Cloudflare Careers Day: Recruitment Corner

Hello and welcome to Recruitment Corner. This is our recruiting session led by the recruiting team here in EMEA as part of our EMEA Cloudflare Careers Day. A quick shout out to our hashtag if you want to send any questions to us on Twitter you can use hashtag Cloudflare Careers Day and some of you ferrying all those questions over to us throughout the day so if there's anything you want to ask or anything you're interested in definitely put a hashtag on Twitter and let us know. So let me introduce ourselves my name is Anthony I am a recruiting coordinator based in London here in the EMEA team and I'm joined by all of our EMEA recruiting team who I'm just going to introduce briefly so let's kick off with Lee Sam. Hi so I'm Lee I'm part of the the recruiting team I'm based in the London office I've been with Cloudflare since June 2018 I'm really looking forward to discussing recruiting here at Cloudflare. Awesome and Isabel Hello so I'm Isabel I'm part of the recruitment team so I'm a recruiter I'm based in Lisbon and I joined Cloudflare in April so can't wait to talk more about recruitment today with you. Thanks Isabel and let's jump over to Daniela. Hi everyone I am Daniela I am a recruiting coordinator just like Anthony I am based in Lisbon with Isabel and we're supporting the whole of regs for roles for EMEA office Lisbon office sorry. Awesome and Anna-Wolf. Hi everyone I'm part of this amazing team also working as a recruiter based out of London and I've joined April last year so it's been some time already and supporting positions and roles across EMEA. Thank you and last but not least Akef. Hi everyone welcome to the recruitment corner I'm Akef and I'm a sales recruiter supporting our sales hiring across EMEA. Amazing thanks everyone for introducing yourselves and I just wanted to take a quick second to say thank you to Poppy, Alonzo and JGC John Graham-Cumming for doing our first session and kicking off today it was really great to hear all your thoughts and insight and how we got started in EMEA. So we brought ourselves together here today throughout the day to give you a lot more information about things that are happening in EMEA give you a bit more insight into what the teams look like what we're working on to help build a better and safer Internet here at Cloudflare and also just to give you a bit more of an insight as to what kind of roles are open at the moment and whether you might have a right sort of skill set to match one of those roles and give you more information about how best to apply prepare for interviews so yeah we hope to give you a lot of interesting information if you have got any questions again you can use the hashtag and we'll get those from you you can also call in or you can email all the informations on Cloudflare TV but we're going to get started and I've got a few questions that I've got prepped and ready to send to people so the first question is going to be focused mainly around this year obviously there's been a big change to everyone that's working globally because of the COVID-19 situation and that has affected us even though we're an Internet company we are still people who usually would go into an office but sadly we're not in our office anymore so I guess the first thing we wanted to discuss was just how recruiting has changed what we've shifted how we've adapted to the COVID-19 situation so Lee why don't you kick us off on sort of some of the changes that you've seen or things that you've had to apply to your kind of work process when dealing with candidates during this process this change sorry sure so I think one of the first things that comes to mind when I think about what we had to change in our recruitment process since the pandemic is extending offers to candidates without the hiring team having an opportunity to meet the candidate in person we had historically even flown candidates to to the office if they were based in another country we would fly them out so that they could spend a day or two in the city where their their roles could be based so that they could meet the hiring team in person and I remember the first few days when you know when we were all kind of fully working from home and we were starting to get to off the stage with a number of offers I remember the apprehension that some managers had you know extending offers to these candidates who they hadn't met yet and so that was quite a big change for us culturally now it just seems completely natural we've been doing it for a few months and we've hired we've had a lot of people start we've not met Isabel and Akif are great examples of that and Daniela we've not met yet but it was a great cultural shift and that was one of the things I remember being a big change for us and maybe to briefly chip in here because what one of the things that hasn't changed is actually actually the the interviews and the focus areas we're having so previously we would have invited folks over like Lee mentioned and the individuals would meet the team spend like half of a day or a day on sites doing all of the interviews we continue to do those focus interviews now over google meets but you know I keep on telling candidates that it's a still a great opportunity to connect with different individuals and folks and get a sense of the environment they'll be working with in as well as stakeholders they'll be working on day by day over the period of their career so this this is a very important part because I do get the question every now and then like okay it seems to be like a big round of conversations coming up it's like use the opportunity use the opportunity to get a sense of the environment to connect with folks to ask questions so you exactly know what it will be like when you join Cloudflare. Yeah definitely and I think it's so funny now that everyone is remote because you get these people on your screen in your house rather than going to an interview room together and having some time together so all of a sudden you're you're kind of star trekking someone into your home and saying right let's have an interview and have a conversation about your skill set or about your experience so it's a really great opportunity and one of the most important things for us at Cloudflare in terms of our ethos around recruiting is not just to have one two three people that make a decision and that's it but that the people that we interview get to meet a range of individuals that come from different parts of the business so you know sales will meet different people from different parts of the business they would integrate in their jobs so they get to know what it's like to work with a solutions engineer or how they might partner with a CSM and I think that is really important. Let's jump over to Daniela you joined remotely and you've been scheduling interviews remotely alongside me how have we changed how have you what have you seen us do during lockdown that you think has been interesting to kind of navigate the difficulties? Well I am the newest member on the team so I just joined three months ago so yes it was fully remote and I have to say that there are nuances and there are positives to this whole situation in terms of the recruiting process for example we are a lot more flexible now in terms of scheduling we can accommodate most candidates because they don't have to for example take a day off of their current work to interview with us our on -site stages are quite long in terms of interviews they have different interviews so we so the candidates can meet a lot of people and get a good feel for the organization and for who we are and so they do need to to spend some time interviewing with us and it's really good to see that while we are remote we can easily schedule interviews and if not we can quickly get back to the candidates and can reach out to us again with more availability so I think that part is positive and it's quite interesting to see that candidates also appreciate that appreciate our flexibility and response response times. Yeah I definitely agree I think the fact that we can be more flexible around you know splitting people's interviews over two days so that they can manage whether it's their personal situations that they've got going on at the moment child care and their own work commitments that they're in because you know let's face it interviewing it takes a lot of time out of your schedule especially when you're interviewing people who are also working so it has to be nine to five generally and I think it's been really great that we've it's a thing that we never really thought about that we can now offer and you know ideally we're not splitting interviews across weeks and weeks and we're trying to keep them bunched together so that people do get an experience that feels like it you know follows on from each other and and they're within a set time period but it's a really great offering I think that we hadn't really anticipated being a positive out of this situation and it's meant that we can be really flexible like Daniela said so I think it's a really great opportunity at the moment to be able to meet different people and really flex and support our candidates in what's happening in their lives. Let's jump over to Anna, you told us a little bit about what you think's been great during the process but is there anything else? I guess Lee talked a little bit about how he kind of deals with candidates towards the end of the process but have you seen any change in how you speak to candidates or work with candidates maybe in the earlier stages? Not particularly I think we still continue to you know try to to support all the candidates throughout the process we still have this interaction like I would usually have before interviews over the phone trying to you know prepare them if there are any questions jump on a call so in this perspective not much has changed obviously we continue to improve our process yeah so that's like one thing that probably hasn't changed. We obviously do try and improve our support to candidates before their interviews. Also I guess like it's a completely different experience like whether you come on side and you know meet the team physically or you actually spend like 30 minutes on the screen and there's like no coffee breaks in between where you can maybe like break the ice so it's always good to give an opportunity to connect briefly before the interview so everyone is relaxed and like reassure them that everyone within Cloudflare has gone through the exact same process as they are maybe in a little bit different setup but in terms of like you know interviews focus areas or even presentations for some roles not much has changed for the individuals. Great that's good so we already had something that was working and we've managed to keep that working during this period which is brilliant. I think one thing when we talk about breaking the ice that Daniela and I make sure to do with all candidates is to send a quick good luck email that goes to them on the beginning of their interview day just to say good luck either a kind of a written message from us with some guidance on how to connect to Google Hangouts if people are a bit nervous I think sometimes they're a bit scared of how they connect to things and they freak out a little bit so we just kind of try and settle their nerves a little bit with a message from us so we're still again like there are elements that we would do because you know Daniela and I would would have been meeting those candidates in the morning to take them to their interview space and show them around the office so we still have that kind of touch as well which is nice to break the ice. Careful Isabel is there anything else you'd like to add on the on the COVID kind of adaptions that we've had to make to to hiring? I think that on our on our case we already joined during during COVID so it was some of the changes or well all of the changes was were already being made but of course there are a few things that we feel that are are different and honestly I share the opinions of most of everyone. I think that we were able to to do a quick change of on how we used to do things and in terms of things like you you were saying like we used to meet people face to face and complete and pass to complete remote and what I think it was amazing and this was what I had a chance to see because for instance I think that me and Akef we were one of the the first group of people who joined entirely remotely so I think that we saw the changes happening but on on the other side and one thing that impressed me was how quickly everyone in the company was able to adapt. The onboarding was one of the first 100 percent remote onboardings and honestly I think that I knew that it was like type of a trial it was shared so everyone was completely transparent with that it was like okay we don't we didn't do this before so we change this now and so we were aware of that but it was also so smooth and also well structured that's in the end of the day although my onboarding although I have all the experience of receiving my laptop at home meeting everyone remotely engaging with the team the hiring managers other people in the company but I don't know it was all so smooth and everyone was so engaged on making things work that I think it's actually in the end it's worked very well I loved my onboarding at least. And I think just to echo that Isabel I remember being at the very beginning of the shifts that Cloudflare made to being remote I remember getting an email from you Anthony saying that all right your interviews are now confirmed for this date we're looking forward to seeing you this is who you're going to meet I'm like great let's get ready for this let's prepare and then the following day I get an email saying well actually we're all going into lockdown now so all of your interviews are going to be completely remote I'm like okay cool so I'm not actually going to get to meet anyone. At that point we didn't know how long the pandemic was going to last and whether I was going to start and whether I'm actually going to be meeting people kind of face to face on my first day but exactly like Isabel we joined at exactly the same time. I think that element of maintaining that interaction and being connected to a team I think that shift was really well done so yeah I think all of the shifts that the wider team have been involved in have been fantastic. Yeah I 100% agree and I think also Cloudflare have been really great. They're particularly conscientious around Covid-19 and we've had a really strict approach to returning to the office. If anyone wants to go back to our offices you know they have to fill out a survey and explain why and follow really strict guidelines around cleanliness which we all really appreciate Cloudflare really care about that but they've also really supported us and other things like we were able to organise a socially distant park visit for those of us that were living near each other which was really nice so some people did get to finally meet Ekef but yeah 100% I think the way that the company's able to adapt and pivot so quickly to working remotely and the engagement that people have had during that is brilliant. I was a little concerned that more interviewers might switch off a little bit when interviewing remotely but I think if anything they've kind of switched on a bit more because they just have this screen to focus on, there's no other stuff happening, they've not come running out of a meeting and ran and grabbed a coffee and run into a room they're present and I think it's been a really great opportunity for us to also hone the way we interview as well. Great so we're obviously doing today because people are interested in joining Cloudflare, they want to learn a bit more, people might be trying to upskill a little bit so we're going to talk a bit about some of the things that we think are really important when you're interviewing for a role and the first thing we're going to talk about a little bit is research. It's really important to know what you're doing, know what you're talking about, know the company and I'd like to hear a little bit from Anna I guess, let's start with you on why research is so important and some recommendations you might have. Very good question, actually my most favourite one, like no matter which recruitment corner segment I'm on, if you haven't watched them you can go back to the recordings on Cloudflare TV, I keep on repeating these questions to the individuals I speak to. Research is really the key and I think from my perspective also like having talked to a hiring manager, it makes up a very big chunk of whether or not a candidate is successful in the process. We have so many opportunities for individuals to do their research and prepare themselves very well on what Cloudflare is, what our products are, services we offer as well as for instance price plans, case studies, competitor landscape in general and if candidates come prepared and are able to share more on their knowledge, this makes up a very important part of an interviewer's decision on whether or not to progress with an individual. And also the key here is we are very open to any individuals coming from any background, you don't necessarily need to have a computer science degree for let's say, I don't know, a sales role, right? If you take the time to research and get an understanding of the industry and you're able to actually showcase this during your interview process and to showcase your knowledge, this is already like one step forward and actually on this topic I've been talking to one of the employees we hired about six months ago and we were talking about her experience coming from a completely different background and being successful in the interview process and then joining Cloudflare and she said one of the key things that helped her during the process, she had to prepare a presentation for a sales meeting, was actually use the resources we have and one of the resources is a community page on Cloudflare where we have like a massive network of Cloudflare employees as well as folks that are, you know, particularly interested into Cloudflare products where you are able to ask questions and you typically get a very quick reply because obviously we're a global company so individuals are based everywhere. If you're preparing for interviews and you might get stuck with some specific topic or you might get stuck preparing a presentation and I was like that's actually a good point, I never thought of it. I keep on sharing a link to the community page but I never like encourage individuals to actually use it so here's like a insider tip and then maybe I'm sure everyone else will talk about this but obviously also with Cloudflare TV we've created such a massive, you know, knowledge, I don't know, resource for individuals whether it's related to how to prepare for an interview or related to very specific topics they would like to research more but I'm already drifting away so, yeah, so that's my take on preparing and using the resources one has. That's great and I think actually, Daniela, I think I remember you saying that you actually tuned into Cloudflare TV episodes during your hiring process? Yes, exactly. It was just by chance that I was in the middle of the face-to-face step and I saw, I think, Isabel share on her LinkedIn a link to Cloudflare TV and explaining they were hosting a recruitment corner so of course I tuned in to get to know a little bit more about the team that I was potentially going to work with and I think it really helped to get a better sense of how Cloudflare works and who you were essentially before I was part of the team officially. And she's still going to continue with her application which is good, we didn't scare you away. Yeah and I just wanted to say Isabel's recruitment before we move on, I just really wanted to drive home the point that the recruitment process is also something for candidates to know if they like the organization. Just because you are applying it does not mean that you will enjoy working there and so obviously doing your research on Cloudflare and watching Cloudflare TV or reading our blogs which have many different articles, you can get a feel for what Cloudflare is like as an employer and you can get to know many people who already work there. So it's nice to take a measure of the organization before you join. Yeah I definitely agree. Isabel, what are your thoughts? Well I'm going to echo a bit of what Daniella was just saying, well Daniella and Dana, but I completely agree and I think that research is very very important when you are applying, from the beginning, from even before you are applying. And one thing that sometimes people can easily forget is that research is good, it's a two-way street that is good for you. So in one hand, as Daniella was saying, you get to know more about the company. So you have to know, you get to know if that is the place that you want to be in. So the more you search about that, the more you will have that feeling if that is a place you really want to be. And on the other hand, it will also help you during the recruitment process because it shows that you are interested, that you are just not, well that you are just not there for being there, you are actually interested, you did some research, you know what you are applying for. One thing that I think is very important and this might seem like a very simple thing, but read the job description closely and with full attention because you have lots of information there. You don't have everything and that's why you have the opportunity to make questions, but you have a lot of information there. So read that, see if that is the job that you are looking for, search for the company to see if it's a company you like and then when you start on the recruitment process you already have an idea of what you want to ask exactly. And at Cloudflare at least, that's not only it's valued that you take the time to search about us and that you come prepared with some questions, but actually interviewers usually they save some time in the of their interviews for candidates to ask and I had that experience myself when I was in my recruitment process and it was a fact, you really had that time to ask whatever you want and people were genuinely concerned and explain you what you can find. So it's very good to have a clear understanding of what you will find and make a good decision in the end. Yeah, completely agree and I also think like all of us have worked in other organizations before, but I feel like more than in other companies, I feel like we really pay attention to whether or not very early on, like you said Isabel, if someone has actually not only read the job title, but actually took the time to research what we do and that's why it's so important throughout the recruitment process. I feel like within the team I'm working in, but also the wider organization, we hire individuals that are passionate about what we do and I feel like it's important for us to continue, you know, striving to build teams that are very interested not only, like you said Isabel, to be there but actually to, you know, work in a role to contribute to the bigger picture or to make an impact on what we do as an organization. Yeah, definitely. Lee, I know we talked a lot about research, but any other things that you kind of wanted to add around the research and preparation sort of areas? Yeah, I think my biggest kind of recommendation, I will literally just echo Anna's original point, which is around the research. It really can't be understated how important that is to when interviewing at Cloudflare and I remember when I first joined, seeing how much prep we share with candidates ahead of their interviews was a surprise to me because I'd never been accustomed to that as a recruiter and I was thinking why would we give away all this information to candidates? It's almost like we're telling you the answers to a test, but even still it's actually not and actually it's because we want, we as a recruiting team, we want you to be successful, we want you to come prepared to the conversations that you're going to have and even then it still doesn't guarantee that you're going to ace the interview process because if you don't follow the recommendations that we give you, you know, we do give a lot of prep to our candidates, you know, still only a very small percentage of the candidates that we interview get hired, so it really can't be understated that if you're thinking of applying to a role or if you're currently in the process with us, really, really, really take the preparation part really, you know, really seriously. Yeah, definitely and, you know, there's so much resource out there, I think, you know, we've heard about Cloudflare TV, we've heard about the community boards, there's our Twitter, which is like full of stuff, there's the blog, which is so extensive and you can find anything on the blog from, you know, events that we've arranged for our Proudflare community who are LGBTQIA plus team here at Cloudflare who want to arrange organised events, but then we've also got things where you can find out a data scientist that's worked through a really tricky problem and learn more about that, so there's such a huge range if you want to learn about our culture and the groups of people that are here at Cloudflare, if you want to make sure that you fit in or if you want to learn more about the kind of problems that we face, all of that stuff's out there. Akef, anything else to finish up on preparing and researching? Yeah, definitely, so I reiterate everything that everyone else has said, I think you guys have covered absolutely everything possible to do research and how important it is, but just to give a slightly different angle to this and talk about experiences where candidates haven't done their research, like it is completely the wrong thing to come into an interview and think I'm going to win this, right, unfortunately we get situations like that and it is something that we can pick up on because you'll find that candidates tend to start reading out our slogan and saying that we just want to build a better Internet and just tend to say the key words like performance, reliability, security, these things do get picked up, they do get noticed, so I can't reiterate enough how important research is and from a sales perspective and being involved in sales hiring, you actually need to understand what you're going to sell, you need to be able to kind of understand what this landscape looks like, what this domain is all about and are you going to be passionate enough to do it and those are the type of things that we hone in in the entire process to pick up those qualities and skills. I think that's a great point and there's so much out there that isn't on any of our Cloudflare sort of platforms that you can learn about what it's like selling Internet-based products, selling safety products, supporting building a safer Internet, there's so many articles about that, so many other companies that are selling similar products and by researching these kind of things you can understand what the landscape is that you'd face if you're coming into a sales role here because we have got competitors, there are other people out there, so it's good to have an idea of what the other things you're going to kind of face in that role would be. Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit about the dreaded CV, we hear this word a lot, CV, resumes, people always panic about what's on their LinkedIn, what's not on it, should they send a paper CV, should they send an email with a CV attached, we've got lots of recruiters here who look at many CVs and so we'll have a quick whiz around and we'll go backwards, so we'll start with Akif, so what makes a great CV, what for you jumps out on a resume, what's really important? So I think I'm probably less traditional in the sense that a lot of recruiters out there, they like to see a short summarized CV in two pages, right, there seems to be this two-page rule, I'm the opposite and again I'm making this more specific to sales because I'm a sales recruiter, right, but we want to see on your CV about some of your successes, about some of your recent quarters and about kind of what you've achieved, so don't undersell yourself, I think you really need to kind of hone in on the experiences that you've picked up in your career to date, so do talk about achievements, talk about different things that you've got experience working with, so again making it more sales specific, like have you got experience using Salesforce, have you used LinkedIn sales navigator, all of these things are really useful for us as recruiters to pick up on but also for the hiring teams to look at, so don't under sell yourself by trying to cram everything into two pages and look I think that there may be some arguments from some of my peers right now and some interesting follow-up questions that they'll have and statements that they'll have, so looking to hear what those are. Great, no I think it's really interesting and it just also shows, you know, some people like short CVs, some people like long CVs, it's really about what you think you need to put on paper to advertise yourself. Lee, what are your thoughts on this? Sorry, just taking myself off mute there. Yeah, so I am probably a bit different, I have a different view to Akef on this one in that I do think a concise CV is preferred, about two pages is probably good. If and when I am reviewing CVs, it doesn't take me very long to establish whether the CV is relevant to the role that the person has applied for, so that's why I think it's important to make sure that when you are applying that you definitely feel confident that you have the experience that the job description asks for. But yeah, and also I think most roles here at Cloudflare probably don't require a cover letter, I'm not saying don't submit one, but in most cases it may not be necessary to do so, so maybe only add a cover letter if you feel that there's additional information, you know, about why you're applying to Cloudflare that you think that the hiring team might want to know apart from your CV. And if it's a generic one that you use, make sure that you change the details in cover letter because the amount of times that as a recruiter we've seen, oh I'm applying to so-and-so role and so-and-so company, you've got the wrong role in the wrong company, it's important to make it specific, remember the detail. Yeah, the devil's in the detail for sure. There's also, I think we talked a little bit earlier about job descriptions as well, and you know if there's a role that you're looking for, take that job description, or if there's a couple of roles that you're interested in, take those job descriptions, have a look at your CV and see what keywords that keep popping up on those job descriptions, and make sure that they're there on your CV, because if you have those skills and we can't see it on your CV, we don't know about it. And yeah, if you get to the interview you can talk about those skills, but if we don't see them there on the CV we aren't going to know about them, so really just make sure that you'll be really clever with pulling the right information onto your CV so they're jumping out the page. I saw Anna giving me the clicks to say yes to that, so let's jump to you Anna. I confirm, I agree. Yeah definitely, I just wanted to say like, and more from my personal experience, because obviously I have you know friends reaching out to me and they're like, oh I'm applying for this role, can you give me any advice for my CV? I was like, you know the key is look up the job description and look up you know the details, the keywords, just as you said Anthony, what is the team looking for, what is the company looking for? Everything will be like in detail explained on the job description and look at your CV, do you actually reflect keywords, do you reflect you know experiences the team is looking for? Obviously if you don't have the experience you know, don't come up with the information, but if you do have then you know use the job description as an opportunity to reflect that on your CV as well. And unfortunately maybe, but statistically I think it's under seven seconds someone spends reviewing a CV, so keep in mind you need to be like you know focusing on the most important details to ensure that you know the things we're looking for are visible to a eyeball you know and are visible to the person that is reviewing your CV. Yeah definitely, I think the the seven second thing is within seven seconds of first starting to look you already start to understand where we're going and then as time goes on you get those it's we're either going yes or no and then sometimes you might get a curveball and come back to yes, but normally in those first seven seconds you've had a chance to see the most recent role and the recruiters or the hiring managers know what skills they're looking for and if they don't see them in that first role they do start to see less and less as time goes on so make sure those keywords are in there. And Isabel anything to add on on our CV discussion? I pretty much agree with much of what's what I've been said so far. I must say I'm part of the two pages team I like I'm sorry I can't I'm sorry I understand I understand your your point of view but for me it works very well to have to have a short straight to the point CV although for me what is really important on a CV more than if you have one two three four pages is the structure how you structure or your CV and this might not sound like much but if you're if you work on your CV and your CV is visual you are able to make that the person who is going to read their eyes go straight to what you want to be seen and a good exercise that I think that works is to ask for a to look at your CV and ask what is the first thing that that comes up because there are a lot of things that you can do you can use different fonts you can use bold to highlight some skills that you want of course you are not going to do that on your CV because it loses the effect but I think that you understand what I'm trying to to reach with this and that I think it actually works to make it easier to okay I open a CV and it's here here here so I can quickly see where the information is one thing that also helps it's to avoid using Europass which I know it's still used but it just makes your CV the same as everyone else's so you don't have any differentiation factor so and without using Europass you also have the freedom to structure the CV how you want to look. I agree 100% that with what's being said that you should have you should adjust your CV this is very important to to me so you could have a version of your CV that you can use but if you are looking for a role and that is your dream job there are a few things that usually you don't highlight but for instance for that role they are looking for a specific skill that you actually have but you don't usually do it for instance you you are used to I don't know write articles or go to to speaking conferences and you usually don't mention that but for that role you see that they are looking types of skills where that be relevant then you should show that so try to make those little adjustments and double double check for spelling mistakes which is particularly important more for some roles than the others for instance to give you an example I don't know about you sorry I know I'm talking too much already but I have a lot of say on this but if for instance if you are looking for a software engineer role maybe it's not that big deal if you have a spelling mistake but if you are applying for a technical writer it's a bit different now so take that in consideration and it doesn't hurt to double check definitely great points and I think the other thing that's really important especially from a coordination point of view I know Daniela and I are probably really keen on this is to make sure that the information about yourself is really clear so make sure you've got a phone number on your CV you know if something goes wrong with Google Hangouts we want to be able to reach out to you and make sure that we can pick up the phone and let you know I'm really sorry but something's happened and we need to reschedule take photos off CVs you know we're really keen to make sure that we're celebrating diversity but it really does hinder us with it when it comes to unconscious bias and that's something we're really committing to in the next year at Cloudflare making sure that all of our interviewers and our hiring teams are trained to understand what unconscious bias is and how it plays into their decision making but we don't want to know information about whether you're married your family status where you know whether you have children adding photos your name your phone number your email address and then your previous experience is all we need so please just be really wary of those things too because they really do add to the overall kind of review of CVs and now it's 10 past 11 and Anna in true showbiz style has got to dip out at quarter past because she's going to be in our next session so in the last five minutes with Anna I just want to ask you what your best piece of advice I would say for applying to Cloudflare is we've talked a lot about research we've talked a lot about our CVs and how to prepare them but is there any other kind of nuggets of advice that you'd give people in general well you we mentioned research already that's always my advice but you know research on the organization but there's another point on research which I recommend doing just to have a better quality conversation and like Isabel mentioned earlier ask maybe the questions that are relevant for the individual to speaking to and you'll be speaking to several stakeholders is to take the time to look folks up on LinkedIn and to get an understanding of their backgrounds and experiences it's it's going to help you it's going to help you have a good conversation with the individual understand their background but also ask questions that are able to you know answer to you as well and don't worry I know sometimes the question come up saying like oh but isn't that strange if they will see that I look them up on LinkedIn no like literally this is why LinkedIn is there this is why you know we have all access and have profiles on LinkedIn to you know use the opportunity and get an understanding of their backgrounds and might even help you you know if you two have something in common this is like a icebreaker at the beginning potentially so yeah that's maybe one tiny little bit of advice great thanks Anna with that I'll let you jump off and start getting ready for your next session we look forward to seeing you later on today thanks everyone and I see you later bye Anna great now we can talk about Anna no I'm joking great advice there from Anna though I think it's really important and we always try to make sure that we detail every interviewer that people are going to meet with when we send out our confirmation emails if there's a last minute change we'll try and let you know as soon as possible if there is time to do that sometimes we can't manage that and you will just come into a meeting and there might be a different interview but that happens very rarely but we give you those names that you can research you can look into who you're meeting with understand you know what their journey's been you can see how long they've been with Cloudflare did they start in a similar role that you're applying for and you can see the journey they've made and you can understand the skill set they've got it's really useful to have that and to be able to send questions to people at the end of your interview you know bring them up with those folks and ask them really role specific questions you know if it's a manager how they how they deal with managing a team that's so large that cover a vast you know sales area whatever it is so really good to have that Daniela what are your thoughts on your best piece of advice from applying to Cloudflare yes I would probably say that it would be ideal to be curious and to show that you are curious when you are interviewing because it's fine if you don't have all the answers we don't expect you to have all the answers and to be able to solve every problem the interviewer asks you for example but be humble be curious be eager to learn I think those are qualities that will set you on the right path once you join Cloudflare to to be very successful so I would say that if you could show that right in the interview process that's halfway there yeah definitely I mean that's a great a great a great point you know no one's expecting you to come in and know everything you're going to know to do the job the whole point is that you join the team you have your orientation where like Isabel and Kev has said you'll learn a lot about Cloudflare I had no idea that there were layers to the Internet until I started this role that really helped me um put a lot of things into perspective um but you'll learn a lot when you join us uh you know if you're going to a sales team you'll have sales boot camp where you learn a lot more um you'll be shadowing people and training we'll make sure that you're set up to succeed so you don't have to know everything there is to know about Cloudflare before you start because that's impossible but we want you to show your curiosity as well and I think that's a really great point um Kev what are your thoughts uh any nuggets of wisdom you'd like to share on applying I think Daniela makes a really good point curiosity is definitely something that shows that you want to make sure that this is the right role for you this is the right company for you as well ask lots of questions and the questions need to be relative to again for you to find out if it's the right role and right company so understanding what our roadmap is understanding kind of what the culture is like here like those type of questions are really useful for you to think is this a job for the next year or is this a career for the next couple of years we want those individuals that are looking for a career for the next couple of years because we're in a really interesting time of our history right now where we're continuing to grow the people who join us now are potentially going to be our leaders in four or five years time so find out what that roadmap looks like for you is that kind of a journey that you want to take do you want to be part of that success I think all of these type of questions are so important and then just going back to the discussion that we had earlier is research so key so key to understanding everything that you need to know to be able to answer some of the questions that we throw at you in the right way so yeah I can't reiterate that enough. Thanks Akef and Lee anything else that you'd like to say around sort of advice for applying I know we've talked a lot about research which we all can see is really important but any other thoughts from you? Well guess what I'm gonna say research so I'll give I'll underline the point by by giving you an anecdote so so Anna who just actually left us to join her next segment she currently supports recruiting for our CSM team before Anna joined I was hiring for the CSM team and I remember one of our current CSMs who's in Cloudflare right now when she interviewed with us her CV on paper was not really relevant at all in fact if it weren't for the fact that it's the hiring managers at Cloudflare that review CVs if it had been me I would have probably rejected her because I would have thought she hasn't got the customer success experience we typically look for but she got an interview with the team she interviewed really well part of the hiring process of a CSM here at Cloudflare is after you're at your I think your third stage you have to do a role play where you play the role of a Cloudflare CSM and you are doing a a session with a prospect a customer played by a few members of the team she aced that she came prepared with slides she'd done her homework on our products so that when the when the team were were telling her in the role play that oh we've got this situation in this problem she was able to address those issues using the correct Cloudflare products which had obviously demonstrated that she'd done her homework or on the products and was able to really manage the room and the whole exercise really really well despite not really having a typical CSM CV fast forward a few months later we had an application from another candidate who on paper looked a really fantastic fit had was actually quite experienced this this candidate performed the exact opposite at the same exercise despite having the relevant experience I don't know whether it was because this candidate became complacent because they felt I've got the experience I know what I'm talking about I can just come in and you know and ace it but it was just it was day and night in terms of difference and the preparation and the research really played the difference as we've all mentioned um in this session so um that's that's why you know for for interviewing at Cloudflare uh even if you don't like tick all the boxes for a role that research is is the can be the game changer for your application so yeah I think that's a great point and and it does again highlight what I think Anna touched on earlier before is that you know where you don't need to be the person that's been doing the job for the last 10 years um if you've got experience you've got transferable skills you've got an interest and a drive to be a part of Cloudflare they're the people that we want to meet uh we don't want to meet complacent people that think they can do their job with their eyes closed and their hands behind their back we want people that are committed that are going to help grow our team help grow our customer base help develop our products help develop the projects that we're working on we want people that are excited in what we're doing and want to drive us forward so I think that's a really great point Lee uh Isabel um some golden advice for applying uh well did anyone mention research already of the day yeah of course that I agree with everything that was being said so far so I'm not going to repeat for now but there are um another couple of things that I think that are can also help in in the recruitment process and when applying uh one of them uh is uh not to do so basically avoid over applying um it can have the opposite effect so I'm not saying that you shouldn't apply to more than one role so if you see if you are looking for a job as a front end in Lisbon and you see that we have two open roles in different teams and both seem interesting okay why not applying to both but if you are applying to 10 different positions at Cloudflare uh different roles different locations it can it's not it doesn't mean that you are not going to be considered but it can make you look uh unfocused it can make look that you don't quite know what you want to do so it surely doesn't help and the other thing is use the tools that you have at your disposal and leverage your network nowadays you have LinkedIn which is an amazing tool for that so if you really want that job why not searching for the company on LinkedIn see connections that you have connect with people you can even reach out especially to the recruiter but sometimes in some cases even to some people on tech teams and it might be very helpful for you just at least at Cloudflare make sure that you apply before doing that because it helps us in having everything structured but it's also a nice touch yeah I think LinkedIn is such an invaluable tool and people really can't you know put put it off and not use it it's such a great resource to go to you know we try and post as much as we can there it's a really great opportunity to stay in touch with what kind of webinars are happening you know we've posted all over all over lots of different platforms what we're doing today so that people can see it happening but there's lots of other webinars that are happening and you know if there are teams that might not be hiring right now that you're interested in joining at Cloudflare it might be that they're going to be doing webinars or that they're doing a talk about something that you can kind of learn a bit more about and I think that's a really great opportunity you know sometimes we only have you know particular roles open for certain times of the year or only limited headcount and so we won't constantly be looking for certain roles but maybe in three months time something's going to come up and the time in between you've had a lot of time to research get to know what we're doing in that realm and you'll have really just equipped yourself with loads of information to help you be better in that process okay so we're kind of coming to the end we've got about seven minutes left and we've had one question come through which is are there any plans set up an India office at the moment there aren't any concrete plans for that to happen I'm sure the team are constantly looking into where we can expand next and I'm sure there's a great sales market there in India and I know that our team who are based in Singapore probably do a lot of business with India so at the moment no official plans but always keep your ears kind of pricked up because you never know what's going to happen especially in a world where pandemics can change everything so yes nothing I'm afraid to say on on the India front but do keep your ears ears and eyes peeled for that so just to kind of round off I would like just to ask really briefly and very quickly a vivid memory you have of your recruitment process something that really stood out to you that made you think I want to join Cloudflare or this feels like the right role for me and let's go to our newest our newest joiner Daniela when did you feel like that the whole process was quite memorable to be honest I think the first thing that struck out to me was how nice everyone was that I met whether from the recruitment team or another stakeholder I really felt welcomed and even while interviewing I already felt part of the team which is very good a very good candidate experience and then my most vivid memory I would say is from when I got the offer and right after I got a lot of emails from everyone congratulating me and welcoming welcoming me into the team and I honestly I don't think every company does that and it's it gave me a very good vibe and made me feel sure that I was making a good move for me good I'm glad that worked and let's jump to Lee who's our most tenured tenured member of the team what about you yeah so I've I think I've found that you know our hiring processes at Cloudflare are very welcoming I think that if you you'll find that our interviews in fact many candidates have commented that they they tend to be very conversational that's the feedback we've seen quite a lot and even though you'll end up speaking to quite a number of people they won't they won't feel like traditional interviews that you've experienced elsewhere which is which is great and obviously we've we've talked extensively about the importance of research but I think it's also important to to enjoy yourself as well bring your whole self to the interview be personable you know and I think one point that Isabel made as earlier as well which I think is worth underscoring is is advising against over applying because we can actually see how many roles you've applied to and if there have been occasions where we've seen individuals apply to up to 25 different jobs and that's probably not a good idea it it's highly unlikely that somebody could potentially be a good fit for 25 different jobs so maybe just keeping them kind of laser focused in your applications that's a good tip nice and and about your process anything that really stood out to you what made you go and definitely want to join this company I think it was the the culture at Cloudflare the so our boss Scott who's our global head of recruiting he kind of told me about what the culture was like here and when I think when I came to my interview and I saw what it what the culture was like it it really kind of made me want to be a part of Cloudflare I could see that you know it was a culture characterized by you know empathy by transparency right you know from the leadership down and that that really is the kind of organization that I really wanted to be a part of and it's that hasn't changed at all even since we've become public we're still incredibly transparent we we're very principled we want to to do the right thing even if it means you know costing us more money or whatever or you know whatever the case may be and that that really fills me with a sense of pride about being part of Cloudflare and I can and obviously if that's something that that matters to you as a candidate that you want to be part of an organization where you can be proud of what they do and what they stand for then yeah this is the cloud this is the company for you. Nice, I definitely echo that. Akef, what was it for you that made you think this is the place to go? So something that's really important to me is candidate experience right I try and echo this quite a bit in my every day and how I treat kind of the candidate experiences that I'm responsible for but with my own I must admit that the experience from from the very beginning and through everyone I met throughout the whole process it was a really positive one there was constant follow-ups from Lee I think the conversations that we're having were very open and very transparent and it just goes to show that the beliefs of kind of some of our capabilities and being open and being transparent in the way that we communicate with each other that came across in the whole kind of process from the first conversations right through kind of to the very end and again like you don't usually get that in a lot of companies and just knowing that we have a lot of effort and a lot of concentration on diversity as well and just with companies that do that they are quite conscious about the social impacts that they're having as well as kind of from a business impact perspective and yeah I think at that point I was like look I'm really kind of positive in everyone who I've spoken to the follow-ups and the communication again and yeah overall the experience was great and there was a bit of a conscious part that being completely remote that was going to be a little bit disconnected from the process but didn't feel that which was great. That's great, Isabel we're actually on our 30 second timer so can you give us a one word? I think that's how everyone always made me feel welcome from the beginning to the end if I have to make it short. Great and still we still do that okay I've got 10 seconds to wrap up so thank you everyone for joining I hope everyone found it interesting those that are watching it's going to be a full day and we're moving on to a few other sessions where you'll meet some of the teams so thanks so much and enjoy the rest of your day.