Vital's Hiring Manifesto

We took a while to write our Hiring Manifesto. We want to be deliberate and clear about a couple of things that are important to us. And ultimately we want to cater for a specific group of individuals.

First, we want to be explicit that not everyone will fit a company’s culture and their ways of working. Publicly, most companies won’t admit it, even though often candidates are rejected due to not being a “cultural fit”. Candidates often don’t know what that even means, neither does the company rejecting for those reasons. Peter Drucker once famously said that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. This is true. But it also applies to technical ability. Teaching someone how to code is miles easier than creating agency on an individual. If you pay close attention, at no point we mention that being a great coder is paramount for us. This is on purpose.

Second, we wanted to describe what success looks like at Vital. Different companies value different things, but often they are not specific about what makes someone successful. In a lot of places not being too focused on the product is okay. To us, it is not. The inherent intensity of a startup is real. It is chaotic. We don’t hide this and we are quite open about our current reality. I always mention that, as a father, I still have a good work-life balance. Sometimes duty calls and I am working late in the evenings. That’s okay when you like what you do. Someone applying to Vital should understand and be comfortable with that.

At the end of reading our manifesto, a candidate should know how we work, hire and what our values are. They will also know if Vital is a place where they want to work. And if it isn’t, that’s okay too.