Perfect, looks like I am visible and I'm audible. Great. I think we can start. Uh Thanks everyone for being here today. Um Welcome to the session and my name is Stanislava. Uh maybe briefly. Yeah, let me introduce myself first. I'm Stanislava from Zalando. I am a talent acquisition partner for technology here. I joined uh January this year, so almost half a year ago and yeah, super happy and excited to be here today. Um I would like to talk today a bit about uh the hiring process at Zalando uh mostly for engineering and uh product roles just to give you an overview and insights um in case you're interested to apply. So you already know. Um yeah, at least what to expect and how the um hiring journey looks like. Maybe also a few words about Telander in general and some of you might know, some people don't know. So I will just briefly introduce it to Taana. Uh It's a leading platform for fashion and for lifestyle in Europe. It's an ecommerce company and it's this uh beautiful uh in my also opinion, combination of fashion and uh technology and of course, uh it's quite a big uh company and it's a tech company. So we are very focused on um hiring process and candidate experience. That's why it's also important. Um That yeah, you know what to expect and what is the logic behind. So yeah, that's the title of the session. Let's slowly move on. 

Let me show you what will be the content for today. Um I moved the slide but it doesn't look like it moved. Just give me a second. Mhm Yeah. So that's sorry, that's the table of content for today. I would like to tell you who are the participants of the hiring pro uh process who is actually involved. And then the next one is the interview process. We will start with software engineers, then we will take a closer look into the scope of the interviews and then we will talk about uh interviewing process for project managers and the same closer look into the product interviews and the scope of the of the interviews. And then in the end, we will also have a bit of time for um questions and uh yeah, answers. And we also can send your questions online. If there is not enough time, I will be happy to uh to answer that. Great. So um let's start with the participants uh of the hiring process. Uh And again, I don't think it moved the slide. I'm sorry for this. Yeah. So now you can see who is involved, who are the participants of the hiring process. Of course, it's our candidates, uh internal candidates, external candidates, uh sourced candidates, uh referrals. So everyone basically who is in, who is interested in certain position at Zalando is considered as candidate. 

Uh Then of course, the hiring managers, uh hiring managers are normally these uh people who are basically hiring for their own teams uh could be engineering manager, could be head of product, could be VP, could be director. So it's really different. But normally it's the person who is hiring for his or her own team. Uh And normally these people are also like the uh key decision makers in the end. And uh also the interviewers, uh it's for each position, we have like different groups of people who are the interviewers uh from the same team or from uh other teams, but who are related to the topic and to the position uh which we're in which we are interviewing for. And it's of course, also uh recruiters, talent acquisition partners, talent sources and uh coordinators maybe to give you a bit um of overview here. So basically, um we have uh our, yeah, talent acquisition team and we have our talent sourcer. Those are people who are uh actively sourcing, who are looking for candidates through different sources, through different platforms. Um And basically, yeah, approaching the candidates and then presenting them to slander and coordinators. We have a here at T Lando. We have a beautiful um uh candidate experience team. 

And these are the team members that help us also with uh scheduling uh with the clients. Uh sorry, with the candidate communication, with scheduling rescheduling, arranging the meeting. So basically, these people are the first contact point for candidates. Uh Each talent acquisition partner is working closely with coordinators. 

So to make sure uh that the hiring process goes smooth and everything is on time and there is no delay. Uh There is no canceling or if there is a canceling, there is a rescheduling. So, yeah, uh this is how uh the team looks like and um I think we can move on to the next one and the next one is hiring process for software engineers. Let us go here. Yes. Yeah, I think you can see it now. So this is uh just like a, a tab uh to make it visual for you. What are the key steps uh in hiring process? Normally? It's, yeah, it always starts with the resume screening. Uh whenever you apply to Zalando through our career page, uh we will see your application, we use uh internally the greenhouse, the um A TS application tracking system and we see who applies for the role and we screen, we review the CBS carefully. Normally, uh this can be done by the recruiter or by hiring manager or sometimes we do it together with the hiring managers. We review the CV S to see what is uh the experience. What is the background of the candidate? Uh What is his, yeah, primary focus. If it's a good fit for the role or maybe it's not 100% good fit. But then we make sure uh we uh recommend uh the CV to another roles which would be a bit closer to what the candidate has in his experience. 

And after we um screen after we review the CV, uh when we have preselect group of candidates, we are then sharing the uh coil test with the engineers. Uh coil is a um like it's a very nice tool for it. Recruitment. It's like a platform where you can and maybe some of you also know or have heard about it. It's quite a popular one. There is a coding task, it kind of like a platform for coding tasks for it recruitment. And for, in our case for a software engineering, we have two types of tests. One type is for senior backend engineers and another type is for um uh another type is for um uh middle and junior engineers. It's a bit different level of uh yeah, of complexity. Um We have 100 minutes to complete this task. It's taking it's tracking time. And after the test is complete, we review these tasks, we have like a group of people uh for reviewing the tasks like assigned interviewers, the engineers who review the task and then based on the outcome, uh we proceed with the next step, which is a recruiter call, um recruiter call or talent acquisition partner call. 

Uh We do it online, we do it via Google hangouts or sometimes we also do it via phone or whatever is preferred. Um Normally it's like half an hour, 45 minutes call uh with the recruiter to yeah, to meet each other to give the introduction to the candidate uh about the company, about the role to go a bit deeper into details. Um We discuss the uh also the candidate's background and can candidates expectation, we discuss some admin topics, we discuss relocation. If the candidate is based in another country, we discuss uh the hiring process. So the aim of this call is basically to uh give an introduction to a bit, a little bit of everything and also to see what the candidate is interested in. What is his background if and if it's a good fit and the right fit for this particular role uh after this call. Um Yeah, the next step is normally the tech screen interview again, it's online via hangouts and this is normally the interview already with the engineer or, or with the hiring manager or sometimes the engineer is a hiring manager. 

So it's next level uh where you can, where the candidate can discuss um the role a bit like on a deeper level because as a talent acquisition partner, sometimes it's a bit difficult to go deeply into some technical details. And that's a great, that's a great opportunity basically to uh discuss the role in uh details from technical perspective. Normally it's like 45 minutes, 60 minutes call. Um After that, there is the on-site interview, it's called on site. Um But yeah, of course, it's uh uh via hangouts, it's online. Uh It's also can be called final interview. So what is the logic? What is the scope of this call? There are two sorry, there are four topics to discuss uh around one hour, each of them and it's considered as a panel interview. So the final decision will be made after these four calls take place. So normally these calls are coding uh around 60 minutes. Basically, it's uh I would say it's more about um the coil task and this interview is the discussion of the uh coil task, the solution. Uh What could be done? What is done? What is the logic behind how the candidate presents his solution? Uh Basically to assess communication as well as technical skills and technical excellence. So it's more or less around the coil test. Uh The next one is a system and design architecture. Um Yeah, system design exercise and follow up. 

And again here, it's also the communication and technical skills and technical excellence. Um general uh tech topic uh which is the uh another one or like technical skills. It's again, it's more in like the discussion format. There is no more tasks, no more online tasks. It's more like a discussion between the candidate and the interviewer and the PNO call. Uh PNO stands for people and organization call. Uh This call is normally more about like team feed about Salant of values um communication. Uh just getting to know the candidate also from team perspective and the personality wise. So nothing technical at this stage. Uh After this four calls take place, uh there is the roundup meeting or we also call a debrief session. This is the place, this is the meeting where we um meet with all the interviewers who were involved in this hiring process. So basically everyone who met the candidates starting from the recruiter and up to the last interviewer and we decide um we discussed how the interview went, what are the key strengths and weakness of the candidate? What was amazing what could be improved? So basically the decision making process and after that, what is also super important, it's a feedback call or a feedback. Email depends also on candidate. Uh the way the candidate would like to receive the feedback. 

But I would say uh it mostly like calls uh to, yeah, to basically give the feedback, the constructive feedback to the candidate because it's quite a long journey. Uh It's a lot of effort from both sides and it makes sense to deliver the feedback to the candidate. So the candidate knows uh why exactly it is for example, a no at this stage or if it's a yes, then to provide uh the offer details also to discuss a bit how the process went, what was really good, what could be improved? So as, as you understood it, a constructive feedback based on candidates performance uh during the entire hiring process, let's now uh switch to the next slide. Uh The next slide is basically a summary of what we just discussed, A closer look into interviews. Um Here you, you can take a look uh just like again the names of the uh of the interviews, the scope of the interview. And uh yeah, what to expect from each of these, of these calls. Let's move on now to product management. The next one I should say it's pretty uh pretty much the same, pretty much uh uh same process, but a bit more situational compared to uh tech to engineering. Um So yeah, here you can see uh it also starts with the resume screening as we discussed already. This is uh pretty much the same for both positions for engineering and for product, we screen the uh CV S together with the hiring managers. 

Um And after we have a preselect group of candidates, we have uh a recruiter call, a talent acquisition partner call to discuss the role to discuss the process and to hear a bit more about candidates background. And after that, we have uh the interview with the hiring manager uh the person who is hiring for their own team, the same length, I would say 45 minutes for hiring manager call, 30 minutes for recruiter call. And uh here, as you can see, we don't really have like the any kind of task in general, but I should admit that for different positions, it can be, it can vary, it can be a bit different. For example, uh for some product roles, we don't have any kind of like uh home task or um written narrative. But for some positions uh which I also work on, we do have a written narrative task. It's a small task in between. There is normally one question um related to product, but we just would like to see how the candidate communicates also in verbal. Uh But this is more like um an exception, I would say for most of the product roles that I'm currently working on, this is the uh general uh hiring process. 

So basically, um after hiring manager interview, there is the on site interview and there are four topics to discuss. Um There are all four of course around product and they are normally uh product management methods and tools, interview for one hour, analytical thinking and generation of actionable insights, also one hour commercial leadership and uh collaborative leadership. Also one hour each and after that, exactly the same roundup meeting or a debrief session where we discuss uh the performance and the interview outcome and then we share a final feedback uh with the candidate after this four calls take place. Um Now let's move to closer look. 

So we can also here is a beautiful table where it is explained in detail, what to expect from each of these calls. So I hope you can see. Yeah, it looks like you can see. So uh first of all, like the order which is here is um more or less random because uh also depends a lot on uh candidates and the uh interviewers uh availabilities, sometimes we just shuffle it. So it can start with analytical thinking and then follow product management methods and tools. Um But yeah, I would say that the order is quite random. So let's start with product management methods and tools. Uh As I already mentioned in the beginning of a product, uh the interviews are more or less uh situational uh for product management methods and tools. We focus, we take a look and expertise in PM product management tools and techniques. And this is also one of the interviews where the Syria seniority is uh assessed um for analytical thinking and generation of actionable insights. This is the one interview uh which is uh 5050 like situational and also case study based. There is a case study uh which is provided to candidate during the call during the interview. So there is no work uh like behind you, no work at home uh required for this one. 

It's all uh in this one hour via Google Hangouts and here uh it's like the, the focus is like on the structuring, ability to structure the problems, uh ability, working with data and generate insights and uh probably also like the written uh communication as well. Um The commercial leadership and collaborative leadership both are situational interviews. Um Commercial leadership is more focused on a customer insights because a lot of our product roles are like customer focussed and would require work like with customers. That's why it's uh quite important here. 

And of course, for commercial leadership, uh business leadership, uh those are the key uh focuses of uh commercial leadership interview and for collaborative leadership. Um I would say the key focus here is a stakeholder management and people leadership because as a product manager, like from different levels, senior principal head of product management, it requires a lot of work with like different stakeholders because it's quite a big team, quite a big company and the number of stakeholders is also quite big and this is what we also pay attention at during these interviews. 

Um Round that meeting, I think it's uh more or less clear the same structure. Normally these meetings take like around half an hour or 40 minutes. Uh mm Everyone like we discuss it one by one and then come to a common solution, common decision in the end. That's how um the roundup meetings normally look like. That's about the product management. Uh in general, I would say, um if just to give you an idea or an example of the timeline uh for the interviews, as you have seen, it's quite a complex hiring process. It includes different steps, uh different stages. Uh It takes some time. Uh If I can say, I would say it's like the hiring process can take up to one month. It also depends on, of course, uh the availabilities of the candidates, availabilities of the uh hiring managers and interviewers, it's pretty busy. So up to one month to complete, like the entire hiring process is something realistic. I would say sometimes of course, it's a bit faster, sometimes it's a bit longer depending on a lot of factors. But I would say one month is something that you can uh you can count on. Uh I'm not talking here about time to hire because after that, there is the offer process and there is the contract creation. So it takes additional time, but one month is what I mean for completing the interviews, like the steps of the interviews. 

Um And uh yeah, I think 11 month should be realistic uh regarding the roles. Uh If you have seen have checked our uh career web page of Taana, you can see there are a lot of roles at the moment also for uh product management. Also for engineering, it's really different levels. It's like uh middle professional senior principal engineering managers, head of. So really like a big variety of roles. Uh You can take a look and apply also um some junior positions as well. Of course, um the process here at Zalandois that you can be as a candidate, you can be in one process at, at that time. Uh So if something doesn't work with that role that you initially applied for or at some point, you as a candidate, understand that it's not what you really expected. You can always uh apply, you can always check another roles at Solando. And um, yeah, thank you. Exactly. Just, uh there is a link in the chat for jobs talent dot dot com. You can take a look uh for um for the open roles. But uh just keep in mind that you can be in one process at, at the time. Uh but again, if it doesn't work out, you can always reapply to another roles. 

And um you can contact the recruiter that you can see in the job ad or you can talk to your current recruiter who is responsible for the role that for some reason didn't work out for you and they can recommend you and they can take a look and see um what is there, what is available. 

So you can try another role because there are a lot of like there are a lot of roles. But if at some point it didn't work out with one role, but still the person is very interested in Zalando and, um, is a very good feed, a very good company feed. We don't want to lose the candidates. We would better place them in some other role. And then, yeah, make everyone happy the candidates and the hiring managers. That's about, um, uh, that's about the hiring process also regarding the feedback. Uh, it might also take some time. Um, normally like the best ideal case scenario is to be um ready to give a feedback in 23 working days. But of course, it's not always possible. Uh Also depends on the feedback from the interviewers on the workload. Uh So always, I always encourage the candidates to ping me as a talented position partner if the feedback is missing. Uh because again, it's like a big team, it's a lot of steps, it's a lot of work. And if sometimes the feedback is missing, uh just ping us, let us know that you are expecting a feedback. I mean, we know it of course, but sometimes it takes a bit longer. But if you are in touch and if you are proactive, it's always a good sign. 

And um yeah, I am personally always happy if I'm getting like reminded or I just see that the person is still in touch and is interested. Um I would say probably that would be it from my side for today. I don't have any other slides left, just maybe this one. Just a second. Yeah, thank you for your attention and for being here today. Um If you have any questions we have like, I think three minutes left. If you have any questions or any comment you can ask here or you can send a message and I will be happy to um to answer that. Hi Vera. I can see your message. Vera is my colleague. Um Yeah, then uh I can, I am still here for the next few minutes. If you guys have, have a question or would like to get in touch, we will be super happy and uh we'll be super happy also to see you in the interviews uh when you're interested and you find something suitable for you. We'll be excited to, to invite you for an interview and to have like a talk. Thank you. Thank you for the messages. OK. There are a few questions in the Q and A box. Uh Let me check. OK. We can start from uh like one by one. 

I had seen uh the question. Can anyone with non tech background use the tool? Uh Can you please elaborate which exactly uh tool do you mean is it Cadel or? Uh because I didn't really understand, I, I guess it's cordiality, right? Oh, wait, it's sorry. I think it's a wrong box. I don't see any questions in Q and A books. Uh question from Deborah. OK. Do you have insights? And at hand on how the process for engineering managers differs from the process for software engineers. Thank you. Well, um I would say thank you, Deborah for the question. Uh I would say for like the general logic for engineering manager roles is um it's not that different. It's just that for engineering managers very often, we don't have the coil task and everything which what is uh what is discussed in uh is in the discussion format in the calls. And of course for engineering managers, we also have a strong focus on people leadership uh topics as well, maybe a bit more than if we have interviews for uh individual contributors and the senior or middle software engineers. What are some best tips to keep in mind for an interview at Zalando? Uh Well, good question. Actually, the best tips I would say um Telander is quite a dynamic company. 

It's like a lot of uh challenges, a lot of dynamics, a lot of things going on, even though at the same time, it's quite structured and quite uh well organized with the like uh established processes and values, but it's very dynamic and very like a lot of challenges as well at the same time. 

So we are always interested and uh yeah, looking also for people who are not afraid, let's say, to get their hands dirty, being proactive, bringing their own ideas, bring in some creativity. So that's a good tip to uh keep in mind when you're intern at Salento, that it's quite a dynamic uh environment here. And, yeah, it's never boring and it's a lot of um, opportunities to, to grow here as well. I hope that that answered your question. Uh I don't see any other questions here. Yeah, I guess. Ok. The, uh, the just uh, one last, uh, I think that's it. There are two questions from Deborah and from Anonymous. OK. Thank you very much again for being here and for your attention. Uh I wish everyone a very nice day if you have any follow up questions and, or you would like to uh stay in touch. You can also find me on linkedin. Uh My name is Stanislava Zoska. I will write it here in chat. We'll be looking forward to connect.