5 Hiring Rules From Our Founder

⭐ NEWHR recruiting agency founder, Kira Kuzmenko, shares five principles of her hiring approach that stand out from conventional market practices:

«These are the methods I apply across all of my projects (NEWHR, Hello New Job!). I spend between 1 day to 2 weeks on hiring and achieve a 100% probation period pass rate.

1️⃣ Tasks, Not Requirements
In the job description, I talk as much as possible about the company and the tasks, and almost nothing about my requirements for the candidate. My goal is to sell the job and attract candidates, not to filter them out at this stage. I’ll do the filtering in the following phases.

2️⃣ Publicity Aids Hiring
At NEWHR and Hello New Job! , we strive to offer more than a standard service. We publish a large amount of useful materials, guides, and research, keeping us in the public eye. Therefore, we often attract top candidates to our pool. It allows us to fill positions in 1–2 weeks, sometimes even in a day.

3️⃣ Resumes Are Never Enough
Few can effectively showcase their results and achievements in a resume. Hence, I always request something that demonstrates work outcomes: examples of texts, project documentation, or code samples. Essentially, any artifacts that are common in this profession.

4️⃣ I Don’t Ask Questions; I Answer Them
Instead of the standard interview format of «tell me about yourself and answer my questions, “ I do the opposite.

At the beginning, I thoroughly describe the job. Then I ask the candidate to ask me any questions they have. Based on these questions, their number, and depth, I can easily gauge the candidate’s interest in the job/company, their understanding of the task, and their ability to solve it.

5️⃣ A Real Task Instead of a Test
It’s crucial for me to understand how well I will work with someone and whether they can handle real work tasks. Therefore, I often assign a real task in the form of paid project work instead of a test.

Pros and Cons of Paid Tests:
✅ I get a tangible result that I can use.
✅ It helps me evaluate how a person interacts with me during the task assignment and the work process: whether they ask additional questions or proceed without clarifying details, resulting in an unaligned outcome.
✅ It’s immediately clear how a person plans their work and their attitude towards deadlines they themselves have stated.
❌ Yes, I have to pay for this. It’s an additional expense.
✅ The need to pay motivates me to select the final candidates better. Typically, I choose 3–4 finalists to whom I offer a paid test.
✅ The candidate can assess whether they are comfortable working with me.

P. S. This approach is more suitable for hiring key team members and won’t work for mass hiring.

I hope you find my personal experience valuable.

Exploring others’ hiring strategies inspires me to refine my own. I’m eager to learn about your methods and insights, especially unconventional, atypical ones 🙂 Please share in the comments how you hire!»