From: Priya Anand, Recruiting Lead To: Dan Voss, Engineering Hiring Manager Subject: Q2 backend-engineer funnel, where we're losing people
Dan,
Here's the Q2 picture for the backend-engineer req. We received 600 applications. Of those, 240 passed the resume screen. We invited all 240 to the online coding assessment, but only 150 actually completed it, a big drop we should talk about. Of the 150 who completed the assessment, 60 passed our cutoff and went to the technical phone screen. 36 passed the phone screen and went to the on-site loop. We extended 12 offers and 9 were accepted.
Two policy notes that may bear on the drop-off: (1) since April we require the coding assessment to be completed within 48 hours of the invitation, with no extensions; (2) we raised the assessment passing cutoff in April from the 50th to the 70th percentile.
Priya
From: Dan Voss, Engineering Hiring Manager To: Priya Anand, Recruiting Lead Subject: RE: Q2 backend-engineer funnel, where we're losing people
Priya,
Thanks. The two numbers that worry me are the invite-to-completion drop and the completion-to-pass drop.
On the first: I've heard from two candidates that the 48-hour window was the reason they didn't finish, both were employed and couldn't clear the time. So the no-extension policy looks like it's costing us completed assessments, not weak candidates. Our coordinator has gone back through the invitees who never started the assessment and estimates that, with a longer window, one-third of those we lost at that stage would have completed, these are people who opened the invitation but ran out of time, not no-shows.
On the second: the higher cutoff is doing what we intended, fewer people clear the assessment, but the ones who do are stronger, and our phone-screen pass rate is up from last quarter. I don't want to lower that cutoff.
One more thing: please don't read the offer-to-accept number as a problem. Nine of twelve is a normal accept rate for us.
Dan
Q2 backend-engineer funnel (counts at each stage)
| Stage | Entered stage | Passed to next stage | Pass rate within stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application received | 600 | 240 | 40% |
| Online coding assessment, invited | 240 | 150 | 62.5% (completed) |
| Online coding assessment, completed | 150 | 60 | 40% (met cutoff) |
| Technical phone screen | 60 | 36 | 60% |
| On-site loop | 36 | 12 | 33% |
| Offer extended | 12 | 9 | 75% (accepted) |
Suppose the team eliminates the 48-hour completion window and the recovery Dan's email describes actually materializes, with every later within-stage pass rate in the table staying the same. The new completion count is not given to you; derive it from Dan's email and Priya's stage counts. On that basis, approximately how many offers would the funnel then extend?
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