As CEO of language-learning startup Preply, Kirill Bigai said he’s spending much of his time these days building out his team.
“This quarter, I’m spending 50% to 60% of my time on hiring,” Bigai told Business Insider.
Bigai, who cofounded the company in 2012, said Preply is scaling quickly and bringing on new leaders. The startup, which has more than 800 employees and was valued at $1.2 billion in January, lists 118 open roles on its website. That includes senior engineering positions focused on building architectures and agents, as well as AI research jobs.
The CEO said that, for him, hiring is a constant part of leadership, and he said he’s spent a lot of time refining his interview process. Bigai said he has a number of questions he typically asks that help him build a fuller picture of a candidate.
“I have my playbook,” Bigai said.
Running away — or running toward something?
The CEO said he first wants to understand why someone is leaving their current role, what they hope to find next, and why. Bigai said that job seekers tend to have a prepared answer about why they’re leaving, so that question typically reveals very little. However, after a few follow-ups, he can get a much clearer sense of who the person is.
“Do they own the decision, or do they blame the manager, the company, the market?” Bigai added in a follow-up email. “Are they running away from something or toward something?”
Bigai said Preply looks to hire people who talk about their ambition and what they want to prove, rather than what went wrong. He said if they’re looking for something that Preply can’t offer, it’s best that both parties find out in the interview rather than later.
Bigai said he also asks about the candidate’s relationship with their previous manager, how they worked together, and what that manager would identify as the candidate’s strengths.
Depending on the role he’s hiring for, Bigai said he then goes through behavioral interview questions. He said he typically looks for candidates to respond using a STAR framework, in which they lay out a situation, task, action, and result.
The traits he looks for
Bigai said the company generally hires around its 10 core principles, which it groups into three categories: ambition, boldness, and collaboration.
Preply’s website defines ambition as having a desire to change the world, along with a passion for the work. The concept for the startup was inspired by Bigai’s own quest to learn English, and features over 150,000 tutors who speak more than 90 languages.
He said boldness is about execution — moving quickly, prioritizing the right tasks, paying attention to detail, and delivering work on time. Collaboration centers on creating a respectful environment and holding each other to a high standard, Bigai said.
Once a decision is made, though, employees need to adopt a growth mindset and “disagree and commit,” he said. The management philosophy popularized by Jeff Bezos means fully supporting a decision even when you initially disagree with it.
“We want to challenge each other openly and create this culture when everyone can challenge everyone,” Bigai said.
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