Recruiting

OCV recommends hiring workers in the United States. Exceptions are made for critical hires. Companies typically have two or fewer key employees outside the US. A critical hire is someone who has extensive experience with your open-source project and can make significant contributions to your company's success.

All employee offer letters and contract agreements need to be saved in your company's shared drive.

Applicant tracking system (ATS)

Greenhouse is the ATS where founders post job openings, track potential candidates, document the interview process, and create/sign offer letters. All offer letters should be generated and tracked in Greenhouse.

OCV will set up the "Office" and "Job Board" for portfolio companies in Greenhouse. The company executive team will have access to Greenhouse and manage job postings, employee interviews, and the offer letter process.

Visa sponsorship

Due to the expensive and time-consuming nature of visa sponsorship and renewals, OCV companies do not provide visa sponsorship or transfers for team members. The only exception is executive relocation support for CEOs and CTOs. In these cases, OCV partners with an Employer of Record (EOR) to assist founders with visa transfers.

Hiring relatives & partners

We advise against hiring an individual who has a close relationship with the founders or another employee to avoid accusations of favoritism and blurring the lines between work and personal life. The appearance of nepotism can impact a workplace’s culture, creating complications at work with other employees. Managing relatives and romantic partners can also open up unnecessary liabilities and human resources risks.

Interview process

1. Initial conversation: Get to know more about the candidate as a person and their interest in this role. The candidate should be prepared to discuss logistics such as location, availability to start a new role, and their preferred range of compensation.

2. First interview: Evaluate the candidate’s skills, experience, and work history. The interviewer will also discuss more details concerning the project and the team. The interviewing team may ask the candidate to do a project as part of the hiring process.

3. Final interviews: In the final round, the candidate meets with additional team members as appropriate.

4. Team debrief: The interview team has an internal discussion concerning the candidate and determines whether to move forward with the hiring process.

5. Reference checks: Conduct 3-4 references before making an offer. It is ok to ask for references before the final interviews.

6. Equity approval: Any hires with options as part of their compensation package must be approved by the board (OCV).

7. Verbal offer: Once the reference checks are completed (with satisfactory results) and equity is approved, move forward with an offer. Any renegotiation around what is approved would restart the approval checks.

8. Formal offer: The company founder sends the offer letter to the candidate with Docusign.

9. All offers are contingent upon successfully passing a background check and approvals.

Reference checks

Candidates should provide 3-4 references:

1. Direct (or former) supervisor: someone who is familiar with their work.

2. Direct report: If the candidate is applying for a management position, include someone the candidate supervised.

3. A peer in the same role: someone who did similar work.

4. A cross-functional partner or customer: someone who was a consumer of the candidate’s work.

5. Backdoor reference checks: Reaching out to network connections who may know the candidate is a great way to get valuable feedback during the recruiting process. Ask the candidate if there is anyone they prefer to exclude.

Reference checking is provided by HiPeople, a third-party software that is integrated into the Greenhouse applicant tracking system.

Equity approval

Any hires with options as part of their compensation package must be approved by OCV before moving forward with a verbal offer. Select equity compensation based on industry benchmarks for equity.

Add the preliminary offer details to Greenhouse to be routed for equity approvals:

1. OCV Head of Talent approves option grants that represent <0.25% of the company’s fully diluted equity.

2. OCV COO approves option grants that represent 0.25-2% of the company’s fully diluted equity and above, and provide visibility to our General Partner through the ATS.

3. OCV General Partners will approve option grants that represent >2.0% of the company’s fully diluted equity.

OCV's BizOps team can provide additional context on the status of the company’s capitalization table, including the company’s total share count, employee options pool, reserved options, any/or to be issued grants from previous hires, and the company’s remaining hiring targets.

Equity grants are tracked by OCV. Quarterly, founders will review with the OCV BizOps team the tracked information for accuracy (especially the employee's actual start date) to generate associated legal paperwork. OCV will ensure the equity information is accurate and aligned with what is approved and submit the information to the legal team for preparation of associated paperwork. The legal team will relay to employees.

Hiring contractors

Contractors are self-employed individuals or companies that are hired to perform a specific job or service for a company. They are not employees of the company and are not entitled to receive employee benefits or protections, such as workers' compensation or unemployment insurance. Contractors are responsible for paying their own taxes and are typically paid a fixed fee or by the project.

Find specific details on worker classification guidelines and payment terms for contractors here.

Offer Letter

"Founder Guide: Offer Letter Process" can be found in the OCV + Founders Shared Resources folder.

Indicative offer letters

OCV presents non-U.S. employment candidates with indicative offer letters prior to an employment contract to demonstrate intent to hire an employee. The employer of record (EOR) firm will generate the official employment contract.

Indicative offer letters generalize and outline intended terms, while local employment contracts are dictated by local law and include relevant local employment statutes. Indicative offer letters provide written documentation to move forward with providing notice to current employers and signify an intent to move forward with an opportunity, but are not directly binding until an employment contract is signed.

In some countries (e.g. Netherlands, France, and Belgium), collective bargaining agreements provide industry-wide terms and conditions that will apply on top of employment contracts, which will cover items such as the notice period required from employer to employee in the event of termination. When employing executives or senior leaders, local legal teams can inform employment contracts beyond the guidance offered by the EOR.