Building an Innovative and Multi-Faceted Approach to University Recruiting

MongoDB Campus Team’s sourcing and recruitment strategies involve a growth mindset in terms of school makeup of the Intern cohort. They know and appreciate that great technical talent is everywhere and doesn't just come from a list of “top CS schools.” This summer they also partnered with MongoDB’s Affinity Group ‘The Underrepresented People of Color’ to host their inaugural “Make it Matter” virtual summit via Hopin. This Summit was open to students who belong to an underrepresented group, looking to learn more about MongoDB’s program, products, and how to navigate kick-starting a career in tech. The Team was happy to see the Summit attendees networking and making connections with full time employees (and many also ended up completing the internship recruitment process)!

Crafting a Standout Candidate Experience

At MongoDB, the Campus Team believes in creating an equitable, transparent (and fun!) interview process for all and pride themselves on delivering a high touch candidate experience. Year over year, they receive positive feedback from their intern candidates that the interview process is one of their favorites in terms of timeliness, and the highly collaborative nature of the technical interviews. This year, they implemented an interview tool called Guide which provides candidates with a customized interview preparation guide to ensure that they fully understand the structure and expectations of their interviews at every stage of the process. Finally, the Campus Team created specific “How to Prep” PDFs for every single role and even created a pre-interview guided meditation to ease any pre-interview jitters.

Moving the Needle on Diversity & Inclusion

MongoDB fosters a workplace culture where employees are encouraged to bring their whole self to work - they believe that embracing difference broadens perspectives and fosters innovation. One commitment for their diverse early talent is through a membership program within their Affinity Groups, where interns and New Grads gain support and are provided learning opportunities from employees with a shared background or common identity. In summer of 2020, which was their pilot program, they had 37% of all interns join and have a mentor through an Affinity Group. 96% of those participants received return offers and 88% of those offers were accepted. This past summer, they had an increased number of interns and an increase in overall participation to 39%, with 93% of those participants receiving return offers.