The Challenge

At CloudShift Labs, we build cloud infrastructure tools for growing businesses, with teams in Los Angeles and New York. As we scaled our engineering and product teams, we noticed that our new hires did not reflect the diverse customers we serve.

When we looked closer, the problem started early. Most candidates came from the same few referral networks and universities, and our interviewers scored people in very different ways.

• Over 60% of our hires came through employee referrals

• Job descriptions full of jargon and unnecessary degree requirements

• Unstructured interviews with no shared scoring criteria

The Solution

We partnered with Verixa to widen our reach and make every step of our process fair, consistent and skills-based. Before the first interview, every interviewer completed a short training on the new scorecards.

• Rewrote our roles as verified job listings focused on skills and outcomes, removing degree requirements where they were not essential

• Used smart job matching to reach qualified candidates from bootcamps, community colleges and career change programs

• Set up structured interview kits and shared scorecards inside applicant tracking

• Monitored every hiring stage in the analytics dashboard to see where candidates dropped off

The Results

In four months, our hires from underrepresented groups grew by 50% compared with the same period last year. Our applicant pool became 2.5 times broader, and referrals are now one healthy source among many instead of the majority.

Just as important, 94% of candidates who completed our post-interview survey rated the process as fair, whether or not they received an offer. We kept our hiring bar high, and new hires are ramping up as quickly as before. We now review our funnel data every month to keep that progress going.

Diversity hiring was never about lowering the bar. It was about removing the barriers that kept great people from reaching us in the first place. - Aisha Rahman, Head of People