UX Hiring Insights: Steph McDonald, UX Design Recruiter at HubSpot, on AI in Hiring, Portfolios & What Gets You Hired

Sarah Doody (00:00)

Okay. So today on the podcast, we have Steph McDonald joining us. Steph is a lead recruiter at HubSpot where she finds and vets amazing candidates in product management. And Steph has worked in recruiting for 25 years. So she’s seen a lot. She’s seen shifts in the job market, the ebbs and flows that

happen all the time. And Steph is really passionate about making people on all sides of the hiring equation feel comfortable in scene. And Steph is also a video gaming nerd, mini fury on stream. I might need some recommendations to get started in gaming like just as an app on my phone. ⁓ A watercolor artist and a zealous mini Cooper owner.

Steph McDonald (00:41)

Absolutely.

Sarah Doody (00:47)

and a mom to three rescued Boston Terriers. And we’re going to dive in to Steph’s advice on the job market, the changes that Steph is seeing and how it applies to your job search right now or a job search in the future. So Steph, thanks for joining me today.

Steph McDonald (01:06)

it’s absolutely my pleasure. I’m so excited to share. It’s probably closer to almost 35 years of experience now. I try not to advertise that too loudly out there, especially if I’m job hunting. But yeah, excited to lend some advice. And just for clarity, also do product management, but my main focus right now is actually on design. So design recruiting. Yeah.

Sarah Doody (01:11)

Okay?

Great. Great.

Yeah, I think a lot of things are quite transferable and at the same time there are very specific challenges and probably requirements that might be different for design roles versus other roles.

Steph McDonald (01:43)

Yeah, that craft lens is something that I’ve had to sort of learn how to evaluate as I’m deciding what candidates move forward and who doesn’t. So yeah, definitely a challenging role.

Sarah Doody (01:55)

Yeah, we’ll probably come back to that, but I’m just curious. You you have been in the world of recruiting and hiring for a while, as you said, and I’m really curious, how did you yourself get into the world of recruiting? then it sounds like kind of developed this focus on tech, whether it’s product management, design, et cetera.

Steph McDonald (02:16)

Yeah, absolutely. It was completely by accident. I definitely wasn’t someone who dreamed about being a recruiter. I was kind of interested in HR, but it was more probably the nosy side of my brain, if anything. I just wanted to know about people. And I was actually working as an office manager for a company that had kind of shut operations down in the US. It was just me in the office. So I was literally like packing boxes and shipping them.

overseas and a salesperson for an age of recruiting agency came in and asked if I needed any temporary help. And I said, no, but I need a job. So we chatted for a few minutes and she said, boy, you seem like you’d be a great recruiter. So I went in, interviewed, got the job, worked in agency for a short time, which was a complete grind, but a really good place to kind of learn the role and have been working in corporate recruiting since then and really started to focus on technical recruiting, probably

between 10 and 15 years ago. No, actually probably longer ago than that. And I found that working in specifically the software space, it just lights me up. I love technology. I love software. If you give me a piece of software to test, I’m usually at my happiest place. So it really lends itself to me being so passionate about the tech side of my role and understanding what

it takes to be a good product manager, designer, software engineer, whatever it might be. So yeah, love that focus very much.

Sarah Doody (03:39)

Yeah, so you have really, sounds like a decade in kind of the tech space in terms of hiring and a lot has happened if we go back to 2016, 2015, I mean, it’s crazy to think of the shifts that have happened, not just in the growth of the industry in general, but also like the expansion and contractions that have happened because of job, the economy.

Steph McDonald (03:53)

Yeah.

Sarah Doody (04:08)

the surplus or demand for candidates, et cetera. So I’m curious, know, in the past three years, five years, like, are there any things that really jump out to you in terms of shifts for what companies are looking for in people in the kind of design tech space?

Steph McDonald (04:28)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the biggest shift kind of post-COVID has been that companies are hiring less. know, no one has, I think everybody knows that like layoffs are happening and companies are contracting. And so what’s happening is that, you know, in past years, hiring ministers may have five, 10, 15 openings a year. Now they may have one. And so the level of talent that they want for that one to two hires a year is going up.

And so I’m seeing many more staff level, senior level two kinds of requests than I am like more early career. And so I know that’s probably incredibly frustrating for people that are earlier in their careers. You know, I can’t get experience until I get a job, but I can’t get a job unless I’ve experienced that like flywheel, unfortunately, it’s a negative flywheel. I recognize that and know how frustrating that is, but.

Sarah Doody (05:13)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (05:18)

That’s the reality is a lot of managers are like, if I can only hire one, I want them to be like really high quality, high craft and many years of experience versus a couple of years of experience.

Sarah Doody (05:28)

And I’m curious to follow up on that. Like anecdotally, why do you think these companies are hiring or have less headcount to hire? Are there certain things that come to mind there?

Steph McDonald (05:41)

Yeah, absolutely. think there’s just a macroeconomic, you know, kind of global uncertainty that I think we’re all living through. And I think companies are impacted by the same, you know, thrash and feeling of uncertainty that we all are feeling, I think, as humans. So, you know, I think the Wall Street, if it’s a public company, Wall Street is being much more

giving a lot more scrutiny and analysis into where they think their investors should invest. And so those factors are definitely going to play into whether a company is growing or not growing. And it’s all based on, are we able to sell our product to customers? And are they willing to pay for it? If the answer is yes, we’re going to continue to grow. But if there’s contraction and small to medium businesses in our world, is who HubSpot sells to, if they stop buying, we’re not going to grow. it’s that.

Again, kind of a flywheel effect there.

Sarah Doody (06:35)

Yeah, and I’m curious, this idea of companies hiring fewer people, what have you seen or observed in terms of how that is impacting or not impacting how fast they are hiring? If they only employ one person, how has that impacted the time to hire?

Steph McDonald (06:49)

Mmm.

Yeah, you know, we typically try to fill positions. It scales depending on the complexity and level of the role. But most of our roles, we usually fill somewhere between 30 and 45 days. And, you know, with managers putting more and more restrictions on what they’re looking for, maybe not restrictions, but clarity into what they’re looking for, you know, that does make the talent pool shrink some. And so we have to do a little bit more to find the ideal person for them. And then it’s also on us as recruiters to

push back when we feel like the requests start to get unreasonable. And so those factors, and I think having the level of experience that I have, I feel really comfortable saying, like, listen, we’re just going to tap out the pool of talent that you have in this really small circle. Like, how can we expand and kind of help you find someone that will meet the requirements, delight you from an experience perspective, but maybe is a little bit outside the circle that you’ve drawn? And that will help with the time to fill and the amount of time that candidates are spending in the process.

Sarah Doody (07:51)

And is that 30 or 40 days? Has that shifted in the last company couple of years or is that kind of average for HubSpot, would you say?

Steph McDonald (07:58)

It’s pretty average for HubSpot. think we’re starting to see, we are always, just like any good software company should, we’re always looking at our process and making tweaks to it. And so there have been some things where we’ve moved the interview order that we found actually slowed us down. We thought it would speed us up, like any good experiment. We’re like, okay, learned that. Now we can move on, try something else. So we’re always kind of tweaking and paying attention to that number, but…

Sarah Doody (08:19)

Mm.

Steph McDonald (08:28)

We also recognize that it’s about getting the right person. And so if we go over a day, a period of time past when we really feel comfortable, we’re okay with that to find the right person and to kind of slow down and be intentional.

Sarah Doody (08:41)

Yeah, I think intention is probably a good word to summarize, you know, the philosophy around hiring right now, especially as you said, you know, if you have fewer headcount, there’s a lot of risk there. If you only get to hire that one person, you want to make sure they stick around and they don’t quit. And then you have to replace them six months later, right?

Steph McDonald (08:49)

Hmm.

Yes.

Yep, exactly. That’s why I think the level of scrutiny that companies are going through is only increasing and probably feeling exhausting to candidates. So we try to be incredibly empathetic. We do things like give candidates prep documents to help them prepare for their interviews and not feel like they have to boil the ocean. It’s like, these are the things we’re going to focus on in this interview. Just let’s tackle that first. And then the next thing and then the next thing. So yeah.

I have a, someday I’m going to write an article or a paper or something on trauma-informed recruiting, because I think a lot of the candidates that are out there on the market right now are exhausted, disgusted, you know, just having a lot of emotion about how it feels to be unemployed or underemployed and just want to grow in their career. And, you know, we as recruiters can sometimes feel the brunt of that work, especially if people are high on the empathy scale.

Yeah, so just kind of leaning in and just being a resource rather than a gatekeeper, I think, is my biggest advice to recruiters these days.

Sarah Doody (10:03)

I like that you highlighted that because I think there’s so much that is hard to change in the job search. Like specifically, you know, the software that companies use and how it behaves or maybe sends automatic rejections and how easy it is to like customize those emails or do they get sent on a Sunday? You know, can you turn it off to not send on a weekend or something? Right. And so I think you see all you see all the complaints that I see on LinkedIn. And I think

What you just mentioned in terms of providing candidates like an outline of what that specific job interview is going to be about, that’s such a great example of kind of controlling the variables that you yourself can control in the job search for candidates.

Steph McDonald (10:49)

Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, it’s, I want, the lens that we always take is how do we want our candidates to feel? You know, we want them to feel supported and seen and understood. you know, the thing about being a recruiter is that most recruiters get into this work because they want to help people. What no one tells you until you start really thinking about the job is that you’re going to reject 99 out of 100 people. mean, those numbers aren’t really right, but it’s a lot more than that now, unfortunately.

Sarah Doody (11:12)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (11:14)

But if you meet 10 people, you’re only hiring one. So it can be really emotional and I tend to get pretty close to my candidates. So yeah, it’s an exercise in empathy and supportiveness while also having to say no, which is really hard sometimes.

Sarah Doody (11:28)

Yeah, yeah, it’s not something you think about, I guess, like any job, right? You’re kind of, think of all the cool stuff that’s gonna happen and you don’t think of the negative stuff you’re gonna have to deal with on a sometimes daily basis, right?

Steph McDonald (11:33)

Yeah.

Yeah.

And one of the unique things about HubSpot too is it’s the first role I’ve had in all my years of recruiting experience where I actually can give candidates feedback once they’ve gone through the interview process. So if they’ve interviewed with me, a hiring manager at or beyond, they can schedule a 30 minute call with me to talk about feedback. And that was not a muscle that I was really, that I had been building over my career because most companies are like, don’t do it, we’re going to get sued.

which is just not the case, HubSpot’s never been sued for giving candidates feedback because it’s always grounded in the actual data. you know, we train our managers not to take into consideration things that are illegal. So we’re never going to share anything illegal. yeah, I think that’s one of the differentiators that really has been a pleasure for me, even though it’s kind of gotten me a little bit out of my comfort zone from time to time because it’s hard, you know, but.

Sarah Doody (12:25)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (12:26)

It’s so worth it when someone messages you and said, I didn’t get the job at HubSpot, but I got this great job over here. And that’s because I got the feedback. So it’s the missing piece right now.

Sarah Doody (12:35)

Well, I think it will be very reassuring for people to hear that, you know, some companies do allow for that. And I’m guessing, like, control your capacity so you have actual time to do that, too, right?

Steph McDonald (12:50)

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, one of the great things is, you know, when I first started at HubSpot almost five years ago, we didn’t have AI. So, you know, I would have to kind of scrape through all of the feedback and, you know, try to figure out what’s going to be that most helpful and, you know, probably take 30 minutes at least to do that. I can put it through chat GPT now and say, like, what are the two or three things that this candidate is really going to need to know either to be successful in interviewing at HubSpot?

or another company. So what do they do well? What do they maybe need to work on? So it’s been a huge lift for me. We’re all in on AI over here. So yeah, that’s been super helpful.

Sarah Doody (13:26)

Yeah.

Maybe that’s a good segue to the whole topic of AI because I know it’s a big one that people want to hear about. So maybe we can kind of like put a fork in our conversation and we could talk about the role that AI plays in you finding and vetting candidates and then maybe mistakes or benefits that candidates can see from using AI. So.

Steph McDonald (13:35)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Doody (13:53)

How does

AI impact your vetting and hiring process right now?

Steph McDonald (13:58)

Sure. So I’ll start by grounding everybody in the fact that we are an AI first company from a product perspective. So the expectation that our executive leadership has for us as an entire organization is that we’re using AI as part of our role. And I’m very lucky that the VP over the talent acquisition organization is very passionate about giving us tools to be able to use AI.

as a support system for the recruiters to really focus us on high value work. So specifically, a couple of examples. When I conduct an interview with a candidate, there’s an AI companion in there with me taking notes for me. This is like one of those moments in someone’s career where it’s like the dream has come true. I’ve always had this vision of someone sitting next to me taking notes so I can just talk. And now I have that, but it’s a thought.

And it’s not making any decisions. It’s just like taking the information that you share and putting it into a scorecard for me. That saves me at least 30 minutes per candidate per day. And so that’s a significant amount of time. And then when it comes to, I know everybody’s wondering about like application review and things like that. The only thing that we’re using right now for application review is a tool that helps us score the candidates based on information in their resume.

Now that’s not to say that we’re not looking at every resume, we’re still reviewing those. But it allows me to say, okay, this is the criteria that I have for this particular role. These are the skills that I’m looking for, and it will rank those candidates for me. So how I actually do it is I look at the candidates that are low ranked first, which I know sounds crazy, but I can typically like see why the bot, you know, ranked them there, or sometimes I disagree with the bot and move them forward.

So there’s still certainly that human element in the loop. And then spend more time on the candidates that are scoring higher. So while I am not a person who believes that you should put white labeled keywords all over your resume to try to get the bot to score you, because there’s still a human absolutely making the decision about your application at HubSpot. Will that change over time? I have no idea. I hope not.

My least favorite part of my job, honestly, is looking at resumes. But it’s the part that I feel like I need to control to be able to keep the quality high to just be careful. There’s just parts of the process that I would not be super excited. I think there would need to be a lot more proof that it would do a better job than I could. So, yeah.

Sarah Doody (16:23)

one question that often comes up is the notion of, you know, candidates applying and then receiving automatic rejection, which based on all the conversations I’ve had in research I’ve done, that generally happens because there are certain criteria that are just deal breakers like state, right? So does that happen in whatever software HubSpot is using?

Steph McDonald (16:40)

Yes.

Yeah, yes, it can. So we tend to use auto reject questions when there is like a hard requirement. Like say, for example, I’m hiring a product designer, a senior product designer, and I need them to have built, you know, payments products. I can ask that as a question and use it as a knockout. If someone says no, then they’re not going to be qualified for that position. We still have them in our database, which I love because we do use AI tools to find you again in our database, which is delightful. But you know, the the

Sarah Doody (17:02)

Mm-hmm.

Steph McDonald (17:15)

trying to, you know, there’s that constant battle of encouraging people to apply because we want to take a look at your resume. We want to be open and, you know, have a diverse candidate pool. But sometimes there are like hard requirements that need to be met. One thing that we don’t tend to do, I haven’t seen any job postings. I don’t want to say that, you know, emphatically across all roles that I’m confident, but I’m pretty confident is that we’re not using years of experience as a measure.

Now, I will say if I’m looking for a senior designer and someone is right out of school, that’s a years of experience and kind of a filter that I can use, but that’s me making the decision, not AI or a bot or anything.

Sarah Doody (17:52)

Right,

right. And then concerning how candidates are or maybe are not using AI, like what are your observations, you know, in the last two-ish years, right? What stands out is in terms of do’s and don’ts maybe.

Steph McDonald (18:04)

Yeah.

Yeah, think so couple things come up. One, we ask application questions where there may be like a text based answer. We know you’re using ChatGPT, but just be careful what you’re pasting into the box. Because sometimes it’ll be like, you know how ChatGPT like says, do you want me to like adjust this for this? And people will paste the entire thing. And then it’s like, OK, we can tell you didn’t even audit the response from AI.

And then the other trend that we’re seeing is there are services out there that will apply on your behalf. And on paper, that sounds like a great thing, right? Like I can just like set it and forget it. I’m going to suddenly have my calendar filled with interview interviews and recruiter calls. And that sounds perfect. But the problem is, is that it’s not doing a good job for you and it’s not curating your applications like you would do it yourself. So for example,

I can tell when it’s a bot applying for a position because of the way that they answer the text-based questions that we put in there. That’s not a reason why we do that. It helps us screen in and out candidates faster, but it certainly is kind of a dead giveaway. And it very often is applying for completely the wrong discipline. So I’ll get software engineers applying for design roles and…

product managers applying for design roles. And it just, that doesn’t serve you when it’s your brand that you’re trying to curate. And so I would encourage people to not use those tools. I’m sure I’ll probably get some messages from those companies, but at this point, the proof is not out there that this has been a successful use case for AI for me.

Sarah Doody (19:39)

Well, and learning about your hiring and vetting process at HubSpot, the idea of using AI to apply, it makes me think that it increases the chance that a candidate will not score well. Because if you’re hiring for that designer that has experience doing payment stuff and that candidate

didn’t make sure that one of their bullet points or multiple resume bullet points mentioned payments because that’s what the job description said, then I’m guessing that’s impacting the score they’re getting. Is that a safe guess?

Steph McDonald (20:19)

Yeah,

yeah. And there’s multiple ways within the product that we use to set the criteria. So for example, I can tell it that I’m looking for someone with these particular skills and it will rank based on that. Or I can tell it to look for keywords, whatever the criteria that the recruiter sets is what the scoring agent is going to do for us. And you’re right.

not doing a good job of making sure that your resume is a strong match for the job that you’re applying for, which a bot isn’t going to do for you, or it’ll completely hallucinate and create a resume that doesn’t make any sense. I had one of those recently where, again, it was a product manager and it changed the resume to say lead designer because the bot was trying to apply that product manager to it. And so, they basically took the job description and put it as the…

the work experience history. And it made so it made no sense. they’ve it was it was just literally nonsensical. So yeah, having having a bot do the things that really you should own as a candidate or that I should own as a recruiter. You know, there’s a big risk when you start going outside of those boundaries of what AI is really capable and good at doing.

Sarah Doody (21:13)

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. This will maybe be my last question about AI, but I’m curious

when it comes to these candidates that you come across who have clearly used AI to like answer an open-ended question or something.

What goes through your head? Like how does that impact the first impression you have about that candidate? Is it kind of like swipe left, they use AI, so I’m not even going to consider them? Like what’s the threshold there?

Steph McDonald (21:49)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that’s a discretionary thing. for example, if I were applying and just needed to, I had an idea of how I wanted to answer question and I put it through ChatGPT to kind of tighten it up a little bit, maybe make it a little shorter, because I tend to go on, that’s totally fair play. I think, again, it’s about AI being a tool, not being the candidate, right? So my preference, my advice is to,

write these things yourself. And then if you feel like it needs some polish and some, you know, just tightening up, throw it through to chat GPT. I don’t mind that. But just be really careful when you’re pasting it in that you’re only pasting in the answer and not like the bot talk that happens behind that. So yeah, I mean, you know, we want people that embrace AI that are excited to use these tools that are excited to build these tools. So yeah, that’s for us. There’s we don’t we don’t discourage people. We know people are going to use

Sarah Doody (22:33)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (22:46)

chat GPT or other tools to be able to really make their resume polished or whatever. That’s great. We don’t mind that at all. But it shouldn’t replace you in the process and your decision making process about what roles you wanna apply for.

Sarah Doody (22:59)

Right. Yeah. I can only imagine the weird applications you get from some bot just randomly applying and mixing up a software engineer with a designer or something like that.

Steph McDonald (23:12)

Yeah, another weird one is I literally had like four back-to-back resumes that I was reviewing. They may have all been fake, I’m not sure, but they had literally the same exact formatting and it was a very unique formatting until it wasn’t, you know? And so it just made me feel like either these are all the same person and they’re fake or again, bad bot behavior. So don’t do it. It’s not ready for that use case yet.

Sarah Doody (23:34)

Or is the bot tool like regenerating people’s resumes all using the same template or something? wow. Feels shady to me. Okay. Yes.

Steph McDonald (23:42)

Yes, I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

And now, and people are paying a lot of money for this. It’s not working. it’s,

it’s so, that’s why I’m such an advocate for sharing. Like, what is it like on my side to experience reviewing your resume when it’s not really maybe your resume? So.

Sarah Doody (23:59)

Yeah.

Yeah. I’m, I’m often approached to promote, you know, resume tools and stuff like that. And one, a couple of years ago, it had a bunch of resume templates that had like skills graphs and tons of icons and graphics and like, multiple columns, which we know can trip up some of the applicant tracking systems. And so I told the person like, I can’t promote this and

Steph McDonald (24:21)

Yep.

Sarah Doody (24:25)

Also, why don’t you know this to begin with? Yeah.

Steph McDonald (24:27)

Right. Yeah, you’re supposed to be coming to this as experts, right? So

I always wonder, do the companies that are making these products actually talk to recruiters?

Sarah Doody (24:35)

That would be an interesting question. Yeah, I don’t know. That’s a podcast for another day. All right, so let’s kind of move on, I guess, in the journey in the life or a week of stuff and think about like, you’re sitting down, you have an open role, and maybe we can talk about like tips.

Steph McDonald (24:35)

Hahaha

Yeah, I know, I know, I could go on obviously.

Sarah Doody (24:58)

or mistakes you have related to, first of all, resumes. So what are some things that stand out? Because on LinkedIn, in my little notes, I remember you posted a really great post about like the font size. And I think that’s how I ever stumbled across you and was like, Steph is opinionated, she’ll be great for the podcast. So yeah, what other hot takes do you have?

Steph McDonald (25:02)

Yeah.

Yeah, I literally went through three or four resumes in a row where I was having to increase my screen size. I think that old adage of trying to keep your resume to one page has really made it so people are like, my post was for those that didn’t see it, was if your font size is in one…

what, like a number that only has one digit, then you probably need to increase your font size and go to multiple pages. And yeah, it’s to the point where I can’t sometimes even read and, you know, being an older lady trying to get those tiny fonts to be readable is really tough. Yeah, I think, you know, again, especially for designers, but really for everyone listening, you know, having a really easy to consume resume and portfolio and kind of work history.

is critical because that’s the thing that you are selling is a delightful experience for the user. And so if your resume is so small that you can’t set it down and kind of stand up and read it from above or holding it at arm’s length, then that’s a problem. And the same accessibility rules apply to a resume that they do a piece of software. So think about those things when you’re kind of pitching yourself.

I suspect you’re going to ask me about the one page, two page, multiple page resume. Do you want me to just jump right in? Okay.

Sarah Doody (26:32)

Yeah, what

is your hot take on that?

Steph McDonald (26:36)

I don’t care. I actually don’t like one page resumes. If you have a work history past university, your resume should probably be on two pages once you have three to five years of experience. And the content of the resume is really the most important thing to me. I don’t care how many pages it is. If you are just making it impossible for me to stop reading because you’re listing all of these amazing impacts.

and projects that you’ve completed and problems that you’ve solved, I’ll read every page, I don’t care. But if it’s a laundry list of your job duties, am no, like I just don’t care about that at all. I know that a designer is using FIGVA and that a product manager is gathering requirements, like that’s a given, that’s the job. But what I really care about is the impact and the…

the customer impact that you’ve had on the people that you serve and how can you share that so that I get excited versus move on to the next resume.

Sarah Doody (27:34)

Yeah, yeah, one of the things I see quite often, and I’m guessing you do too, is just resumes that almost sound like you’re just reading a job description, right?

Steph McDonald (27:43)

Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, you know, I always, my joke to people is like, don’t put the fact that you use Microsoft Word or Google Docs or whatever on your resume. I know that I don’t care. So it’s the stuff that’s hard. It’s the stuff that’s not like the normal day to day. Like I could fill my resume with, I look at resumes every day. I screen candidates. Like a recruiting manager isn’t going to care about that.

Sarah Doody (28:09)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (28:10)

What they want

to know is how did I move the needle in process? How did I delight hiring managers? How did I really make an exceptional experience for my candidates? That’s the stuff that matters. So everybody has stuff that really matters about their job, whether you’re delivering mail or creating software. Everything has data behind it and a kind of stack ranking of what’s really important in the job. And that’s what should be in your resume.

Sarah Doody (28:18)

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s in in my career strategy lab program, we call those kind of just table stakes. And I often use this example of my sister. She’s an ICU nurse. And I said, like, my sister shouldn’t put that she knows CPR on her resume, because obviously, she knows CPR, you know, but what she could include is like, a bullet point about the experience that she had in terms of like shaping some ethics stuff at the hospital, right? That’s a that’s very unique. But like CPR, mean, obviously.

Steph McDonald (28:49)

Exactly.

Yes. Yes.

Right, exactly. There’s just stuff that’s kind of table stakes, as you said. And recruiters just assume that you have that if you’re applying for this position. It’s the impact stuff that we really get excited about.

Sarah Doody (29:06)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So there’s probably more about resumes we could touch on, but I know people want to hear about portfolios, the role of portfolios, and how you look at candidates. Let’s start there. There’s probably other questions, but let’s start there. Just in general about portfolios and the role that they have and how you create that first impression about candidates.

Steph McDonald (29:22)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. the way, you know, I wish I could like have everybody sort of look over my shoulder as I’m doing app review and portfolio reviews, but to try to bring that experience to life, you know, essentially, I, you know, if you can picture it like the old fashioned way, I would, you know, have like a stack of resumes, but now it’s all in my system. And I’m going through looking for the right experience. And then if I see the right experience on the resume, then I’m hopping into the portfolio. And what I’m looking for in a strong portfolio is

high quality craft, like, you know, everything matches. Like if I’m moving from one screen to another, it all feels cohesive. I’m looking for impact. I’m looking for the journey of the software product that you created. So for example, I want to see like the messy stuff at the beginning. I want to see your wireframes. I want to see V1. like my favorite part is when people share like, I wanted to build this, but this is what I ultimately built. ⁓ Cause that like,

Sarah Doody (30:24)

Mm.

Steph McDonald (30:26)

of what can be built and what will solve the customer’s problem in the immediate sense. And then over time, we’re going to add these other things. All that stuff is so relevant to how we build a HubSpot that that’s the kind of thing that really gets my attention. Some things that I would stay away from is really noisy kind of experiences. So, I still get portfolios that aren’t…

done with sort of that artistic level of craft. strong visual design is important in all roles at HubSpot within the design organization, whether you’re a leader or not. Yeah, so just having a really well-designed, and a lot of people do things like, I don’t know what it’s called, when you mouse over, it’ll do this effect. Just leave that stuff for your personal website maybe, or.

Maybe if you have a page on your website that’s about your art, for example, like, sure, have fun in there. You know, all recruiters may not hit that. I always do because I’m an artist. But yeah, just be really thoughtful about the user experience and keeping the noise to a minimum. And then another tip that I have that just came up this week is check to make sure your password, if you have password protected work on your portfolio, make sure, check like once a week, just put a reminder on there that your password still works.

Sarah Doody (31:24)

Mm.

Steph McDonald (31:37)

You know people are lucky with me because I have like an auto generated email that I’ll send to people not auto generated but like a candy mail that I’ll send to people saying like hey your portfolio password isn’t working but could you yeah could you sort that out and let me know where I don’t know other recruiters could just reject you out of hand you know just because of the volume of applications that we get so yeah just be always be testing that and making sure that it’s still working

Sarah Doody (32:03)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (32:03)

so

people can get in there and see your good stuff.

Sarah Doody (32:06)

Yeah, I think you’re kind of saying something I say all the time and just in terms of treat your portfolio like a product, the same care that you bring to your job, apply it to your portfolio. Because if I went to HubSpot and it was like sparkles and animation and just things swooping in and cats and all this, I’m like, I’m not using your product.

Steph McDonald (32:13)

Absolutely.

Exactly.

Like this is, you know, we have a lot of fun at HubSpot. We have a great culture, but it is a business. you know, presenting yourself as a business professional, you can be artistic. You can have a beautiful website, but just, you know, I can’t remember who said it, but there was a fashion designer that would like put on all her jewelry and then take off three pieces before she walked out the door. You know, it’s like, okay, put it all on there, but maybe take off a few things if you start to feel like it’s, and you know.

Sarah Doody (32:47)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (32:53)

Another good way is maybe ask someone who’s a little bit older, like, does this seem clear? And can you understand what I do? You know, I think my joke is that I always ask my mom, like, do you understand this job description? And like, could you understand if you’re qualified for it or not? It’s getting to the point now, though, she’s too far from work. that used to be my, back in the day, when I needed to really assess whether I was making sense in a job description or if it was all just.

Sarah Doody (33:11)

Okay.

you

Steph McDonald (33:19)

technical jargon that a normal layperson wouldn’t understand.

Sarah Doody (33:20)

Yeah.

A lot of the tips you gave really apply to a portfolio website, although over designing could also apply to a presentation. I’m curious, what is your experience in going through candidates and the hot take, I guess, around portfolio format, whether it’s a website or a presentation, do you care? Does one…

Steph McDonald (33:31)

Mmm.

Sarah Doody (33:46)

seem more effective than the other just anecdotally from your experience.

Steph McDonald (33:51)

Yeah, I would say probably about 90 % of the ones that I look at are websites. And I don’t necessarily have a preference. I think the one experience that I don’t like is when someone drops me into a Google folder that’s sort of uncurated and it’s just like a list of documents. I don’t think that’s really representing yourself as a web designer or like, you know, a designer for the web. So, you know, that would be the one area that I would say, you know, maybe take some time and jump on Squarespace and, kind of really

Sarah Doody (34:04)

Hmm.

Steph McDonald (34:18)

set up something that would feel like I can understand how you approach software because you designed your portfolio that way. And then, as far as using a presentation versus a website, that’s totally fine. We have people use Notion documents, ⁓ Coda, other things like that. We’re not overly picky about those kinds of things, but it still does need to have that really polished craft level. yeah.

Sarah Doody (34:31)

Mm-hmm.

Right,

The same, the same treating it like a product, regardless of the literal final output, let’s say. Yeah. Okay. Let’s talk about diversity and design. Cause I know this is something HubSpot’s really passionate about and you are too. So how does, how does HubSpot achieve this in hiring?

Steph McDonald (34:49)

Exactly. 100%. Yep.

Yeah

Yeah, yeah, something I’m very passionate about. I think the thread has to pull through everything that you do from who your customers are to who your peers are, know, who are making hiring decisions, which is one of the reasons why we don’t let AI make hiring decisions is because it’s been proven time and time again to not do a good job of building a diverse pipeline. know, diversity and inclusion is really at the heart of my work and the work of our entire recruiting team.

And we’re incredibly passionate about making sure that our pipelines represent our customers. Our customers are incredibly diverse. It could be a landscaping company all the way to a software company and everything in between. So we need to have people with lived experiences that will reflect that inclusion. So from a practical perspective, it’s up to us to really curate and make sure that we are sharing this opportunity widely with different networks.

I am in a bunch of Slack channels for women in design and other just places where people that might not see the job description if it’s posted just on LinkedIn, where they may be residing and having conversations. So that kind of thoughtfulness of everything from where the job is posted and how we present it to the language that we’re using in our job descriptions, we are really rigorous about

I think pretty much every job description, at least in design, has a statement at the end. Like we understand that imposter syndrome is a thing. And it doesn’t say this in the job description, but the background is, especially for women and people of color, in that women tend to say, we need to meet 90 % plus of the job descriptions in our minds where men are like, ah, 50%, I’m good. And they’ll apply. So you can end up with this very one-sided

perspective if that’s all you do is just take applications. so referrals are a wonderful source of diverse talent for us. And we will actively hold roles open until we feel like we’ve had a diverse slate of candidates whenever possible. So it’s really at the heart of what we do is kind of curating that pipeline of talent to be inclusive versus exclusive.

Sarah Doody (37:06)

Mm-hmm. I think what you said is really powerful because it can be easy for someone in UX or design to think of HubSpot and think like, software, I don’t have software experience, know, business to business. I don’t have that experience, but maybe that person is switching careers from, I don’t know, landscape architecture, because that has happened, to user research.

Steph McDonald (37:29)

Yeah.

Sarah Doody (37:32)

that person would probably be really amazing for some role at HubSpot because as you said, sure you’re business to business, but you want people with experience in diverse types of businesses because those are the customers.

Steph McDonald (37:48)

Exactly. 100%. And I think, you know, it’s, there’s, there’s schools of thought about, you know, the, the work of a recruiter and how talent acquisition impacts business. But I think for me, it comes down to a mindset of am I screening people in or am I screening people out? And sometimes, you know, when I’ve got three or 400 applications, it can feel like I start to remind myself, nope, you’re screening in, don’t forget. And just like opening that lens and your aperture a bit to say,

Sarah Doody (38:04)

Hmm.

Steph McDonald (38:15)

What if this person, know, they have a really exceptional portfolio, but their experience feels a little different. I’d much rather talk to that person and build relationships, because if they’re not right for the role I’m recruiting today, I’m going to get one tomorrow where they’re going to be a great fit. So, yeah, that’s how I think about that.

Sarah Doody (38:33)

Yeah. Okay. I want to jump to some of the questions that we have from people and then we’ll end with our, I think it’s kind of fun, lightning round questions. But let’s see here.

Steph McDonald (38:42)

Yes, love it.

Sarah Doody (38:45)

So this one is from Katherine and Katherine’s wondering, on average, how many people are invited for interviews per role? Are you?

talking to, and now it disappeared. Are you talking to 40 or more people specifically now that there are just one to two roles open, say per year? Yeah, like what’s that ratio like?

Steph McDonald (39:07)

Yeah,

yeah. So it’s a funnel effect, right? So I might get two 300 applications. I’m going to bring that down to less than 20 people that I’m to talk to. So that’s a huge like. Narrowing of the funnel. It’s it’s not the favorite part of my job, but that’s a reality that we’re working under right now. And then from there you know the the the funnel should continue to narrow as we move people through the process so.

When we get to sort of the face-to-face stage, I like to see, feel like a healthy pipeline at the final interview is three to four. So yeah, we’re taking that three to 400 to three to four. So it is very competitive.

Sarah Doody (39:45)

Yeah.

Yeah. And I’m curious though, like let’s say 200 people apply. What percent, if you wager a guess here, like actually had a shot, you know, which ones just seem like they applied because the job title had the word UX in it and they were just, you know, or like they’re not from the same, the right country or state because

Steph McDonald (40:05)

Yeah.

Sarah Doody (40:10)

some companies can only hire people in certain countries, states, et cetera, right? So is there a percentage that comes to mind there just in terms of like what percent are actually viable in that 200?

Steph McDonald (40:21)

Yeah.

I mean, it’s probably about, I probably should know this off the top of my head, it’s probably about, it’s probably less than 10%. When we look at the sources that we get successful hires from, applications are the lowest. We get more from referrals and from our own sourcing activity where we’re going after talent that is within a particular niche or has a particular level of experience. Those tend to be the candidates that do great.

Sarah Doody (40:25)

It’s just a guess.

Steph McDonald (40:46)

Now that’s not to say I’ve hired plenty of people that have applied. I applied to HubSpot and was hired. it’s definitely out there. But again, you really have to be thoughtful about how you’re showing up against your competition, which is all the other candidates that also want the job. So yeah, it’s a lot.

Sarah Doody (40:49)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

all right. I hope that’s reassuring for people, but also really a good reminder about how I often say like, just aim to be 10 % better. And that could make the difference, you know? ⁓ Okay, the next question is from Tanya,

Steph McDonald (41:17)

100 percent.

Sarah Doody (41:21)

if a candidate gets knocked out by an application question, but feels strongly that they’re a good fit, do you recommend they reach

out to you or someone else to discuss? Like they find you on LinkedIn and can they like vouch for themselves? How do you feel about that? And has it worked for anyone that you’ve ended up hiring?

Steph McDonald (41:40)

Yeah, so I’ll give two answers. So for me, I am probably the only recruiter at HubSpot or maybe on the planet that does this. I actually reject candidates from my actual email address, not a no reply email. The reason I do that is one, it’s nice to get an actual email from someone. It usually prevents my email from going into spam. So people get an actual response where a ton of

Sarah Doody (42:01)

Hmm.

Steph McDonald (42:03)

rejection emails go into spam and people never see them because your spam filter is clearing it out every 10 days or whatever. So people get an actual response from a human. I’ve only had one person complain about that, which was a flex, but I was still respectful to him for his dislike of my non-auto-reply email. And I also have a really…

you know, a message that I’ve crafted over many years. It is a canned message. don’t write the message to reject every single candidate that feels, you know, that’s customized per candidate. But the secondary reason I do it is because I’m not a designer and I might be wrong. I mean, it’s perfectly understandable that, you know, my call may not have been the right one or maybe there’s some new information that the candidate says like, wait, I have this thing that you’re looking for.

And so, yes, I do re-engage with people that come back with a compelling story. Now, for the rest of the recruiters of the organization or any organization, really, reaching out on LinkedIn, I would say to use it with care. I came back from my 10 days off from the holidays and had, I don’t know, 85 LinkedIn connection requests. So just remember that we are just…

overwhelmed. you know, very often LinkedIn is, it’s not our main email, it’s not our main Slack messages, it’s always going to be deprioritized for work that is, you know, kind of actively happening in those other streams. So you may not get a response either from me or other recruiters just because of the volume that we’re working at. But I’m also a kind of a shoot your shot kind of girl. Like, you know, I don’t get angry if somebody reaches out to me, but

just make sure you’re reaching out to the right person. Usually we’ll have our focus areas on our LinkedIn profile. Mine literally says design only, although I am dabbling in product management again, so I probably should update it. And I get salespeople, software engineers, executives, which again, it’s delightful to meet all these folks, but I can’t help them with their job search at HubSpot. So being really curating and getting to the point.

Sarah Doody (43:50)

Okay.

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (44:04)

of my pet peeves about LinkedIn messages is someone will be like, Hi, how you doing? I’m like, yeah, this isn’t a conversation yet. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why you’re reaching out to me. Just be like, Hi, I’m really interested in HubSpot. This is what I need. And that’ll get you a much faster response than trying to start with the niceties, which I know is everybody’s instinct because we like to be kind, but getting to the point is also kindness.

Sarah Doody (44:18)

Yeah.

I agree, yeah, it’s just, you have to consider the user, right? You have to consider the person and just sending a LinkedIn message that says like, hey, can you help me get hired? It’s like, I don’t know, it’s just not effective.

Steph McDonald (44:39)

No, it’s definitely not. some of the best messages I’ve gotten have been four or five sentences, why you’re interested, what you’re struggling with, and how I can help, that kind of thing. So keep it tight, keep it well-crafted, use ChatTPT, I don’t

Sarah Doody (44:56)

Yeah, yeah. All right.

The next one is, what do you think about using videos in a portfolio to give a summary of the case study? So almost like let’s use Loom to like do a walkthrough of the case study or maybe like a narrated walkthrough of a part of the product. Have you encountered that and what are your thoughts on that?

Steph McDonald (45:15)

Yep, I have encountered it. I would say that it should be a supplement, but not the end, right? Like, so what I mean is don’t make it so I have to watch the video. Sometimes, you know, videos take longer than it does to read something. So do the written part. But then also if you want to do a video walkthrough, like that’s just gravy for me. And, you know, really grounds me in the real work that you’re doing. So I don’t mind a video.

But again, it shouldn’t be a replacement for the information that is contained in the video. So your impact statements, how much you grew the business, what the outcomes were should still be written in your presentation or your portfolio.

Sarah Doody (45:53)

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, I agree. It’s more of a supplement like a dessert versus the main course. Yeah. Okay, this one’s interesting.

Steph McDonald (45:58)

Yes, exactly. Love that analogy.

Sarah Doody (46:02)

This person interviewed for a UX designer to roll at HubSpot. And they were told that they were looking for someone with more experience with ambiguity. And so the question is, what does ambiguity mean like?

What would you be looking for in a resume or portfolio that demonstrated ambiguity? Yeah.

Steph McDonald (46:22)

Yeah, I don’t know that ambiguity necessarily comes out in a resume or portfolio, although you could certainly talk to it. So let me ground kind of like in the why we talk a lot about ambiguity at HubSpot and then answer the question. essentially, you know, our product is big at this stage, right? We’ve got multiple hubs, we’ve got a lot of platform, we’ve got core products, there are hundreds of product teams at HubSpot. So that complexity is something that is hard to avoid.

And we don’t prescribe what each product team should be building. We have a strategy and we say, figure out what your customers need. And so, not having a of deterministic list of things that you’re gonna go build this year can be overwhelming for people that aren’t either open to or used to that kind of environment. So.

Ambiguity tends to come out during the interview process more than it does at the application or portfolio review stage. And it’s things like, I wasn’t sure which direction to go, so I did some product-led growth experiments to understand exactly what my customers needed. Or I talked to a candidate yesterday who did, in his seven years at his company, did over 800 customer interviews.

That’s the one that can deal with ambiguity because they’re like jumping in and like, I know what my customers need. You know, those kinds of things make me confident that you’re going to be able to kind of untangle those threads and see what to build. And then also who to partner with. You know, the marketing hub at HubSpot connects to our CRM. It connects to our data hubs. it’s, you know, it’s has to have a sort of 360 way of thinking about your product area as it relates to other product areas. So.

you know, that’s ambiguous. That’s kind of a monster that we’re still figuring out how to wrangle. ⁓ And, you being able to spider yourself out to other teams and build relationships and have them be responsive to the things that you need them to put on their roadmap. That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about there.

Sarah Doody (48:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and I would guess, you know, in tandem with ambiguity is just how fast things can change with a product that is so big and so intertwined with HubSpot. so part of it might also be just how likely is the candidate able to deal with like, we know you worked on this thing for seven months, but that’s not happening anymore. And you’re going to get put over here, you know, because some people would not be able to operate in that environment.

Steph McDonald (48:49)

Exactly. I think back to when the AI turn came and everybody wanted AI in their products. And there was this feeling of sort of with a lot of companies, lot of desperation. And luckily, we had really clear, know, pivots that we were making. And that didn’t feel overly thrashy. But I know a lot of companies did. you know, there’s a debt that comes with that of saying like, we’re going in with this strategy and like, no, we’re going with this strategy. And so

you know, having to sort of pick up those pieces and now be able to take the time to kind of clear up that debt. But it can be hard for people to suddenly have their strategy change on a dime. And it’s not something that we want to do often, but that was a moment where we had to tell people, like, the thing that you’ve been building passionately for the last six months, you’re going to that for a while and you’re going to go build this thing. That’s hard.

Sarah Doody (49:37)

Yeah. Yeah,

that is hard. Yeah, I can relate as a business owner myself, I work on things and I think actually the timing for that is totally wrong. So I get it. Okay, so I’m, I want to give you a chance to let us know is HubSpot hiring for any UX or product roles right now and what is the best way for people to get in touch with you? Especially, you know, you want people to apply, but you also

Steph McDonald (50:00)

Yes.

Sarah Doody (50:03)

it sounds like are always curating candidates so that they’re there if you need them.

Steph McDonald (50:09)

Yeah, absolutely. my advice there is that you should always be thinking about your network. when you are looking for a job, that’s not the time to be curating your network of whether it’s recruiters or peers. That’s too late. So having the opportunity to connect with me, even if you’re not job hunting, which you probably are if you’re here, but if you maybe see a job that you’re not qualified for, try to connect with some of their recruiters.

and be on their list as you continue to gain experience. So to answer your question, yes, we have product management roles open, we’ve got design roles open, they’re all posted at hubspot.com slash careers. I am on LinkedIn, I think we probably can share my LinkedIn ⁓ address for folks that you’re welcome to connect with me. Just know that I’m 80 people behind on accepting connection requests, so it’ll be a hot second, but I’ll try to get to it this week.

Sarah Doody (50:47)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (50:57)

Yeah, and just make sure that you’re keeping an eye on the website, because one of the things that you’ll find right now is companies aren’t leaving jobs posted for weeks. It’s sometimes a day, because we get overwhelmed. We posted a recruiter position a few months ago and got 300 applications in about two hours. literally, we didn’t even have time to advertise it to channels and things like that. We had to take it down, because we just got overwhelmed. yeah, just.

Sarah Doody (51:20)

Yeah.

Steph McDonald (51:22)

RSS feeds and email updates and things like that, those are your friends so you can apply right when a job gets posted and having all your stuff ready, you know.

Sarah Doody (51:29)

Yeah.

And all the more reason to be investing in relationships before you need them, like you said. Do you have time to do the lightning round?

Steph McDonald (51:36)

Yeah, yep, that’s the key.

Sarah Doody (51:39)

Totally fine if you don’t. Okay, should we do it? All right. The idea is lightning answers. So first question is, what was your first real job thinking all those years ago? And what’s one thing that you learned that stuck with you about it?

Steph McDonald (51:40)

I do. Yep, I do. Let’s do it.

Okay, I’ll try.

Yeah, my first real job, I wanted to be a photographer when I was growing up and I got a kind of internship at a photography studio. And the thing that I realized really quickly was the vision of the owner of this business was very different for them when I was envisioning of the work. He just wanted me to clean a studio and he would just give like kind of whitewashed answers like, go do this thing. And I’m like, I don’t know what’s trash and what’s treasure on your desk because it’s a mess.

So asking questions, being comfortable with ambiguity and just kind of doing the thing and just, you he just wanted someone to clean his space. And I was crippled with fear that I was going to throw away something that was really valuable and important. yeah, just making sure that you really understand what the rules of engagement are and what your role is and ask questions. That’s my biggest advice to my past self because I was scared to.

Sarah Doody (52:50)

All right, if money and time didn’t matter, what would you do as a career?

Steph McDonald (52:55)

I’d be an artist. I took up watercolor earlier this year and I’m absolutely obsessed and it takes up about 90 % of my brain space and so that 10 % is trying to recruit and be a dog mom and a partner and all those things to my dude. But yeah, it’s something I love. I just can’t stop thinking about it.

Sarah Doody (53:10)

Yeah.

You’ve inspired me. Maybe I’ll take up some artistic hobby in 2026. Yeah.

Steph McDonald (53:16)

Yes, do it. so good for your brain. I encourage

everybody, even if it’s terrible, throw it away. It doesn’t matter. It’s the action of creating that is so inspirational.

Sarah Doody (53:26)

and staying off screens, right? Okay, if you had an interview, what is one song that’s on your interview pump up playlist?

Steph McDonald (53:28)

Yes. Yes, please.

I forgot to think about this one. Probably something from like Fallout Boy or Panic at the Disco, something just upbeat and fun. But the thing that I always ground myself in is that the interview is about me and my experiences and I happen to be the global expert on Steph and her experiences. So of course I’m going to kill it. I’m going to go into it with confidence and care and

Sarah Doody (53:40)

Nice.

Mm.

Steph McDonald (53:56)

You know, they should want to hire me based on the fact that they just want to get to know me at that point. So yeah, just it’s all about you and that’s you’re the only person that knows those experiences.

Sarah Doody (54:01)

Yeah.

Yeah, I wanna do a whole podcast episode about like the power of thinking and the stories we tell ourselves because like your brain doesn’t know the difference between like fact or fiction. And so if you go in thinking that you’re gonna bomb it, you probably will. But if you go in thinking you’re gonna do it, even if a party thinks you’re not gonna do well, that is gonna tilt the scales in your favor for sure.

Steph McDonald (54:18)

Yes.

I would love to do another version with you where we talk about interview prep, because I have so many thoughts about how I’ve been successful. There haven’t been very many interviews that I’ve gone on where I haven’t gotten an offer. So I feel like I’ve of cracked a nut there and would love to share with your listeners.

Sarah Doody (54:36)

Yeah.

Okay.

Ooh,

that would be a good deep dive. Okay, I’m gonna, I need to have a note taker on this podcast to make the news for me, but we’ll figure that out. Okay, the next one is, okay, let’s imagine you, or maybe you can tell us when you got the job at HubSpot, like what did you do to celebrate? there, or what would you do hypothetically?

Steph McDonald (54:51)

Yeah

you

Yeah, I think I live in Charleston, South Carolina, and we’ve got amazing food here. So probably something going out to dinner with my sweetie and making sure that all my family and friends knew and celebrated with me. I remember doing that when I got the offer at HubSpot and I was just delighted and overwhelmed that they wanted to entrust this work to me and have been grateful ever since. And so I think staying in that place of gratitude over the long term is really important too.

Sarah Doody (55:33)

Yeah, yeah, I think it’s in our culture of moving on to the next thing on the to-do list, I think it’s so important to celebrate. So I am going to take myself out to dinner tonight to celebrate something. So I’m I’m practicing what you’re preaching. OK, and what is one one piece of advice you would give to your younger self, you know, just starting your career?

Steph McDonald (55:40)

Yes.

Fantastic.

Perfect, I love it, keep it up.

that it’ll all make sense. I think one of the things about being a recruiter that, again, no one tells you is that you’re hiring for roles that you can’t do yourself. I can’t design products, can’t product management things over the finish line into general release. But I will understand what all the technical terms mean and with study and time and patience from hiring managers and a ton of mentorship, you’ll get there and you’ll understand what all of these things mean.

Because it can be really intimidating when you are in a room and they’re talking about technology and languages and it feels literally like another language. so just reassure myself that I will get it.

Sarah Doody (56:34)

Yeah. Okay. There’s one more question I’m seeing, and I think I know the answer to it, but it said, does HubSpot hire internationally for remote positions? And my guess is check the job description, but is that your answer?

Steph McDonald (56:46)

Yeah, ⁓ so we,

yeah, about 70 % of us are remote. So we do hire internationally, but we only do that in places where we have entities. Ireland, the UK, for product, those are probably the two main ones right now, or the US or Canada. We have two entities in Canada, two provinces that we hire in. So yeah, check the job description. It should lay out where the role could be based.

Sarah Doody (57:09)

Yep, it’s a lot of money, legal time, et cetera, to set up entities in other states, let alone countries. So that’s why companies can’t hire from every country, even if they’re remote. Steph, this has been so, so helpful. I know that so many people just got so much value out of this and just your honesty and sharing your real life experience versus just people seeing opinions on social media.

Steph McDonald (57:16)

Yes.

Exactly. Yep.

Yeah, well thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed this and welcome people to reach out. I’m here to help.

Sarah Doody (57:39)

Thank you.

Yeah, I will. If you’re in Career Strategy Lab, I’ll make sure to update this event with Steph’s LinkedIn.

And one tip I would give everyone is if you reach out to Steph on LinkedIn, include a note with your connection request and say you heard Steph on this podcast, Career Strategy Podcast, because that might make you stand out from other people that don’t leave a note.

Steph McDonald (58:06)

Absolutely, that would be great. That way I know what the reach is of the work that I do to help promote roles at HubSpot. So yeah, happy to help.

Sarah Doody (58:09)

Yeah.

Exactly.