Swymming, Not Sinking: A Guide to Our Interview Process 🏊♂️
A candid look at how we hire, what it takes to thrive here, and why self-selection matters
As a recruiter, I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen the “Wait, which company is this?” emails, the accidental Google filters, and the total ghosting. I get it. Job hunting is a marathon in a rainstorm.
At Swym, we don’t use fancy bots to reject you in milliseconds. We’re humans. We’re small, we’re scaling (and we want to stay small keeping exponential growth in mind), and we care more about your drive than your ability to keyword-stuff a resume.
If you’ve been wondering what happens after you hit “Apply,” here is the real story.
🚩 Is Swym Actually For You? (The Vibe Check)
Before we talk about interviews, let’s see if we’re a match. If you’re looking for a long form manual on how to do your job, we are most definitely not the one.
You’ll love it here if:
You see ambiguity and think “Cool, I get to build the map” rather than “Help, I’m lost”, because you understand that wrapped within the ambiguity is the true size of the opportunity that nobody else can unravel other the ones working on it constantly
You care about making an impact much more than having a fancy title, because you understand that the voice of impact speaks more consistently, confidently (and louder) than the voice of a title in most rooms if not all, especially in our rooms.
You know that remote-first doesn’t mean work from under a rock disconnected from reality, because you understand remote-first is a convenience that everyone pays for in bits-and-pieces and more importantly you win by making others win and vice versa and that needs consistent communication that is “persistent” (calls/meetings are not considered communication btw).
You know that the AI-enabled-you > > > no-AI-you, because you understand that if you don’t take advantage of technology, what you do will eventually become obsolete (in most cases) and you are already eliminating those “grunt” work that bother you from pursuing deeper problems
🛠 The Swym Roadmap: From Hello to Hired
We respect your time. We aim to wrap things up in 2 to 3 weeks. No six month marathons here.
Stage 1 - Questionnaire - All about you
💭What Happens? - A quick screen to see how you think
💡Pro Tip - Be yourself. We can tell when it’s authentic
Stage 2 - Chat with me
💭What Happens? - A vibe check with me (Danica!)
💡Pro Tip - Ask about the culture. I’ll give you the real tea
Stage 3 - Discuss with us
💭What Happens? - Talk shop with a future teammate
💡Pro Tip - This is where you nerd out about the role, everything is on the proverbial table
Stage 4 - Solve/Build with us
💭What Happens? - A practical take-home, real world challenge
💡Pro Tip - Show us your thought process, ask questions/discuss, not just the final answer
Stage 5 - Align with us
💭What Happens? - Align with leads on the vision and how we want to get there
💡Pro Tip - 45 minutes. No trick questions, just real talk
💡 How to Put Your Best Foot Forward
1. Do a Little Homework 📖
If I ask “What do we do?” and you say “I think you guys sell swimsuits?” we’re off to a rocky start. Check our LinkedIn, read our blog (you are already here!), or just browse our site for five minutes (or more hopefully).
2. The STAR Method
When we ask about a time you failed or solved a problem, try the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. It keeps you from rambling. We’ve all been there!
3. Be a Human
We want to see your brain work. The “ums” and “ahs” are fine. We value a thoughtful conversation over a rehearsed script.
4. Laptop Over Phone 💻
Technical glitches happen, but joining a video interview from a shaky phone while walking your dog makes it hard for us to focus on your story.
🧬 What Makes a “Swymmer”?
We aren’t looking for robots. We look for people who are honest about their values and how they work. We care deeply about:
Ownership: You aren’t here just to do the thing; you own the outcome.
Big Impact and High-Agency: You won’t let anything stop you from getting to your outcome, be it your lack of experience or context or know-how, all of those can be acquired when fully aligned. You drive towards the impact, it doesn’t “just happen”.
Growth Mindset: We win together - You thrive on collaboration and learn from the smart people we have around. Even more important is that you actively raise the bar for the smart folks that we are, making us grow our combined depth/knowledge.
Customer-First: You always start and end with how this helps the people using what we build, be it an internal customer or an external one.
Data aware aka “Guessing” with Data: First principle thinking on using data to build your hypotheses - you make decisions based on accessible real info, not all info but the necessary and sufficient info to let you iterate.
Sustainable Ambition aka Work AND Life: We value hard work but continued hard work is hazardous without healthy boundaries. You know how to define those boundaries responsibly, that prioritizes your life without compromising your or your team’s goals.
Pure Passion: Whether it’s your craft, a cause, or a personal side project, share it with us. We love seeing what drives your conviction in action.
AI-enabled: You think and use AI effectively to maximize time spent on deep work. This enables pretty much every other point laid above this, simply impossible to sustain without this first-principle.
❓ Frequently Asked (and Honestly Answered) Questions
Is it remote?
Yes. We are remote-first. We also believe active collaboration is a serious competitive advantage and love working together as well. Our Bangalore space plays the part of an office during those days of intensity. (Cubbon Park is literally a stone’s throw away if the view matters)
Will I get ghosted?
No. We aim to give feedback within 48 hours of each stage. If it isn’t a fit, we will tell you why.
What are you actually looking for?
Ownership, data-informed decisions, and passion. Whether you’re obsessed with scalable systems or great experiences or sourdough baking, we want people who care about something.
What are the responsibilities and deliverables for this role? Where is this role going?
This will sound odd - A lot of the roles that are needed to do justice to our true opportunity have not been defined yet. Knowing that, we don’t always go heavy on the JDs. We instead align on our non-negotiables and your non-negotiables, let the other details evolve with time-bound milestones. Some of our best people have come in as role “X”, shaped up into role “Y” that is carved out based on what the opportunity needed - We love making this happen.
The Bottom Line
We aren’t looking for perfection. We’re looking for your ability to take your potential to its limits and have fun along the way (not just yours, push our collective potential to higher limits). If you want to build things that matter with people who actually like each other, we want to hear from you.
Ready to jump in? Shoot me an email at danica.lobo@swymcorp.com. Let’s build something cool (aka Swym 😊) together.
Candid approach and great Writing @Danica!