Trouble hiring senior engineers? You’re not alone.
We’ve heard employers from across the globe share a common struggle around the scarcity of senior engineering talent, all while getting inundated with high volumes of applications from junior developers.
Most of the time – these same employers are limiting their talent search to their backyard.
It’s a common struggle and recruitment challenge we’ve worked in tandem with Pagefreezer to solve.
Pagefreezer is in the business of making the internet a safer place by helping businesses protect their integrity online.
Headquartered in Vancouver Canada, the leading SaaS company and archiving solution provides clients in finance, legal telecom, retail, utilities, government, and post-secondary education with the ability to preserve their website, social media, SMS, and corporate chat in evidentiary quality to be later accessed and replayed as if still live.
As a privately held, bootstrapped scaleup, Pagefreezer has sustainably grown its globally distributed team, closing in on 100. The team can be found working remotely or on-site at any one of their 3 hubs.
A vital part of its team growth is attributed to working with partners like VanHack to identify and hire senior tech talent.
A little over 3.5 years ago, Pagefreezer turned to VanHack to take advantage of its deep senior tech talent pool, and virtual hiring events to quickly source and hire senior engineering talent, with 7+ yrs of experience in Python or Java.
The proof is in the pudding: VanHack has helped Pagefreezer successfully make 7 senior tech hires (3 relocated to Vancouver, 4 working remotely) all of whom contribute towards making a significant impact on the product and company.
VanHack recently sat down with Gurj Bhangal, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Pagefreezer to discuss their hiring journey and some of the speed bumps faced along the way while scaling their engineering team, Pagefreezer’s onboarding process, and partnership with VanHack.
Tune into the full conversation 👇
*The conversation has been edited for length and clarity
Can you tell us about some of the hiring challenges faced and what ultimately brought you to VanHack?
Gurj: One of the biggest challenges we were encountering was that we were talking to a lot of junior talent, and we weren’t able to find senior-level talent for the roles that we were looking to fill.
That’s where VanHack came in.
So far we’ve done 7 hires with VanHack, and it’s been great to bring on senior talent and have that diverse knowledge from different backgrounds, countries, and walks of life, so it’s been great to grow our team from that diversity aspect as well.
What has your experience been with VanHack’s recruitment process and platform?
Gurj: I’ve met with the (VanHack) team in person in our 3.5 years of partnership. But a majority of that time has been during the pandemic, so it has mostly been by way of virtual hiring events.
On virtual hiring events: When we have open roles, it lines up well with VanHack’s senior or women in tech virtual hiring events that happen at least once a quarter.
There are always opportunities to meet with developers proficient in different languages, whether Python or Java Engineers.
Our developers and engineering managers will attend VanHack’s virtual hiring events to connect with different candidates. If there are candidates that are a strong fit and align with what we’re looking for, we’ll continue that conversation to get to know them a little bit better. With each hiring event we’ve gone to, we’ve had at least 1 success.
On people and process: We also have a good relationship with VanHack’s recruiters, and they’ve supported me throughout my process. Even if there isn’t an upcoming event, they’ve done a good job of filtering through candidates that will be strong fits and align with the roles we’re looking to fill.
It’s nice to have that dual support, where we can attend events and meet candidates, but also knowing there’s a VanHack recruiter working with us and looking to help us fill our roles
On the platform and integrating with existing tools: VanHack’s platform user experience is straightforward in terms of where to go and click.
When pulling up candidates’ profiles, it has all the information in one spot including a resume, parsed version of their profile, and links to their GitHub and LinkedIn, and I really enjoy the video introductions and questionnaires.
It’s a holistic spot to get to know the candidate before the phone screen. That’s where I spend the majority of my time when reviewing candidate profiles and if they’re a good fit, I move them along in the pipeline.
The Pagefreezer team uses VanHack in collaboration with our ATS. We’ll do the initial screens in the VanHack platform, and then the conversations continue and are held in the ATS we use.
Can you tell us about Pagefreezer’s process for onboarding remote or relocating tech talent?
Gurj: We’ve got a great onboarding process, it’s general so it doesn’t matter where you’re geographically located.
As a remote-first organization, it can initially be challenging to build connections. We’ve created a robust onboarding program where you get to meet people and learn more about the company and its departments.
We’ve hired VanHackers who’ve moved and relocated to Canada. We’ve also made remote hires not looking to relocate, but wanting the exposure working with a North American company.
Regardless of where you are in the world, everyone goes through the same general onboarding process. In their first 3-4 weeks, new hires will have meetings with different departments, team leads, and managers to get an understanding of what each team does and how that impacts Pagefreezer.
That’s just the general onboarding. New hires will also go through a more specific onboarding with their manager depending on their role and responsibilities.
What makes Pagefreezer a great place to work?
Gurj: First off the product. The product is impactful and answers a relevant industry problem.
For me, it’s being a part of an organization behind an important product and doing great things in the world.
Values: Pagefreezer is a values-led organization. It’s not something that simply lives on the website. Every candidate goes through a values interview.
Every day, I’m able to see how Pagefreezer lives and leads through their values and this translates to our leadership team as well. More on Pagefreezer’s values can be found here.
Leadership: When making decisions, our leadership team takes everybody into consideration, especially the organization and employees as well. As a private, bootstrapped company, we’ve scaled at a sustainable pace that works for us and makes a difference for our clients and the lives of our employees.
People & Transparency: We have weekly parlays every Thursday. Each department rotates and has a chance to share new updates, hires, and in which direction they’re going on, and it’s a great space to have a transparent conversation about what goes on all over.
We’ve had a lot of growth in the past 3 years, and lots of new faces join us. We do Donuts. Each employee would be paired up randomly once a week. It has been vital in creating connections with teammates you don’t necessarily interact with day to day, and a great opportunity to get to know the people you work with.
Remote Hubs (Halifax – Canada, Vancouver- Canada, Netherlands) and Work from Anywhere Policy: Although Pagefreezer is a remote-first organization, there are hubs globally that enable teammates to come in, and co-work on projects in person.
The ability to work from anywhere has also been a benefit I took advantage of. Recently I took the opportunity to work and travel in Australia, and it was nice to be able to do so. Before you’d get a couple weeks of vacation and it wouldn’t make sense to go so far. So I’m thankful that I got to escape the winter in Canada, and go to the South and get some sunshine.
Would you recommend companies hire with VanHack and why?
Our relationship with VanHack has been extremely vital for us to be able to grow the way we have.
As for the why, the VanHack team is responsive and helpful, and with every person I’ve met from VanHack – I have developed a relationship.
If you’re looking to grow your team in a diverse way and access talent that you necessarily may not have through your own hiring initiatives, VanHack is a great route to go with its different events and methods to connect with candidates
It’s really great to support someone who wants to relocate and further their career in such a special way.
Looking to make your next tech hire?
If you’re looking to scale your engineering team by hiring remote or relocate talent, search for your next superstar hire at our refreshed Talent Pool>>
Next Virtual Hiring Event: June 14 – Women in Tech Speed Interviewing Event (Javascript)
Join us at the next virtual hiring event – Women in Tech – 1 Day Speed Interviewing (Javascript Edition) on June 14th and speed-interview 20+ women with 5+ years of experience with ReactJS, Angular, NodeJS, VueJS, JS+ and more. Register now>>