66: Finding a new job during the pandemic.

Welcome, Jean Hsu!

Jean Hsu is a writer, coach, and software engineer turned leadership coach after working for a decade in Silicon Valley. She is the VP of engineering at Range Labs and Co-founder of Co Leadership, which focuses on filling the gaps in leadership development in the tech industry. Jean doesn’t miss writing code, but she does miss deleting it.

0:53 Finding a new job during the pandemic

• Desire strikes for leadership
• The hiring process

5:20 How did the pandemic change your thought process

• Intentionality of specific desires - management, leadership, flexibility
• Enjoying the journey rather than letting comparison or stress take over

7:30 What would Jean do differently now?

• Finding ways to lean into async communication with a remote team in different time zones, while keeping the team engaged and connected with each other
• Hybrid mix of in-person and remote is the future for companies

13:13 Pre-pandemic commute tales

• Feels like a different lifetime

15:40 New expectations for Range during the pandemic

• Getting rid of the 9-5; windowed work with colored labels
• Core hours for team meetings
• Setting boundaries

19:40 Genius and fail moments

• KWu closed her son’s fingers between a door hinge… #fail
• Allison’s daughter turns 3 and shines at her yearly doctor's appointment. #genius
• Jean downloaded TikTok and discovered the best parenting hack to tell your kids to do a task, rather than ask. #genius
• Chris brings back his daughter's love of Star Wars. #genius

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com.

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Allison
KWu
Chris Sexton

Special Guest: Jean Hsu.

059: Hiring and Interviewing

Jess, Chris S, and Allison discuss the hiring and interviewing process in tech. They share their experience as the interviewee, as well as the interviewer. The team identifies the underlying bias in the process, good signs and bad signs, and why it's important to set up a potential interviewee in the best environment possible.

01:45 Hiring and Interviewing in tech

• Jess writes a book and gets a new job
• How to reduce bias in interviewing process

03:33 Tech interviews hinder parents and caregivers

• Take-home vs pairing session
• Hiring managers should set up the interviewee in the best possible scenario
• 6-8 hours for a take-home test, unrealistic for caregivings

09:50 How to access talent

• Everyway is flawed
• Take-home - kids constantly interrupting
• Paired - many engineers are introverted
• Solutions: Short at-home mixed with pairing, or problem prompt

13:30 Bias

• How to reduce: rubric for every round, being aware of the bias
• Allison asks about parental leave, and feels the tone shift drastically
  
• Legal protection, but a lot of fuzzy areas
  

16:45 Good signs for parents interviewing

• Its a non-event when a child pops into the room while on a call
• Companies reward evenly
• Talk with team members outside the interviewing committee
• Talk with someone you relate to on the team, mom, trans, BIPOC, etc

20:30 Bad signs for parents interviewing

• The entire tone changes after asking about parental leave..
• Judgmental, leadership team of non-parents

22:00 Handing flexibility

• Ask about parental leave, primary and secondary leave
• Be honest with needs
• Workplace flexibility

28:37 Genius / fail

• Jess deals with her son having accidents constantly
• Chris and his kids play board games and jam out to all songs names satellite
• Allison’s daughter sparks chaos when she leaves her room after bedtime… but soon learns to stay in her room to tire herself out.

How can I support the podcast?

Please follow us @parentdrivendev on Twitter or email us at panel@parentdrivendevelopment.com.

Our website is at ParentDrivenDevelopment.com.

Jess
Allison
Chris S

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