problems, or work together with someone to come up with a solution. Other than that, we will follow up on any topics that are unclear to us after the previous meetings and will be curious to meet you as a person. There is no official dress code here, so come as you are; we welcome everyone to our team. Make sure you come prepared with any questions you have – we will be happy to answer them. At the end of the meeting, we will show you around our offices. If you are travelling for the interview from other cities, prior to booking the date, we will give you guidelines on how to get to our offices, the amount and type of travel costs we will reimburse, and the expense claiming procedure. We really want you to get to know us, the city and the surroundings to make sure you make an informed decision. Hopefully you will like this experience and be able to explore your future location as well!

Follow up

Usually after the onsite interview we are able to give you our final reply within 2-3 days. The Talent Acquisition Team member who accompanied you throughout your journey will make sure that we provide you all the feedback, and if we would like to proceed with an offer, we’ll explain all the contractual topics and additional benefits at The Workshop. When you receive an offer, you will typically have 2 days to get back to us. If you are still unsure about certain topics, we will be available to answer any questions that you may have.

Joining us?

Happy times! We are always very excited when a candidate decides to join us, and very quickly you will hear from our best friends – People Partners – who will take care of your smooth onboarding and, if applicable, relocation. For those who move for the job, we offer very helpful Soft Landing Packages that we explain in more detail in our benefits section. Every candidate, upon acceptance of the offer, needs to go through a process of Background Checking, which you will be informed about straightaway. Don’t worry – it usually goes very smoothly! Then we look forward to welcoming you onboard on your first day.

If you haven’t been selected

“You always meet twice” is our motto. We believe that everyone deserves new chances, and that’s why you can re-apply for roles in the future. When you receive feedback, we will typically state what it will take to be successful next time, and 6-12 months after being turned down you may try applying again. We will let you know how to keep in touch best in the future, and while staying connected you will be able to see our open roles notifications directly.

We’re looking forward to your feedback

Continuous improvement and an agile way of working is our mindset, so we are constantly looking to become better at what we do. After finishing your candidate journey, we will send you a quick survey asking for your notes and feedback. We look closely into the data and apply the improvements into our development cycle, so please feel free to tell us how your experience went. We look forward to learning from you and keeping in touch in the future.

About the author

Awarded with Talent10 in 2019, Katy has extensive tech and leadership experience in talent acquisition, as well as diversity & inclusion strategy. She leads the Talent Acquisition Team and its global strategy from HQ in Málaga and London.

Prior to that she lived in Berlin where she was a Senior Recruiting Partner for Technology in the music tech companies like SoundCloud and Native Instruments, as well as entertainment/gaming companies like Wooga where she contributed greatly to D&I hiring programmes and providing equal opportunities in tech and leadership paths.

Katy truly believes that People, Talent and Culture make the companies differentiate nowadays, and Talent should be a strategic function of every tech company: starting from the employer branding and candidate experience journey to the satisfactory learning & development opportunities.