Nubel: December newsletter

I want to start this month's newsletter by reiterating a message I shared on LinkedIn earlier this week. Whether we've exchanged a few chats, emails, or even quick notes, you may not realize the value or energy you've shared with me and my team. Thank you for lending your ears and your shoulders. Thanks for reading these emails, trying out our (sometimes ugly) proof of concepts, and being part of this journey. Truly: thank you for being there.

Now, before we get too sentimental, let's dive into our latest updates:

Last month, after completing an intense round of interviews, we noticed that hiring managers highly value seeing candidates in videos. This gives them a sense of personality, energy levels, communication skills, remote office setup, internet connection, and more. Short videos, combined with a supercharged profile, make a great framework to quickly pick the candidates that go through further rounds of interviews. From a candidate’s perspective, videos offer a chance to stand out beyond the bullet points of a resume. Combining short videos with a supercharged profile provides a framework for hiring managers to quickly identify candidates who advance to the next interview stage.

However, when we sent last month’s newsletter, we were still exploring our next steps. We wanted to run experiments with precision—and that’s exactly what we did.

The experiment

Hypotheses

1. Hiring managers will value a Video Q&A-based search system ("show me candidates who answer questions about these topics: Node.js, React, Google Cloud Platform").

2. Candidates will be motivated to record Q&A's because videos help them show their true selves and increase their chances of landing interviews.

3. Hiring managers want videos recorded before they start looking for candidates.

4. Candidates can be motivated using a gamification system with rewards that help them boost their careers.

Execution

We launched a one-week challenge and invited people to participate.

• Tasks included completing their profile, verifying their ID, and recording a Q&A.

• Participants earned “Bels” (points) for completing tasks, which entered them into a raffle to win prizes like Mock Interviews, Resume Reviews, and more.

Results:

• Almost 20 people signed up after we announced the challenge (a low percentage of total invitees).

• 8 people completed at least 20 points (basic tasks like profile completion).

• No one recorded a single video Q&A.

Side note: At Nubel, we're constantly iterating how we design and track experiments. Attached to this email, you’ll find our refined "experiment dashboard," which outlines this experiment and our learnings. We’re still refining the process, so if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

Next steps

• We need to figure out why participants didn’t complete the challenge. While we have a few assumptions, we’ll speak with users directly to get clarity. These conversations will start in January, post-holidays.

• Based on feedback, we’ll run our next experiment with an improved approach, keeping our #1 and #2 hypotheses in focus.

Housekeeping items:

• Know someone who should receive this newsletter? Let me know, and I’ll add them to the list.

• Need a break from these emails? No problem—just let me know!

• For January's newsletter I'll start using Beehiiv.com for these monthly emails, so you'd probably receive a subscription confirmation email within the next few weeks. This will give you more control over your subscription while making things easier on my side too.

My final message for you in this email and this year is: If you were in our shoes, what would you do next?

Go ahead, shoot—I'm all ears!

Stay amazing 👊