Dover Blog

How to write great recruiting emails - and one tool that does it for you

Whether personal or professional, we’ve all avoided writing emails because, well — they’re harder than they look. How do you maintain the right level of casual and formal? Do you sign off with “Best” or “Regards”? How much small talk do you include about your weekend? Recruiting emails are

Why candidate experience matters in hiring

Candidate experience is the new buzzword in recruiting — and yet, when we spoke to 100+ talent professionals, we learned that most people don’t know exactly how to define it, let alone what good looks like and how to measure it. Though candidate experience may feel like something subjective or

How Dover can improve your candidate experience and reduce dropoff by 40%

Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of our new Candidate Management product that automates scheduling and follow-ups and conducts first-round phone screens, saving teams 20 to 30 hours per hire. Many of our customers know and love these products already, so we’ve worked hard to optimize their

3 signs you're ready to hire a product designer

No one on your team has design chops.If a lack of design expertise on your product or eng team is preventing you from getting your product to market, you probably shouldn't even be reading this article. Seriously — you need to bring a full-time designer onto your team, especially if

Your first sales hire at a startup

Your sales team is the engine of your startup: they keep revenue streams coming in, have a pulse on the pain points and pivots needed to close customers, and can often see where the product needs improvement through direct feedback from prospects. Get this hire right and you can start

Changes to our team

Today I’m writing with sad news, as we had to conduct a layoff and part ways with a number of our employees. Each of these individuals has been instrumental in building Dover into the company we are today, and they’re all talented, motivated and excellent people that I’

Making your first marketing hire at your startup

Marketing is best defined as the revenue and brand awareness machine of your company. Through press, blog posts, outreach, company events, social media, and valuable content, your marketing team is (hopefully) creating an image of your brand that is in line with your mission and hard to forget. While there

How to hire engineers: your ultimate guide

You’ve nailed the idea. You’ve developed your vision. How do you bring it to life? Bring in the engineers! It’s likely that your founding team has experience in software engineering, but as you begin to scale, you’ll need dedicated, advanced, full-time engineers. These are typically the

Hiring great product managers: everything you need to know

Building a cool product from the ground-up is rewarding, but does it mean anything if you can’t get anyone to use it or buy it? If you answered no to this question, you inherently understand why product managers are key to your success as a startup. These are typically

Salary bands 101: how to pay employees at your startup

Salary bands are tiers or levels within a role that garner higher equity and cash compensation — typically both. Each band typically comes with more responsibility, whether that’s in impact (owning an area of the business) or in managerial expectations. You might use criteria like years of experience, qualifications and

Visa Sponsorship 101 for startups: your questions answered

Here’s a common scenario for our customers: they find an amazing candidate who isn't US-based. The candidate asks if they'll sponsor their visa application. Now, they're left to scour through verbose, unhelpful resources about visa sponsorship for employers, mostly written to large and established enterprise companies. They aren't sure

Startup Recruiting in 2022 — 3 key trends and what to do next

If you’re a founder or work in talent acquisition for startups, you know that despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation, the tech industry bounced back quickly. The unemployment rate for tech jobs is 1.3%, its lowest level since June 2019 and about one-third of the national

3 signs elastic recruiting is the strategy your startup needs to scale quickly

Despite the adverse global effects of the coronavirus pandemic, venture capital firms continue to back startups, allowing the industry to flourish. Last year, entrepreneurial interest reached record highs, claiming six of the top 10 months for likely employer business filings on record. There are more companies than candidates, and now

Why I joined Dover - making the switch from a big corporation to tech

4 months ago, I left my role in sales and market development at Coca-Cola to join Dover, a recruiting tech startupAs someone who had never worked in the tech space, I had to do my own research to understand what to look for in my next role and how to

Why hiring from non-tech backgrounds is critical to your startup's success

As a classically trained opera singer, I never thought I’d find my way into the world of startups, but the skills I learned as a performer have been essential to my success in my role as Director of Customer Support.In this blog, I aim to document our journey

6 tips to impress candidates on a first-round phone screen

When it comes to startup hiring, nailing the first conversation with a new candidate is critical to meeting your hiring goals. Without the proper prep work, you’ll lose your chance to attract and inspire top talent to join your team. Additionally, they can help you: Check for potential dealbreakers

Dover’s founding engineer on how to help build a team of future founders

By: John Holliman I was one of the first 20 employees at my previous startup, Expanse (acquired by Palo Alto Networks last year). It was a phenomenal learning experience, but after more than 3 years at the company, I found myself itching for a role as an early member of

Our take on a successful Inbound Recruiting Strategy

When it comes to outbound recruiting, the difficulty lies in devoting sufficient time and energy into finding, pitching and engaging candidates – Dover cuts down on the time it takes to source, schedule, and craft outreach through automation so that our customers can hire better candidates, faster. We've also done the

My first few months at Dover: what it was like to join a new company remotely

By: Sharon Yeh I switched jobs in the middle of the pandemic — and from the stable world of management consulting to a seed startup, no less. 47 million Americans lost their jobs in 2020, and new college grads have struggled to find work. But in industries like tech, hiring is

Announcing Dover's $20m Series A

At Dover, we're on a mission to enable every company in the world to create the best recruiting experience possible. Today, we're thrilled to share that Dover has raised a $20m Series A round led by Tiger Global, with participation from previous investors Founders Fund, Abstract Ventures, and YC. George,

How Company Values Impact Engineering Teams

I joined Dover three months ago as the sixth person on the EPD team, coming from a small New York-based creative agency where I had been the first engineering hire. During my interview process, I sensed that Dover’s values aligned with mine. Upon joining, my intuitions were confirmed as

Recruiting Emails 101

Pitching talented candidates is tough — few people get it right. At Dover, we've helped more than 150 companies reach out to candidates in highly personalized and thoughtful ways. Your first point of outreach, after all, is when the candidate experience begins, and we believe that perfecting it is key to

Your startup's complete guide to remote onboarding

You did it — after many, many phone screens and interviews, you extended an offer to “the one” and they’re starting soon. Good job! Now, on to your next challenge: setting up the new hire for success while working remotely. Not to worry — our team at Dover has grown from

The biggest mistake founders make when scaling up recruiting

credit: dilbert.comMy company Dover is building a recruiting orchestration platform to help companies find and hire the best talent. Over the past two years, I’ve helped 100+ founders and hiring managers understand how to run a data-driven recruiting process and get the results they want. This post is

The Dos & Don'ts: Titles for Employees at Startups

Titles won't make or break your offer, but why not pull every lever you can, to get someone amazing on your team? As long as these titles are accurate to the job someone is doing, they are easy and inexpensive ways to attract talent. DO:Add "Founding" to the titles