Cloud computing startup HashiCorp plans to hire 500 workers over the course of 2021 so it's on the lookout for sharp talent.
The firm, which raised a $175 million funding round last year at a $5.27 valuation, according to PitchBook, is looking to hire across all its teams, with a focus on sales, customer success, engineering, and product.
It hired roughly 400 people since the beginning of the pandemic, so this latest hiring push will double its headcount to 1,800 since early last year.
"We need people who want to get their hands dirty and build for scale over the coming years," Kate Caulfield, vice president of talent acquisition at HashiCorp, told Insider.
The firm follows three core tenets when hiring: using its company principles as a guide, making the process consistent, and building diverse and inclusive teams.
"We're focused on delivering a really consistent process to make sure we're doing everything we can to reduce bias in our processes," Caulfield said. "We also have a really big commitment to building diverse and inclusive teams internally."
Even prior to the pandemic, the firm operated mostly-remote, and it plans to continue to hire all over the country and world (and has trained its managers on how to onboard new hires remotely).
"That opens up opportunities for employees outside the tech hubs to work with us," Caulfield said.
Here's how to stand out if you're applying to the hot cloud startup.
How to stand out when applying to HashiCorp
HashiCorp has revamped its hiring practices in the past several years to focus on attributes the company value.
"We think about communication, integrity, kindness, humility," Caulfield told Insider. "All of those are core to every role that we hire at HashiCorp."
It also streamlined its interview process to focus on behavioral interview questions to glean how candidates' past experiences tie into those specific attributes. Those questions are an "integral" part of HashiCorp's evaluation process, Caulfield said, so candidates should make sure to study the firm's values ahead of time.
Specific examples from a candidates background are always better than speaking generally or hypothetically, she added.
"Those can be strong predictors to how someone will respond to a given situation once they come on board," Caulfield said.
Another thing that can help a candidate stand out is taking the time to write a quick blurb about why they are interested in applying to HashiCorp in the first place, like if they love HashiCorp's principles or tools. If the applicants are engineers, it helps if they develop in the open source community.
"We really want to make sure that folks that come in are going to really add to our principles and make sure that we're continuing to build that culture," Caulfield said. "We really look for intellectual curiosity. We're looking for folks that have that innate desire to learn and have that interest in technology."
HashiCorp's website now has resources that tell candidates more about what it's like to work at the company.
"It really gives folks a true inside perspective," Caulfield said. "We had really great feedback from candidates: 'Wow, this helped me prepare for my interview.' That's a huge benefit for candidates."
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