How Airbnb hires in Asia

This week in Tech in Asia Jobs shares insights into how successful companies operate, hire, and more.

In this edition, we look at Airbnb’s hiring process and how they assess candidates for cultural fit. Airbnb is now hiring  – join them to supercharge your hiring process and find people eager to work in a startup environment with Tech in Asia Jobs.

A core tenet behind Airbnb’s vision is the notion of acceptance. How does the community-based company bake that into its hiring process?

We sit down with Leander Yohanes, Territory Manager for Southeast Asia, and Shux Mazur, who heads up the talent team for the region, to find out how the recruitment experience is designed with the candidate in mind, and localized for Asia. The full transcript is provided below the video and edited for clarity.

Leander Yohanes: We have a mission which is to create a world where seven billion people can belong anywhere and the guiding principle is that we only use our core values to help us achieve that mission.

Shux Mazur: Hi, I’m Shux. I head up the talent team for the region.

Leander Yohanes:  I’m Leander. I’m the territory manager for Southeast Asia.

Shux Mazur: We essentially work with managers on engaging teams, on employees’ development, on driving culture as well.

Leander Yohanes: My team and I are responsible in running initiative online and offline to sustain a healthy growth of homes in the region. I also contribute in making sure that we build a healthy culture by contributing as a core value interviewer.

Shux Mazur:  We have five locations out here. Singapore is the headquarters for APAC with about 300 employees. Majority of the key functions sit in the Singapore headquarters. Once the role is posted, it goes onto Greenhouse for external candidates. Recruiters look through the resumes and they start the phone screening process before passing it on to the hiring manager and an interview panel.

Shux Mazur: Candidates will go through interviews on a one-on-one basis before they get to the core values interviews. That’s where we assess the cultural fit for Airbnb.

Leander Yohanes: The purpose of this interview is really to understand the candidate in terms of values and assess whether it aligns with the company’s missions and culture as well. It’s less of a one-sided, it’s a two way directional. The candidate is actually also encouraged to ask questions about the company and understand the company better. So it’s really to get to know each other’s process. We do have culture interviews in every office. I think how we are trying to customize to accommodate to APAC culture nuances is that we have the options to actually interview the candidate in the native language of their choice to make sure that candidate able to express themselves fully.

Leander Yohanes: There are four core values altogether. The first one is be a host, embrace the adventure, champion the mission, and be a “cereal” entrepreneur.

Shux Mazur: I bring up embracing adventure because a lot of it is about having a growth mindset. Having that curiosity to learn. Being willing to take risks as well as learn from mistakes. The kind of extracurricular activities that people have taken part on, as well as the leadership roles that they have taken while at universities, I think those play a much bigger role. Because again, it goes back to do you have the entrepreneurial spirit that we are looking for? Do you really believe in the mission that we believe in, and have you demonstrated that through the different activities that you have participated in?