A company is only strong as its people. It’s something most of our colleagues here at RingCentral will quickly vouch for, especially after a year of working remotely. We may not be able to remember the last time we saw our coworkers physically in person, but it’s quite amazing how connected we still feel after so much time apart.
RingCentral’s emphasis on connection and inclusion—something that earned us a spot on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work List for 2021—definitely deserves a lot of the credit.
But a strong culture can earn a company more than just kudos: it’s also a secret to success and profitability. When employees have good feelings and positive things to say about their companies, it can translate into higher revenues, even years later.
We can talk for hours about the many things a great employer can do to foster employee engagement and connection. But building a great culture really starts with hiring the right people. Fortunately, we have the world’s leading cloud communications app to make everything as seamless as possible—including making our entire hiring process virtual.
Here’s an inside look at our process.
Bringing hiring out of the dark
We’ve all applied for jobs elsewhere in the past, and know it can be a frustrating, opaque experience: you apply for a job online and wait forever to hear back (if you receive a response at all!). If you’re moved forward, timing and next steps can be unclear. The whole thing often feels cloaked in mystery.
At RingCentral, we value clear, transparent communication as an organization. And while our hiring process definitely helps us to find the right talent, we also see it as an opportunity to show prospective coworkers a little about how we work—starting with how we use the platform to make communication clearer, easier, and more immediate.
When candidates apply, we ask them upfront if they’re OK using the RingCentral platform as the primary way to communicate during the recruiting process. Of the 125,000 applicants we have every year, 97% accept—a pretty impressive adoption rate.
When we identify the candidates we’re interested in getting to know better, we’ll send them an email—and we’ll also send them a RingCentral message so they can easily start chatting with a recruiter.
Getting on RingCentral doesn’t require candidates to download a thing. They can simply open our web app in Chrome or Safari to connect with our recruiters—often in real time—and start discussing the next steps. Another interview? That gets booked directly via the RingCentral platform—and an invite is automatically sent to the candidate’s email. And if a candidate is selected to move forward, they’re notified via RingCentral too.
We don’t like to keep candidates in the dark while we review applications and make decisions in the background. That’s why if they want to check in on the status of their application at any time, they can also message their recruiter directly on RingCentral.
Meeting in person (but over video!)
Finding the right fit is important for us as a company, and it’s important for any individual considering a new job. That’s where having the opportunity to interact and ask questions comes in.
Meeting candidates in person has gotten tricky in the age of COVID, prompting many companies to switch to virtual job interviews—and even as we put the pandemic behind us, that’s unlikely to change. Seven in 10 recruiters surveyed by LinkedIn say virtual job interviews will remain the standard.
After an initial chat over RingCentral phone with our recruiters, we’ll send candidates who seem like a good fit an invitation to a RingCentral Video meeting. When it’s time to join the interview, all they need to do is click the link in the email invite, set their camera and audio permissions, and they’re in!
The RingCentral differentiator
We spend a lot of time in this space talking about how using RingCentral makes work more seamless and communicating easier and more enjoyable for workers. But part of why our culture is so great is that we put a priority on these values internally too—and we strive to make that clear throughout the hiring process.
By making it simple to interview with us, we want candidates to get a picture of how easy it is to work with us. We put a lot of thought into enabling tools and processes that remove some of the headaches of work-life. From their first contact, we want prospective employees to feel the difference, even if they don’t work here yet.
The way we see it, our focus on improving the hiring experience pays off for everyone. Candidates can see that we invest in our people and their needs; the enjoyable application experience entices more applicants in the future; and all the while, we get people to understand and fall in love with our product—and our company. That’s what you call a win-win-win situation.
Originally published Mar 31, 2021, updated Jan 18, 2023
