Diversity in Action - Alan x The Allyance
💖 The purpose of The Allyance is to help both companies and candidates: companies wanting to reach excellence in hiring and candidates wanting to find the perfect companies.
➡️ Let’s meet Damien Hié-Coloby, Senior Talent Manager at Alan! He partnered with The Allyance to diversify an engineering candidate pipeline.
__ __ __DIVERSITY IN ACTION N°8
Damien Hié-Coloby
__ __ __Who are you? Tell us everything!
🧑🏾🦱 My name is Damien and I’m 36 years old. After growing up in Bordeaux, I moved to Paris 10 years ago. I studied communication, IT and multimedia. After that, I graduated with a Master’s Degree in HR at INSEEC Business School.
In 2010, unexpectedly, I joined a recruitment firm. That is how I got to know about embedded systems. After 4 years being a recruiter for a French electronic group’s R&D department in France, I worked in England. Then, I began my career in the French start-up ecosystem.
For 3 years, I worked for Heetch. In March 2020, on the first day of Covid-19 lockdown (first edition), I joined Alan! There, I am in charge of recruitment, mainly for engineering positions. What instantly matched between Alan and my personality is that we both love to build from scratch and create a stellar experience.
When I am not at work, I love to exercise. I am quite an introvert but I still need to express myself, mainly through martial arts such as karate, which I’ve been practicing for 20 years. I also started MMA 2 years ago!
What does Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) mean at Alan?
✨ Well, what impressed me the most (and still does) is the collective spirit around building a company which mirrors today’s society. In the past, I have worked at places where D&I was not even discussed.
At Alan, everyone makes sure D&I becomes a priority. Whether you’re a co-founder or an employee, you keep D&I in mind. Without such a company-wide effort, nothing would be possible.
🎯 For instance, last year, we had to recruit 30 engineers but we failed in terms of D&I: 100% of our new recruits were men. The engineering team highlighted this issue, we came to the conclusion that, while growth is important, it cannot come at all cost!
Therefore, in 2021, we took action in order to succeed on that matter: we carried out a “diversity sourcing effort” and put in place a new seniority level, allowing for a new variety of underrepresented groups. We also reached out to Les Déterminés to initiate a partnership.
How do you make sure Alan is an inclusive workplace?
🎯 Our decisions are taken asynchronously at Alan, which means that even the most introverted people share their inputs.
🎯 Our salary grids are public. Salary negotiation is excluded, and therefore no penalty for those - mostly women - who are not used to negotiating.
In parallel, I make sure to provide a structured recruitment process. We give each candidate the same set of questions in order to reach objective hiring decisions. In parallel, I work with interviewers on the issue of unconscious biases and try to give them the most factual feedback to get the conversation started.
🔍 I also study the market and have a precise understanding of what’s realistic or not in technical terms… Sharing these insights allows the entire Alan staff to be aware of the latest market trends and helps us adapt our processes. For example, we designed a process to recruit engineers who had switched careers. We hired 3 software engineers: one former Sales Representative, one financial profile and one hybrid self-trained profile.
How did you hear about The Allyance?
✔️ I have been following Caroline since she was a recruiter at Criteo and the beginning of WIMLDS. I also know Morgane very well. So in a way, it was only logical that I got interested in The Allyance!
How did you collaborate with The Allyance?
We exclusively worked with Morgane on an RPO mission from May to July 2021. The idea was to devote more resources to find and engage candidates from underrepresented groups. Unfortunately, we knew that we at Alan did not have time to identify candidates, make contact with them, start a discussion… We clearly needed qualitative time and effort to get our DEI efforts right!
Though it can be risky to outsource such an internal process, it made all the sense in the world to contact The Allyance. I knew they would be able to deliver a great job, thanks to their knowledge of the market and their ability to address D&I.
☎️ After 1 or 2 calls to define our needs, Morgane had an onboarding period giving her the keys about what we were looking for at the time: Software Engineers and Engineers with a more seniority. We came up with a lot of documentation in order for the mission to be carried out properly. When everything was in place, Morgane worked for us remotely 2 days a week, initially for 2 months but we extended it to 3. Every week, we had follow-up meetings in order to list the potential corrective actions.
At Alan, we have endless needs…! That means that we had to agree on a duration more than a volumetry. In July, someone was hired at Alan to face our hiring challenges.
We recently had a nice interview with Maxime, how is he doing?
He’s doing fine! He’s been working on huge operational projects such as Sales recruitment (20 to 40 people a year), but also on more transverse projects aiming to improve our processes. It’s always fun hanging with Maxime!
According to you, why do companies have a hard time hiring people from underrepresented groups?
In my opinion, there’s a lack of knowledge about the value of building a company that mirrors what society really looks like.
📌 I think a lot of people underestimate the importance of recruiting people from minorities, and they just don’t. It’s much easier to do nothing. The first step to change this is to have strong beliefs. Of course, there is theory on one side and what things really are like in practice. And when the recruitment teams work towards diversity, it is paramount that the reast of the company follows to better integrated underrepresented groups. It’s an effort that should happen accross the board and companies need to change not just superficially but in a very fundamental way.
Unfortunately, many companies just lack support on these topics, so they are overwhelmed and afraid to go there.
How do you convince someone to join Alan?
Well, I would just list the things that made me come to Alan. First, we’re lucky to work on a high social impact product. We work to help people manage their health on a daily basis, and to me, there’s nothing more precious.
Then, our company’s governance is quite unique. We do believe in a flat organization: no manager, no micro-management, no written rules… We’re doing our best to make every employee autonomous.
Last but not least: I only work with bright people, teams and talents. After 10 years of experience in recruitment, it’s not easy to feel challenged. At Alan, I quickly saw how competent and smart my colleagues are. They always make me think beyond my confort zone!
Why would you recommend other companies to work with The Allyance?
The answer is yes! In terms of D&I, I cannot think of many people in France… The Allyance’s expertise in recruitment and tech is quite impressive, and relevant.
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CONCLUSION
A few words from Morgane Dalbergue, The Allyance Sourcing & Recruitment expert:
“Working with Damien to help diversify Alan’s engineering pipeline of candidates was a fantastic experience!
Damien, and his team, provided me with complete documentation and I was carefully onboarded on all the tools and processes at Alan. It was very interesting to be a part of the company for 3 months, to witness the rigor, the method and the care brought to the entire hiring process, from sourcing to closing. I particularly liked how fluid and flexible the communication was, as anytime there was a hitch it was handled immediately, and methodically.
✔️ Want more?
If you are interested in knowing more about The Allyance expertise on sourcing, feel free to get in touch with us.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ✒️ Léa C, The Allyance Contributor.