Talent Acquisition Job Offer Process

There are a series of steps that are taken when preparing a job offer at GitLab to ensure there is consistency and fairness in our hiring process.

These steps outline all of the major stages that Recruiters follow in our job offer process.

Debrief

Note: This step happens simultaneously with the Reference Check stage for R&D and is often referred to as Justification.

Sales and G&A

For Sales and G&A roles, the Debrief stage is a holding stage that takes place before Reference Checks are initiated. Candidates should be placed here after all scorecards are submitted and interviews are complete, while the decision is made to create an offer. There is no interview here, so one does not need to exist within the interview plan.

R&D

For the R&D team, the interview within the Debrief stage is called Justification. Once it is determined that a candidate will be moving to the offer stage, the hiring manager will answer the following questions in the justification stage in the candidate’s greenhouse profile:

• In what specific way(s) does this candidate make the team better?
• What flags were raised during the interview process? Include any past rejections, thumbs-down ratings, or hesitancy from previous interview scorecards (but not resume reviews), as well as your reasons for being comfortable moving forward despite these (preferably with confirmation from the past interviewer).
• How do we intend on setting this candidate up for success?
• Engineering specific: Does the candidate meet a simple majority of nice-to-have requirements (5 of 9) for the specific role? (please add them to the appropriate scorecard section)
• Is the offer in-plan, and why? (e.g.: critical budgeted hire, backfill, transfer)

The justification section is a good place to add as much detail and context as possible since offers will often be reviewed by individuals that were not part of the interview process so this is their primary source of information for whether or not an offer should be approved.

Reference Reviews

When a Hiring Manager has determined they want to move a candidate beyond the Team Interview stage, the Recruiter will request references. The process of collecting references through a Reference Check Form is required for all external candidates. To use this form, click the ‘send’ button on the location-specific form attached to the Greenhouse reference check stage. You can view completed forms in the “Application” tab.

The Reference Check Form will request references’ contact details as well as candidate details that will help with a future offer.

• The address, preferred first name/nickname, preferred last name, and PIAA details will auto-populate into the candidates’ details. Any other fields, including their legal name, will not transfer outside of the form and need to be added manually. If a candidate requests changes to their legal name, you will need to do that manually. As a reminder, middle names are not required as part of legal names.
• Fields that are entered in offers, such as BSN and Date of Birth for the Netherlands, should be added during the Offer stage by the Recruiter.
• CES will be responsible for 3-4 fields in the Reference Check form, depending on location. These include PIAA, Outside Work, TMRG calls, and NYC background check fields. CES instructions can be found here.

Please note that these forms, just like an Offer in Greenhouse, are connected to the specific job you request them for. You cannot transfer forms to another job, so be sure you’re hiring into that req before sending a form. If you transfer the candidate, the form will not transfer. If no forms are listed, please contact the Enablement team, who can copy them into your job. Our “Test Support” fake requisition will always have the most up to date versions of our forms.

If you would like the Hiring Manager to receive an email when the form has been received so they can start calling references, you can go to the job setup for that req, select ‘Forms’ and edit the individual form you plan to send. The Recruiter, individual CES assigned to the candidate, and CES@gitlab.com will all automatically receive an email when the form is completed. For more information about Reference Checks from a Hiring Manager perspective, click here.

Your Hiring Manager will be responsible for completing their reference checks.

Recruiter Quality Check (Engineering Only)

Once a candidate has gone through the whole process before creating an offer the recruiter will ensure the scorecard requirements in Engineering Hiring Practices are met.

The recruiter will leave a note in Greenhouse for the hiring manager as follows:

• Yes - Ready to move to offer approval
• More info need - suggestions to be added

Offer Approvals

After the reference check stage is complete, and details of a potential job offer have been agreed on, the Offer stage is kicked off.

Once references are completed or as they are in progress, the Recruiter will move the candidate to offer stage and collect and submit offer details in Greenhouse. Remember that the Reference Check Form does not automatically update a candidates’ legal name, so that will need to be updated manually in the Details tab. The Recruiter will ensure the offer is routed for approval.

If the candidate for the position is internal, you should wait until after you’ve presented an offer, but before the candidate is marked as hired, to merge the applicants’ profiles. All other candidates should have profiles merged as early as possible. Please visit the Enablement handbook page for instructions.

Compensation Considerations:

When discussing a proposed compensation, the talent acquisition team and hiring manager should take into account the following: candidate expectations, role alignment in the market, and where within the compensation range peers are aligned internally at GitLab. The goal is to offer a competitive rate to the candidate while maintaining pay equality at GitLab.

• If there are any special circumstances regarding a known relocation for the candidate, this information should be included in the Compensation Details. Details should include originating location and salary, as well as the new location and new salary details to ensure it is communicated as part of the approval. Pay special attention to candidates moving countries: even if the candidate is only in France for 1 month of employment and will then be permanently located in Switzerland, their entity and employment contract will be France. The CES team has instructions for how to add this to their contract.
  • It’s extremely important that the People Connect team is informed by Talent Acqusition if the candidate signs an offer with a relocation assumption. If they are not informed, there can be confusion when the candidate asks to relocate at a later date. Please ensure that the Candidate Experience Specialist that you’re working with is able to transfer this information when the offer is signed.
• For internal hires, be sure to include in the “Approval Notes” section the candidate’s current level and position, as well as their compensation package.
• You can also include any mitigating circumstances or other important details in the “Approval Notes” section of the offer details. If the comp has a variable component, please list base, on target earnings (OTE), and split in the “Approval Notes.”

The offer approval process

Do not move a candidate into the Background Check and Offer stage in Greenhouse until their offer is approved and you’re ready to give your verbal offer. To get an offer approved, please see the steps below.

The offer approval process begins with Total Rewards, who reviews the following:

• Ensure the compensation is in line with our compensation benchmarks
• Ensure the bonus percentage, if applicable, matches bonus percent amount. For bonus/commission, this will be a percent of OTE. For Director level bonus, this will be a percent of base.
• Audit stock options, department, division, etc.
• Add entity, job code, job grade, sales geo differential
• Ensure the title is added to Workday.

Then, the FP&A partners associated with the jobs’ department will approve. Finally, the department approves.

Our best practice is to set up approvals so the department head, or VP, is the approval representative for the department alongside one backup approver. In some departments, there will be an additional approval before this at the Director level. Approval chains are set up to minimize single points of failure, including a backup when possible to approve when the main approver is out of office.

Common approval challenges:

• Offer stuck in approvals: If the offer is stuck in the approvals chain because someone is out of office, the Recruiter can talk to the approver’s manager about an appropriate temporary adjustment and recommend this to the Enablement team. Recruiters should be proactive in reaching out to approvers if an offer is urgent or a candidate is being inconvenienced by a long wait time. If there is a known OOO, this discussion should happen before there’s an offer waiting for approval. Enablement can help with any changes needed.
• Offer approvals chain is incorrect: If approvers are missing or incorrect, the Recruiter should contact a member of the Enablement team to adjust. The only people with access to make approvers changes are Enablement and Director, Executive Recruiting, who change approval chains to maintain confidentiality for executive positions.

Counter offer details:

Information in the offer package for counter offers should include the following in the “Approval Notes” section:

• New offer:
• Original offer:
• Candidate’s salary expectation beginning of process:
• Candidate’s counter offer:

Verbal Job Offer

Once the offer is approved in Greenhouse and references are completed, a candidate can be moved to the Background Check and Offer stage and an offer will be verbalized to the candidate by the Recruiter or Hiring Manager. Please note: verbal offers should not be made to candidates in Japan until after a clear background check has been received. If the offer is ready to be verbalized but the background check is not yet complete, the hiring manager or recruiter can let the candidate know that they would like to make an offer, but it is contingent upon their background checking coming back clear.

Offer details usually include:

• Start Date - ensure that the candidates start date is not a no-start date (unless needed for legal reasons). They should never start on a National holiday in the country when they are located, and anticipate that the People Connect team requests at least 10 days’ notice from the time the candidate is marked as hired until their start date.
• Job Title
• Salary
• General and specific benefits
• Contract type and employment type
• Onboarding process
• Asynchronous communication
• Stock options
• Unlimited paid-time-off
• Incentives
• Office equipment/reimbursements
• Configuring your new laptop
• Employment Assistance Program

A verbal offer can only be communicated once the offer has been fully approved in Greenhouse. Ahead of the official approval assuming no exception is being requested, the Recruiter may choose to have a conversation regarding what a potential compensation package may look like, however, the Recruiter must be clear that they are not extending a formal verbal offer as the offer has yet to be approved.

If the candidate declines GitLab’s offer, the Recruiter will tag the CES team and FP&A partners for their department in Greenhouse to inform them. The CES team member will Dismiss any associated tasks for the candidate at disposition. When rejecting in Greenhouse, the Recruiter should select the specific reason for decline so it can be used for reporting and impact the success of future offers.

Sending the Employment Contract/Offer Letter

Once a verbal offer is made to a candidate, the Recruiter will notify @ces to send a contract to the candidate via Greenhouse email. The Talent Acquisition team will sometimes refer to an Offer Letter and Employment Contract interchangeably, because they are called Offer Letters in the US and Employment Contracts outside of the US. If there are any special circumstances regarding relocation, this should be communicated in the notification to CES to ensure it is added to the contract. Recruiters should also communicate if the candidate is moving between countries, because CES will need to request a background check in the country where they are currently living. The CES will initiate the background check during this stage. Once a candidate signs a contract, the CES will send welcome email with instructions on hardware ordering and next steps.

Declined Offers

Although rare, there are times a candidate may decline an offer once an offer is verbalized, and/or once they have received a contract from GitLab. It is important to take the following steps if this occurs:

• Declined at time of verbal offer (no contract generated, but offer fully approved)
  • Notify your Finance Business Partner via the candidates notes section in GH that the candidate has declined the offer (DRI: Recruiter)
  • FP&A will make appropriate changes in Adaptive (DRI: FBP)
• Declined at time of contract (a contract has been generated)
  • Notify CES via the candidate notes section in GH that the candidate has declined offer and the contract needs to be voided. CES will then follow their own decline process. (DRI: Recruiter)
  • Add a “Rescinded Acceptance” tag to the candidate’s profile. Depending on the circumstance, you may also choose to add a “Do Not Hire” tag, such as in the case of a rescind due to accepting another offer.
  • Notify your Finance Business Partner via the candidates notes section in GH that the candidate has declined the offer (DRI: Recruiter)
  • FP&A will make appropriate changes in Adaptive (DRI: FBP)

After the Employment Contract is Signed

After the employment contract has been signed by both a GitLab signatory and the candidate, CES will send a welcome email and mark the candidate as Hired in Greenhouse. CES cannot mark a candidate as Hired until the Recruiter has “cleared the req”, or rejected or moved any active candidates out of the role. Recruiters should complete this step within 24 hours.

In some cases, there are candidates who still have interviews scheduled. In most circumstances, the Recruiter should be transparent in communications with the candidate in stating that the position has been filled and inviting them to still have a conversation with the interviewer about the company and future positions. In other cases, we may have additional openings coming and want to continue the interview process. In those cases, they should discuss timing with CES to ensure they can have those interviews while leaving enough time to initiate onboarding for the hired candidate.

Once the candidate has been marked as Hired, this will trigger a sync with WorkDay and initiate the pre-onboarding process with the People Connect team.

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