At Cooliris, interns aren’t cheap labor, they’re potential star employees

Internet companies are not just a place for high-tech innovation; they’re known for some pretty wacky employment practices too, which run the gamut from oddball interview questions to luxurious office perks to unlimited vacation leave policies. Given the intense competition for talent among tech companies, this is perhaps inevitable.

Cooliris, a Palo Alto and Singapore-based startup in the photo sharing space, has a novel practice of its own: it doesn’t do traditional job interviews. The CEO and co-founder, Soujanya Bhumkar, told Tech in Asia that the startup has what it calls working sessions instead.

We typically don’t approach the process of recruiting the traditional way. It’s more about evangelizing to the community and seeing what happens. That way, it’s a bit easier to understand whether developers are passionate about what we do or not.

Bhumkar sees the interview process more as an opportunity for employer and potential employee to collaborate together on an actual scenario. It’s a rigorous screening process that involves getting not just skillsets but cultural fit.

The Cooliris team of 18 typically serve one of two functions: they are either engineers, or they belong the the Whatever It Takes (WIT) team, a group of well-rounded individuals that can perform multiple functions.

Almost all WIT team members, says Bhumkar, are hired through internships. The engineering team, meanwhile, is hired via more traditional means since their roles are more clear-cut, which means internships are less relevant.

The internships are a means of gauging a person’s ability to collaborate. Since the product, design and engineering functions are closely intertwined, the startup needs people that can work across teams.

Once the talent bar is reached, it’s about seeing if they can work well with others. If somebody is a rock star, but happens to be a jerk, we can’t hire him or her. We’ve had a couple of these.

It’s not exactly easy to get a full-time gig at Cooliris, though. The company has since inception hired around 100 interns from Stanford, who come from the United States, Europe, and Asia.

(Editing by Paul Bischoff)