Cloudflare Careers Day: Recruitment Corner

And welcome to the recruitment corner. I'm your host, Lee Sam, part of the recruiting team.

We're really excited to have you with us today as part of our EMEA careers day.

And we'd love to kick off and just do some quick introductions so that you know who we are.

So, as I mentioned, my name is Lee. I'm part of the recruiting team. I've been with Cloudflare almost three years and I support all of our hiring across the EMEA region.

What made me join Cloudflare? I would say something that I always share with candidates when they ask me this question is the transparency, the leadership and the company culture.

It's unique. It's second to none. We have great leadership who are easily approachable and it's a great company to be part of.

Rita. Hi, morning, everyone.

I'm Rita. I'm a recruiter based in Lisbon. I joined Cloudflare two and a half months ago, almost three months ago.

Why did I join? I was looking for a new challenge and it sounded like a company with a purpose and the culture was really appealing to me.

So, yeah, I don't regret it. Three months in, it was the right decision.

Fantastic. Isabel. Hi, everyone. I'm Isabel. I'm also a recruiter.

I'm based in Lisbon. I joined Cloudflare about a year ago, although some days it feels like it was yesterday and other days it feels like I'm here forever, which I think it's a great feeling to have.

And I've been supporting the recruiting for mostly for Lisbon, for several teams and several departments.

And regarding we are all telling about what made us join Cloudflare.

I honestly think that's something very interesting to tell about.

It's something that candidates ask. And my answer to this is always the people.

I think that we have a process that allows us to meet a lot of people and the people that we have here in the company and the way that the company is so concerned about the people that we have here.

It's definitely what made me join. Yeah, fantastic, Isabel. And Lidia. Yeah, so hi, everyone.

I am Cloudflare's first sourcer in Portugal, which is an honor. So I'm from the Lisbon office.

The reason I joined Cloudflare, other than Lee found me, thank you, Lee, is basically I'm very much a tech fanatic, although my brain just does not work tech-wise.

Sadly, I'm an artist. But I really like to be in a company that I feel is on the right side of history in terms of wanting to make a better Internet and wanting to do things really logical and wanting to do the right thing.

Yeah. And Lidia, for those who might not be familiar, what a sourcer does.

Whenever I think of sourcer, you know that film Taken with Liam Neeson? Not a flying sourcer.

There's that scene where he says, I'm going to find you. That's essentially what a sourcer does, right?

Exactly. So I have a particular set of skills that I apply in finding people.

But basically, if you want to boil it down to the most basic components, I do a lot of LinkedIn searching for people, yes.

So if you're talented and if you're interested in Cloudflare, Lidia is going to find you.

I'm going to find you.

So we've got a few questions to run through and we've only got 30 minutes and the time will probably go pretty quickly.

But some questions that I feel I would actually love to ask some of you is around, you know, how you've been juggling working from home, particularly with family.

And I'd be particularly interested in Isabel and Rita's perspective here, because Isabel, you've actually just recently come back from maternity leave.

You just had your first baby boy, Benjamin.

And Rita, you've got two kids at home. So you've both been kind of juggling, you know, family life and work life.

And Rita, share your experience of what, you know, what that's been like for you.

Well, I've never been to the office, so I don't have that previous life at Cloudflare and now pandemic mode at Cloudflare.

So when I joined, schools were open again, so kids weren't at home, but sometimes they're sick, so there's always a struggle.

It's been...

This sounds like something that you're supposed to say, but the team feels like a family.

So, yes, I've had my kids joining Zoom sessions when they're home late in the evening, not late in the evening, but in the afternoon, because we do have several geographies and sometimes we have meetings at the end of our day.

It's been...

It's not easy. I miss seeing people. I miss seeing people outside of other than screens.

I have never seen any of you, like in real life. But it feels... It literally feels like family, so that's why it's easier to have my actual family life joining Cloudflare's life as well.

But as you said, I have a six-year-old and a 10-month-old baby.

It's not always easy. Lack of sleep is not always easy as well, but everyone is super supportive.

A lot of people at Cloudflare are parents, so they understand they are in the same situation, and everyone has been literally super supportive.

I'm sharing a home office with, not today, but with my husband, so that's not always easy.

We both have meetings. There's a lot of noise. Sometimes one of us has to move, but I think we're doing fine.

And thank you, team, by the way, for supporting all the craziness.

Fun fact for those who are watching, several times when I've been having a hand call with Rita, because her husband is literally sat just almost right next to her, having a call, a work call as well, there are times when he will stretch his arm.

And his arm will be in Rita's background.

It's literally the same desk. Rita's looking at him like, do you mind? But it's just funny.

I think you've never seen him, right? Just his hand. Just his arms stretching out.

But that's the reality of work, right?

Working from home, we're all people, we have families.

And dogs. And dogs, yeah. I have Max, you have, what's your dog's name?

Scott. Scott, yeah. Which also happens to be the name of our dog. Fun fact.

Yes. I might not have mentioned that when I was interviewing with, yeah. But yeah, Scott.

Lovely. And Isabel, tell us a bit about the last few months for you. You just had your baby boy, and he's been sleeping a lot.

He's not been supporting you with any sourcing, has he, so far, right?

Yes, it's been a great help. He's a great sourcer, or not.

But it has been some amazing couple of months lately. So, yeah, actually, I'm very new in all this motherhood thing.

I just come back from maternity leave.

And I think that everyone who has kids knows the struggles of parenthood.

This is all new for me, and I'm still checking all the, I'm still starting to understand what the struggles are.

But what I think is that the way that we work and the people that we have here at Cloudflare really makes everything easier.

And I know that this is a nice thing to say, but it's actually true. I got back early from my maternity leave.

And basically, I feel that Cloudflare gave me the chance of returning back early from my maternity leave.

And my husband is now the rest of the leave with our kids.

You're sharing your parental leave with your husband, right?

Exactly, exactly. And I know that usually it's common for the mother to take the whole period.

But since we have this type of flexibility here, this allows us to, basically, I returned earlier, and now it's my husband.

And we can be both at home with our kid, which is amazing.

And although there are a lot of work involved, of course, because I have my work work and my homework to do.

But it kind of helps to have the flexibility and the understanding from everyone.

So, yeah, everyone is always concerned and say, okay, just take your time if you need.

And I think it makes it easier to balance everything.

And I'm not going to lie, of course, that it's not easy sometimes in the middle of the meeting and you hear your baby crying.

Okay. Always the worst timing ever. But it's really flexible. And I had, I think, that experience with almost every one of you.

I think that I already brought my kid to one of our meetings.

I already happened to have my husband have to leave.

And I had a meeting with Rita where I was on my arm during the whole meeting.

Our junior associate. Our junior associate, yeah. So, yeah, it definitely makes it easier and makes it in a nice place.

Yeah. And you chose to actually break up your maternity leave.

So you took a few months off first and then you opted to take another bit of your paternity leave later, I think in August, right?

Yes. Yes, exactly. Once again, it's great to have that flexibility. And I think that this really helps me to take most of advantage of the paternity leave time between me and my husband.

And having everything more and more balanced, which I think that it's something that we all should take in consideration, especially in these days that we need to have a balanced life.

I think that this is something that Cloudflare is really concerned about in general.

And yeah, it definitely is allowing me to have that type of balance.

Yeah. And I think just going back to my earlier point about one of the things that attracted me to Cloudflare initially was the flexibility and the culture that was literally just ingrained in the company.

Because we are still relatively small. We're 2,000 people globally.

And I think we just want to encourage people to bring their best selves to work.

And we will make whatever accommodations are necessary to allow people to do that.

So, you know, and I think both you and Rita are probably classic prime examples of that.

You know, despite the fact that you have your family situations, you're both still smashing it for us, which I think is a great testament to that.

You can still be a mother and a wife and still be a great addition to Cloudflare.

Sorry to interrupt you, Lee. Can I just give an example? When I was interviewing with Janet, our senior vice president of, no, correct me if I'm wrong, of people.

So she joined the call, the Zoom call. And the first thing I noticed is that she had like a rack of Disney princess dresses behind her because she was making that call from her kids' playroom.

And she was not hiding it. We have amazing backgrounds at Cloudflare, not just this one, but we have a ton of them.

And she could be like hiding where she was. And she was in the girls' playroom.

And we were talking about that. And family was important. And she was talking about that.

And I thought, well, if this is it during the recruitment process, she's not hiding.

She's not trying to like to present herself in a different way.

This is what it is. So that was amazing. Yeah, just wanted to add that.

Yeah, so for those watching, Janet is our VP of people. She actually used to be the head of HR at Twitter.

And as Rita said, she takes a lot of her team calls and hangouts calls in her kids' playroom where there's a huge rack of dresses in the background, which is just so real.

You know, there's no pretenses about it. I actually remember when I had my executive interview with Janet, she took it from the kitchen.

And I could see like, you know, her appliances in the background. And there's just no pretense, you know.

You know, we're all just real people. This was obviously long before the pandemic.

And, yeah, that's a great point that Rita made there.

So coming back to candidates and, you know, tips that we can maybe share for candidates.

Lydia, obviously you're a sorcerer and, you know, you spend pretty much most, if not all of your time speaking to people who might be interested in working at Cloudflare or who weren't even looking, but maybe you're going to try and attract them to a role.

What tips would you give to people to make themselves discoverable to a sorcerer like you?

Well, it's funny because I've been having this conversation a lot with friends recently who are looking for jobs.

And I tend to help them. And the way that works is pretty interesting because it's like the sourcing that I usually do, but the other way around, which is usually I'm looking for people for the company.

And when I help out friends I'm looking for companies for the people and that kind of addresses what you're asking a little bit better, which is, they usually have me ask me for help going over their LinkedIn and what they should do and what they should list.

And I would just say lists, if you're thinking about should I add this, should I write this, list anything that you're proud of, use keywords whenever possible in your descriptions, make sure that everything is filled in.

Because if someone else has a CV that's similar to yours, that might be what actually makes the difference.

So when I'm doing a search, as sorcerers thankfully we have access to a tool called LinkedIn recruiter, which allows us to search anything and everything from how many years you've been active to where you're currently living to pretty much anything that you could think of.

So, a very complete profile, I would say is great, using as many keywords as you can in your description in terms of what you do and what you're passionate about, not necessarily just what's on your CV but things that you want to do.

If you write that down in your description, I will find you through words that describe not only what you've done in the past but also what you want to do.

So I would say that's just, that's the main point.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's take a real life example because one of the roles that you were sourcing, or I think you still might be still sourcing with Rita, was an Android mobile engineer in Lisbon.

Can you vaguely recall when you were searching for that role, what were some of the keywords that you were looking for?

I think the main words that I was that I was looking for was apps, app development, and Android.

And I did find a few profiles that have people who specialize in that kind of thing but who didn't necessarily use those words which is kind of weird.

So always be sure that what what you do is actually described, because I, you know, like the taken example, I will find you anyway.

But it might take me like three times as long.

And there might be opportunities that are missed.

Yeah, so yeah always list exactly what you do and any related words to what you do, and any side projects or just for fun projects or things that you think should I add this is this really relevant?

Yes, it's all relevant. Please, please add the name of your position of what you did.

I know that inside of LinkedIn you can you can add a description to what you did, bullet points, the works because it just makes my job so much easier.

And I imagine as well, them kind of including or mentioning the tech, the languages that they coded in the tech stack that they use that that's all helpful as well.

Yeah, that would depend on the type of search that I use but considering that I just, I kind of search like I have triple personality because I'll just search one way and then another way and then another way and then another way.

So I try and cover all of my vices but if, if you also add the specific skill set that you have in terms of software that you use programs anywhere that your app might be featured by the Google Play Store, for example, if you add all of those things and you're really really thorough with what you did how you did it and where that thing can be found.

That could even make the difference between me finding you on LinkedIn or finding you somewhere else because I often do Google searches to to try and find app developers so if if your product is featured on the Google Play Store, for example, I might find you in a more circular fashion than just the linear LinkedIn search.

Yeah, and Isabel you oversee, as recruiters we actually all do a bit of sourcing in our roles.

And any tips that you've kind of observed in the sourcing that you've been doing from some of your roles that you would give to candidates, how they could improve their profile.

Yes, actually, I think that, first of all, if you have LinkedIn and especially if you are looking for for a new job, taking consideration that LinkedIn is a tool that you have at your disposal so this is the first thing it's have that that mindset.

And with that said, that's a lot of that you can use, and in order to make yourself more discoverable, at least, I think that's keep it, keep it clean keep it simple and keep it informative.

I think that the way I see LinkedIn is, if you want to be discovered you have to have things in your LinkedIn that help people in fact find you for instance to give you a particular example, as me as a recruiter.

If I'm looking for someone who is also a recruiter I will look for recruiter talent acquisition, and so on, and those types of skill sets.

If you have a LinkedIn profile with no information of what you have done in terms of the description, and your job title is unicorn finder.

It's, it's funny it's nice but probably I won't find you or it take me a little longer to find you.

So, it's very common I'm taking this as a joke, of course, although it's an interesting title to have, but you have sometimes in companies titles that are not that common, but you can adjust it's it's LinkedIn you don't have to have the title that it's on your contract you can have a few, there's a few ninjas as well tech ninja, or, yeah, there's a few of those.

I once found a candidate his job title was job titles don't matter.

And I was just thinking that doesn't help me. It was, it was the person's goal.

Don't just say your developer, what do you work at right don't just say, I don't know, Isabel recruiter what do you, what tools do you use, it's not it doesn't have to be tech, what applicant tracking systems do you use what I don't know, stuff like that.

Yeah, exactly. I think that the most information that that you have there I think that it helps.

It helps when we are looking for developers for instance we will look, not only for the job title but also for for experience for tech stack for tools that they work with.

So it's always important to have in mind so I think that if you want to keep it simple is have a job title that is easier, easy.

That can be easily recognized and have some information about what you have done it doesn't have to be like long text or something but at least a few things that help us understand what exactly you have worked with and I think that those are the major things that are, there are a lot of stuff that you can do on LinkedIn from following companies and liking posts from from people that also, if you comment a post, I, we might see your profile.

Those are all things that you can do but if you want to take it simple.

You can even you can even flag yourself as open for work.

Yeah. And that's only visible for your company shouldn't see that there's a lot of restrictions on who sees that so recruiters would see that not your current company so that's that's even a feature that LinkedIn has.

Yeah. Yeah. And Rita you've you've recently been working with Celso who is our engineering director in Lisbon on some of his roles and I think he's currently got an engineering manager role open right now.

Without identifying that the particular candidate that we're probably both thinking of, what do you, what would you say are some of the things that that has that Celso has been telling you he's looking for in that engineering manager role for his team.

Setting aside the obvious tech skills, because, again, engineering manager you have to have some tech skills, because it's a manager lists, your experience from probably he started our candidates started as a developer and grew in his career, and now he's managing a team, Celso was very keen on having someone that had that kind of experience, what sort of teams that you work with are they geographically spread are they local, that's relevant, that's that's information that if we have might set you apart as a or put you on the top of our list as a candidate.

It's not like you're not writing a novel, you don't have to have you see that on CVs, CVs need to be visual need to have concise information, but they need to actually tell me what you do, who you are.

Not like the long version like the short story of your work experience. But this specific position for the engineering manager.

Again, setting aside the tech skills.

Actually listing the tech skills of your team, just for us to know what sort of people you're managing is really helpful not like exhaustively listing them, but but focusing on your, on your managerial skills.

Sorry. Yeah, so that would be it.

All right. And we've, we've just got a few minutes left. Isabel, if you know somebody was kind of interested in applying Cloudflare but would want to know what our recruitment process typically looks like.

What does that typically look like, on average, from your perspective.

So, first of all, it's important to understand that our recruitment process of several stages, and in a normal recruitment process here at Cloudflare you'd have an initial interview, usually directly with the, with the hiring manager.

Sometimes you might have a take home test.

After that you have usually a panel with some of the interviewers.

And finally, a call where you meet one of our one of our executives. So as you can see we have a few stages, we have a few stages here, and this gives us this gives you the opportunity to basically meet with with several people on Cloudflare.

First of all, and keep in mind because this might not happen everywhere but when you are called to an interview and we are called you are called to an interview on the hiring manager, the hiring manager at already saw your profile.

He already believes that you might be a good fit, and the first conversation is basically to have a better sense of what you do to meet you and to answer questions.

Along the process. And I think that's, and I remember my own process when I was joining Cloudflare.

You have several stages, but I think that this can be very very helpful to to meet everyone on the team.

I think that it gives the opportunity to know better the company, the people that you are working with, and basically to ask questions, and going back to the beginning of our conversation we are all telling what made us join to Cloudflare, and if we think about it.

Each one of us mentioned things like the people culture, things that usually you only have a better sense of after you join the company in our recruitment process, I truly believe, because I experienced it myself.

That's by meeting these people and have the opportunity to make all of your questions.

When you decide to accept an offer and you are joining Cloudflare.

You are not going to have any surprises you know what you are going to find you already know what the culture is you already met several people, and once again, I'm telling, I've already mentioned several times that you can ask questions and that's true usually we have a space after each interview, where you are, where you have a few minutes to ask questions, and we incentivate people to do so because it's the best way of knowing the company and knowing what to do.

Yeah, and just to share with our viewers, just due diligence that we go through before we even post a role at Cloudflare.

Not only does a hiring manager have to put the job description together, but they also have to put together what's called an interview plan.

And this is a document where they've got to outline what the interview process is going to look like, who's going to interview the candidate, what topics they're going to cover.

So, your, your, your process as a candidate that you're going to go through is very is well thought out and planned.

It's going to be consistent, irrespective of whether you're male or female or whether you've got two years experience or six years experience.

And the purpose of that is to make sure that to minimize bias in the recruiting process, and to make sure that we're, we're, we're having a fair process for every single candidate and.

And so, so we also put together, you know, put in a lot of planning into the interview process to make sure that you're not being asked the same question over and over again, like, why do you want to join Cloudflare, you know, each each interviewer will have two to three focus areas that they're going to cover with you to really make sure that you know you're going to make a great addition to Cloudflare.

So, I remember in our recruiting slides we talk about how our recruiting process is very deliberate.

And I think that's what that means you know it's well thought out and planned.

It's not just a random.

Oh, you know, Rita can you speak with this candidate and Isabel can you also speak with him as well.

Oh, Lydia maybe can you speak with this person too.

Anyway, we're literally about to run out of time but Rita, Isabel, Lydia, thank you so much for sharing your experience, and I hope everyone's found this segment useful.

Stay tuned and we've got more segments coming up later in the day.

Have a great day.