At the start of the pandemic, we wrote in detail about our journey toward being 100% distributed. The global situation changed how we and most other businesses approach work.
In the midst of the pandemic, though in the fortunate position to continue hiring, we found ourselves having to rework how we onboarded fresh student hires. We managed to navigate through the challenges and emerge stronger.
Over the past two years, all our hires have gone through remote training via our rtLearn platform. These remote classrooms have allowed us to blow past the 100-employee mark.
Making it easier for students
As we return to pre-pandemic normalcy, we have been seeing a falling trend among students applying through our Online Hiring track. The assignments, central to the process, take anywhere from 40-60 hours to complete. Moreover, these hours are often spread across 2 to 3 weeks, as the assignment process includes up to two rounds of human code reviews. This is increasingly burdensome as they juggle academic requirements with personal commitments.
Based on student feedback, we are bringing our pre-pandemic campus back along with an online campus. To differentiate the two, we are labeling this faster hiring approach as “Express Campus”.
Express Campus
Express Campus Hiring is our process of hiring students from a few institutes that we have had a lot of success with in the past. It’s designed to be expedited to the extent that students go through the entire hiring process in one day.
Compared to our online campus recruitment, this process removes the need for a PHP assignment, accomplishing the initial screening via a computer-based quiz. While PHP assignments are good to have, they act as only a filter. The selection of any candidate is decided based on a technical interview (last round).
This express process is what we used in the past for hiring some of the students who are top-notch WordPress engineers at rtCamp as well as at other WordPress-focused businesses.
We will be offering Express Campus Hiring to a handful of universities in which we have had success with hiring in the past years.
Gujarat Campus Drive
Starting next week, we will visit six institutes in three cities. Early interest suggests we will be able to meet 2000 students in Gujarat.
| Date | Institute | Past Hires | City |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Oct 2022 | Marwadi University | 8 | Rajkot |
| 11 Oct 2022 | NIRMA University | 2 | Ahmedabad |
| 12 Oct 2022 | LDRP Institute of Technology and Research | 3 | Gandhinagar |
| 13 Oct 2022 | LJ Institute of Computer Application Ahmedabad University (SEAS)* | 2 1 | Ahmedabad |
| 14 Oct 2022 | DA-IICT | 8 | Gandhinagar |
Pune-Mumbai Campus Drive
Post-Diwali holidays, we will resume campus hiring in Pune and Mumbai. Since we have a base of operations in our training center in Pune, we will be able to visit more colleges in Pune. This phase will span the entire month of November.
December Campus Drive
In December, we might extend our Express Campus Hiring drive to a few North & South India institutes, largely dependent on our intake in the two preceding phases.
If you are a student or T&P representative of an institute, please get in touch with our team via campus@rtcamp.com to check the possibility of arranging our campus drive on your premises or even joining a possibility of pool campus.
This is our most ambitious hiring target to date; it’s twice that of any past effort. Our goal for 2023 is to hire 100 students, 50 each, for our January & July 2023 batches.
Returning to in-person Training
Another major change is our return to an in-person training model. This is in contrast to the fully remote training model from the last two years.
All our training will still be centered around rtLearn, but we will be inviting all hires to our training center in Pune. This has a few benefits:
- Zero latency peer review: It’s well understood that people learn best together. They get to interact with trainers, fellow trainees, and occasionally a few senior engineers from Pune who often use our training center as a coworking space.
- Better infrastructure: Our training center has better internet, a new dedicated M2 MacBook for all, and power backups, among other facilities for all participants.
- A great environment: Historically, rtCampers did more than Good Work when they stayed together, including playing cricket, jamming sessions, gaming nights, and pizza parties. Spending six months together will foster great relationships that will last lifelong and beyond rtCamp.
- Exposure to open-source communities: Our Pune-based training center acts as a venue for many local meetup groups centered around open-source communities. We believe we will be able to find new WordCamp volunteers and organizers apart from our usual core contributors.
rtCamp is Committed to Remote
While we are catering to a demand for in-person training and even counting on its several benefits, we are committed to being a 100% distributed workforce.
For all students that will be getting trained in our training center in Pune, we expect them to join our fully distributed workforce. In other words, they can start their workdays from home, a cafe, or a beach.
We will release more information about our training center and updates from our hiring drive. Sign up for our campus newsletter to stay up to date.
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