As the GitLab team continues to grow, we're taking a unique approach to our hiring process. We encourage anyone interested in career opportunities with GitLab to share their information with our team by joining our talent community. This allows our team to consider you for current and future openings on the team.
Read more about our outbound hiring model and other frequently asked questions on our Jobs FAQ page.
How to Join Our Talent Community
Average Time to Hire
We strive to be as expeditious as possible in our hiring process. However, the speed of the process can and does vary. To see our historical and recent trends related to time-to-hire, please view the Time to Offer Accept (Days) chart on the Recruiting Performance Indicators page.
To note, this metric is calculated by taking the number of days it takes from the time a candidate starts the recruitment process to when they accept an offer.
Reimbursement for Interviewing with GitLab
If you are invited for an interview with GitLab and you need financial support for your interview, you may be reimbursed for the following:
To initiate the reimbursement process please email interviews@gitlab.com
. Additional details found here.
If you are a current team member and are interested in applying for a current vacancy, please follow the steps below.
Steps
US
in its title, it's open to all applicants from around the world.There are situations in which multiple internal applicants apply for the same role. Please remain professional during the interview process, and refrain from discussing interview questions/anything pertaining to the process until it is over.
Please ensure that internal applicants have appropriate Greenhouse visiblity permissions for the role they are applying to. For example, internal applicants should not be able to see other team members who have also applied for the role (internally or externally). If there are internal People Group requisitions the recruiter on the role should remove almost all of the access manually.
We want our interview process to be accessible to everyone. You can inform us of any reasonable adjustments we can make to better accommodate your needs by emailing 'interviews@gitlab.com' about the need for adjustments at any point in the interview process.
Process for the Recruiting Team
These steps may vary role-to-role, so please review the hiring process on the job family page for the role you are interested in.
Steps
The GitLab team understands the importance of inclusive interviewing, and we strive to ensure our hiring team is well versed in every aspect of diversity, inclusion, and cultural competence. A positive and comfortable candidate experience is priority.
Best practices
Calls can last anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes, depending on the conversation.
Example Questions
Example questions include:
At the end of the screening call, the recruiter will tell you what the next steps will be, if any. There should be time for you to ask any questions you may have.
In an effort to streamline the hiring process, improve the candidate experience, and hire talent faster, best practice is to coordinate interview times so that candidates can complete the process within 2 weeks. Just as if we were to interview candidates in-person at an office, we wouldn’t make them come back 3, 4, or even 5 times. The initial screening call and optional CEO interview are not considered to be part of the 2-week goal. If the process before or during the team interview is taking more than a few days to confirm, the Recruiter should reach out to the candidate, apologize, and explain what is going on. As a candidate it is really frustrating to not hear anything from the other side just to have the conversations resume later as if nothing had happened.
Best practices
Those on the interview team should prioritize the interview in their schedules. If it means you have to miss an already scheduled or recurring meeting, please consider participating in the interview a priority and reviewing notes from the missed meeting agenda afterwards instead. Hiring an amazing team is critical for GitLab, and how we spend our time shows where our priorities are.
Maintain candidate confidentiality. All candidate names and details are kept confidential within the hiring team to avoid bias or the potential to jeopardize a candidate's current employment as well as to maintain data protection. The only people who should have access to details about candidates are Recruiting, People Ops, the hiring manager(s), approved interviewers or reviewers within that team, the executive of the department, the legal team, the CFO, and the CEO.
Remember to inform candidates about what stage they are in. For example, if in the hiring process for the particular position / team you've agreed that there will be four stages, be sure to inform the candidate of where they are in the process during each call / stage. To better manage candidates’ expectations, at the end of the interview, let them know what stage they are in as well as what the next step/stage will be if they do pass this interview. Considering we are speaking with other candidates, they can expect to hear back within a couple of days. Some brief feedback from the previous stage can also be included to help the candidate gauge their progress. If there will be additional or fewer stages than expected, be sure to let the candidate know so they are aware of where they are in the process.
The process can differ from team to team and from position to position. If a candidate submits a resume to a particular open position and is being considered for another open position, send a short note to update the candidate and get their approval as well as to inform them that their process may be slightly different than previously expected or delayed. If the roles are on different teams, the candidate will ideally only move forward with one, depending on their interests and qualifications. If the candidate is being rejected for one or all of the positions they applied for, they will be notified of which vacancies they are being rejected for.
Recruiting will schedule the next person in the process. Someone on the recruiting team will move candidates forward to the next person in the interview plan if the candidate has received positive feedback. Interviews should be scheduled with a minimum of 48 hours (two business calendar days) notice in order for the GitLab interviewer to review their schedule and fully prepare so that both the interviewer and the candidate get the most out of the experience. We do allow exceptions to be made when the hiring manager would like to expedite the interview plan. If the 48 hours cannot be met the Candidate Experience Specialist will reach out to the interviewer directly to coordinate.
Compensation is discussed at start and end but not in between. Compensation expectations are asked about during the screening call. If the expectations seem unworkable to the manager or recruiter (based on what had been approved by the compensation committee at the creation of the vacancy), then the recruiter can send a note to the candidate explaining that salary expectations are too far apart, but they should also ask how flexible the candidate is and if they would consider adjusting their expectations. If expectations are aligned, then the topic of compensation should not re-surface until an offer is discussed internally. Following this guideline avoids conflating technical and team interviews with contract discussions and keeps the process flowing smoothly.
If the manager has a question about compensation, please ping the People Ops Analyst for review. If the question needs to be escalated, the People Ops Analyst will add the Chief People Officer to the conversation.
An approval team authorizes all offers. The manager proposes a suggestion for an offer (including bonus structure if applicable, etc.) as a private comment in Greenhouse and informs the recruiting team on its details depending on what is applicable. The recruiting team will create an offer package to present to an approval chain consisting of the People Business Partner, executive of the division, and Chief People Officer for approval. Verbal offers should not be extended to the candidate until the offer is approved. The CEO may choose to interview the candidate, and any offers given before the CEO's approval are premature.
Rejecting and Feedback
The candidate should always be notified if they've been rejected. The recruiting team is primarily responsible for declining the candidate, but the hiring manager should be prepared to let the candidate know why they were declined if they had progressed to the team or manager interviews. The hiring manager can also share this feedback with the recruiting team, who will relay it to the candidate.
Stage | Timing | Medium | Type |
---|---|---|---|
Screening Interview with Recruiter | Within 5 days of Screening Interview | Email OR Verbally during the Screening Interview | Standard Template by default, may provide specific feedback, but not required |
Assessment | Within 5 days of Asessment Submission | Standard Template by default, may provide specific feedback, but not required | |
Team Interview | Within 5 days of Team Interview | Email or via Zoom Call | Must provide feedback that is personalized and customized. Only offer frank feedback. This is hard, but it is part of our company values. All feedback should be constructive and said in a positive manner. Keep it short and sweet. Feedback should always be applicable to the skill set and job requirements of the position the candidate applied and interviewed for. |
We recorded a training on the subject of Candidate Experience.
How We Work During Holidays
As an all-remote, global company, GitLab gives all team members the flexibility to determine their time away from work, including the holidays they observe. There will likely be holidays that our candidates observe that a recruiter, hiring manager, or candidate experience specialist may not. If there's a time during the year where a significant portion of the company will be taking time off, we'll be sure to send a communication to all active candidates to let them know of a possible delay in communication. Please note that not every member of the team will be observing that holiday, so you may still receive emails from them.
How We Schedule Interviews on a Global Scale
The recruiting team will ask candidates for references via email. The hiring manager may also decide to conduct backchannel references. More information on how we conduct reference checks can be found on the Recruiting Process - Hiring Manager Tasks page.
Concurrently with the reference checks, the recruiting team will begin a background check on the candidate. When the recruiting team initially requests the candidate's reference details, they will also begin the background check process and inform the candidate.
If, at the completion of the interview process, both the candidate and the hiring team wish to move forward with the candidate's application, an offer will need to be prepared.