Interview With a Yahoo!

There's a very good interview with Libby Sartain, the "Chief People Yahoo!" at, ummm, Yahoo! on Guy Kawasaki's blog.

Libby is there to talk about what it's like to get hired and work at Yahoo!

A few nuggets:

"You have to have the whole package, but enthusiasm goes a long way with me. I look for people who will fit in our culture and who are smart, fun, friendly, and are passionate about what we are doing."

Enthusiasm is huge. In fact, the candidates I interview are typically entry level, so I don't always expect people to have a passion for their career (yet, although I do need to get the sense that they will take the job seriously from Day 1). I do like see enthusiasm for something though, whether it's Mets baseball, quantum physics, or the complete works of Chaucer, and I like to see them able to discuss their favorite subjects deeply.

"We love people who want us to win against our competition, and we have competitors in every product and service we offer."

Excellent.

"Question: Can an “art history major” with no technology educational or technology work experience get a job at Yahoo?

Answer: Sure, but not a technology job. We have folks with art history backgrounds working in a number of areas like surfing (Editorial comment from Guy: this refers to editorial work), user experience and design, marketing or maybe even human resources. It helps if you have experience in a prior company with such a degree."

I'd be interested in hearing more about this. It doesn't sound like there's much of an opportunity for people with non-applicable majors/experience have much of a foot in the door at Yahoo, although I could be convinced otherwise with some specific examples.

"Question: By approximate percentages, how do successful candidates for non-officer level positions come to you?

* Candidate found listing on Yahoo Jobs page—30%
* Yahoo employee referred the candidate—30%
* Yahoo internal recruiter contacted a prospect (that is, the person wasn’t looking)—20%
* Yahoo retained headhunter contacted a prospect (that is, the person wasn’t looking)—2%
* Conversion from contractor or temporary—10%
* Hot Jobs and other jobs sites—7%"

Good stats here. I *think* the notes in parentheses are Guy's. A few questions:

1) The candidate who found the listing on Yahoo Jobs page (which I'm guessing is this page) -- where did they come from? Are they coming from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. searches? Are there online banners on other sites that direct them there? Are they "direct loads", i.e. they are on Yahoo and click on "Jobs" (but not HotJobs)? 30% sounds high for direct load.

If Yahoo made 750 hires last year from people clicking on Yahoo and then "Jobs", I'd be very, very impressed at their ability to a) get candidates to search out that link based, pretty much, on Yahoo's reputation as an employer (it's not really placed in a location where you could just stumble upon it), b) have that many qualified candidates find the appropriate job -- which Libby said is a key part of the application process -- then go through the process of submitting a resume, and then having the recruiter actually dig that resume out through some mysterious method of keyword matching, and c) getting to this candidate before someone else did -- remember, someone who goes through all the steps to apply through this method is probably a pretty active job seeker. To make 30% of all hires through a direct load from Yahoo.com to "Jobs" through the application process on Yahoo's site, they'd have to load 37,500 resumes a year that way (1/50 of 37,500 is 750, or 30% of 2,500).

2) Yahoo internal recruiter contacted a prospect -- what's the breakdown of the source of candidate contact info? If the recruiter found them on a Monster/HotJobs/CareerBuilder, etc resume database (or TheLadders.com talent network) and contacted them, is that counted in this category? Or does that belong in "Hot Jobs and other job sites"? Where does LinkedIn factor into the equation? Again, I'd like to see more specific data on this. Even if every one of these hires was made by a cold call, the information had to come from somewhere.

3) Yahoo retained headhunter contacted a prospect (that is, the person wasn’t looking) -- if a recruiter is working on retainer, they are paid up front. Most retained recruiters won't take a listing unless it pays at least $100k a year. Assuming a 30% first year fee on all hires, Yahoo spent at least $1.5 million last year on recruiter fees. And that's the lowest possible number. It also doesn't factor in unsuccessful searches (a "good" success rate for a retained search firm is about 70-80% of all searches). Remember, these firms get paid whether they make the placement or not. I'm not passing judgment either way, I'm just pointing out the dollar amounts, and that free job posts on TheLadders.com -- the world's largest jobsite for qualified $100k+ candidates -- might help (end plug/).

From all accounts from the old HotJobs guys at TheLadders, Libby is a pretty fantastic HR executive, and I think she does a pretty nice job here of making Yahoo! seem like a company that takes it's hiring process seriously, a nice job of making Yahoo seem like a good place to work, and a nice job of peeling back the curtain on the hiring process.

One other note: If you look at the second comment down, you'll see some pretty negative stuff about working at Yahoo. Now, I have no idea of verifying whether any of it is true (it sometimes sounds a bit like sour grapes), but you can be certain that a lot of people who read this interview will read the comments. True or not, it's going to leave an impression. The comment certainly hires the danger of putting yourself out there publicly, on a widely-read blog. Kudos to Libby though because the benefits in this case far outweigh the negatives. Libby, ultimately, shows a strong desire to beat her competitors in hiring and strong desire to bring the best of the best to Yahoo.