Since joining the Wikimedia Foundation, I’ve hired about 25 people. That means I’ve read thousands of CVs, done hundreds of pre-interview e-mail exchanges and phone calls, and participated in about 150 formal interviews.
With each hire I’ve –and the Wikimedia Foundation as a whole has– gotten smarter about what kinds of people flourish at Wikimedia, and why. The purpose of this post is to share some of what we’ve learned, particularly for people who may be thinking about applying for open positions with us, or participating in our open hiring call.
Let me start with this: The Wikimedia Foundation’s not a typical workplace.
Every CEO believes his or her organization is a special snowflake: it’s essential that we believe it, whether or not it’s true. And when I first joined Wikimedia, my board of trustees would tell me how unusual we were, and I would nod and smile. But really. Once I worked through some initial skepticism, it became obvious that yeah, Wikimedia is utterly unique.
Viewed through one lens, the Wikimedia Foundation is a scrappy start-up with all the experimentation and chaos that implies. But, it’s also a non-profit, which means we have an obligation to donors to behave responsibly and frugally, and to be accountable and transparent about what we’re doing. We’re a top five, super-famous website, which brings additional scrutiny and responsibility. We work closely with Wikimedia volunteers around the world, many of whom are hyper-intelligent, opinionated, and fiercely protective of what they have created. And, our role is to make information freely available to everyone around the world — which means we are more radical than, at first glance, we might appear.
None of those characteristics is, by itself, all that unusual. (Except the super-smart volunteers. They are pretty rare.) But our particular combination is unique, which means that the combination of traits that makes someone a perfect employee for us is unique as well. Here’s what I look for.
Passion for the Wikimedia mission. This is obvious. We’re facilitating the work of millions of ordinary people from around the world —helping them come together to freely, easily, share what they know. We’re responsible for the largest repository of information in human history: more than 16 million articles in 270 languages, accessible to people all over the world. If people aren’t super-excited about that, they have no business working with us.
Self-sufficiency and independence. The Wikimedia Foundation is not a smoothly-sailing ship: we’re building our ship. That means roles-and-responsibilities aren’t always clear, systems and procedures haven’t been tested and refined over time, and there isn’t going to be somebody standing over people’s shoulders telling them what to do. People who work for the Wikimedia Foundation need to be able to get stuff done without a fixed rulebook or a lot of prodding.
That’s normal for all young organizations.
But we’re looking for more than just self-sufficiency. We have found that a streak of iconoclasm is a really strong predictor of success at Wikimedia.
Wikipedia is edited by everyone: contributors represent a dizzying array of socio-political values and beliefs and experiences, as well as different ages, religions, sexualities, geographies, and so forth. In our hiring, we tell people that it isn’t a question of whether working at Wikimedia will push their buttons; it’s just a question of how they will respond once it happens. People who’ve never examined their own assumptions, who embrace received wisdom, who place their trust in credentials and authority: they will not thrive at Wikimedia. And people who are motivated by conventional status indicators: a big office, a big salary, a lot of deference — they won’t either.
An inventive spirit. People who fit in well at Wikimedia tend to like new ideas, to be curious, and driven towards continual improvement. This manifests in simple, obvious ways – they read widely; they like gadgets and puzzles; they make stuff for fun. They are optimists and tinkerers.
Openness. At Wikimedia, we look for evidence that applicants have deliberately stretched themselves and sought out new experiences – maybe they’ve lived outside their home country, they read outside their comfort zone, they’ve explored other belief systems.
Openness means people like to be challenged. They like kicking around ideas, they naturally share and communicate, they’re not defensive or unhealthily competitive. They’re comfortable interacting with a wide range of people, and people are comfortable with them.
Lastly, we look for orientation towards scalability. The Wikimedia Foundation is a very small group of people. It achieves impact by working through and with large numbers of volunteers – the millions of people around the world who create 99.9% of the value in the Wikimedia projects. So in our hiring, we look for people who are oriented towards scale: who reflexively document and share information, who write easily and fluently, who take advantage of channels for mass communication and who instinctively organize and support the work of others.
If I ran Der Spiegel or Yelp or the ACLU, the traits I’d be looking for would be different. (When I worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the people I hired were quite different from the ones I hire today.) And this list will change over time, as the organization changes. This is the list that works for the Wikimedia Foundation, today.
Sue,
Lots of organizations _SAY_ that they want these things, but the WMF is one of the few where, at least as far as I’ve seen from my interactions with the staff, they really mean it.
I think your definition of “openness” however, is really quite interesting. It’s like a catch-all of the various ways “open” could be considered; open to change, open to others, open to new experiences, open to challenge.
Ha, Dan. You are the first person to find this blog: good for you. (I think Erik is adding it to Planet Wikimedia right now.)
Re empty lip service, I agree with you. The worst offender is “diversity” — everyone talks about it, but hardly anyone is even a little bit serious. I’ve stopped using the word in hiring interviews: basically, it elicits platitudes for about 90 seconds, but never anything useful.
Hi Sue,
I wanted to know if the Wikimedia Foundation was currently offering or considering offering, any summer internships. (A part-time, work-from-home position would also be of interest to me) I am currently a high school senior who would LOVE to work for such a great organization like yours. I feel that I posses many, if not all, of your five characteristics as well as several of the other characteristics listed on the WMF’s Community Department application form. I think I would be a good contributor to your wonderful organization and that it would be a powerful learning experience too!
Thank You,
Thomas Pelkey
Hi Thomas,
We’re in the process of batting around some ideas regarding internship processes now. While I can’t give you any immediate answers, if you would like to send me an email (it’s philippe(at)wikimedia.org), I’d be happy to keep you informed as we know more.
Thanks!
Dear Sue,
nice to see the community department hiring, those new positions will be very useful for sure. I have another idea on how to spend money on people (if that is what you want :-) – start a bounty system for software development and make Bugzilla work actually.
Hi Sue …
I’m a sustaining donor of the Wikimedia foundation who has spent several hundred hours volunteering (deleting vandalism from five thousand articles, and “current events wrangling” on contentious BLPs, e.g., Palin, Polanski) who is blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia [unrelated to article content].
While I would not recommend hiring “problematic” editors :-), I do strongly suggest that in filling positions in the new “community” department that some people who are aware of “problems” in the social dynamics of administrative processes be considered. (Perhaps some administrators who have become disheartened.)
In the big picture, problematic social dynamics do not scale into solutions without insight (and perhaps a light touch of design).
Kindest regards,
BOKE (Proofreader77)
[Feel free to treat this as a private suggestion and delete from blog]
Hi BOKE,
Sue’s blog, but I’m going to take a run at responding to this (and as with your post, Sue’s welcome to delete this one if she wants).
It’s definitely a good thing to keep an eye on both the hot spots and the things that are going well in the community. I think it’s safe to say that the community department is looking for people with well considered theories about community and wikis, and not for people who hold a particular dogma. There’s a really good description of what type of person we’re looking for at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:CommunityHiring
So yeah, an awareness of the social dynamics of the community would be helpful, provided that the people in question share our genuine passion for online communities.
Philippe
Thank you for your reply with link, Phillipe — and yes, the initial round application has a very good description.
Not to extend the discussion (here on Sue’s blog, anyway:-), but I will wrap up with a salute to the last question in the application submission:
“In one or two sentences, describe the process in which users are approved to become administrators on English Wikipedia. ”
Speaking as someone who received a barnstar for analysis/comment in an RfA (which even the most frequent participant in my block log concurred with when voting:-) …I would note the “essence” of the process includes both:
(a) the ideals of the community, and
(b) the foibles of human nature.
The “right” answer for an initial round job application would usually be a diplomatic expression of (a). A good candidate in the final interview should be able to effectively address (b).
Concluding the initial application with that question is a fascinating choice, and I salute whomever selected it.
Cheers.
BOKE
(P.S. Did I mention I also received a Socratic barnstar from an admin … who has since been desysopped, of course. :-)
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wikipedia Signpost and Andrew Garrett, Ragib Hasan. Ragib Hasan said: RT @wikisignpost: RT @werdna Wikimedia ED Sue Gardner posted a fantastic article about what it takes to work at Wikimedia http://bit.ly/bgaVzR […]
[…] Die Wikimedia Foundation sucht Mitarbeiter. Wie im Plan für das nächste Geschäftsjahr (PDF) bereits angekündigt, beginnt die Suche nach einer Reihe neuer Mitarbeiter. Dabei wird es auch Stellen im Bereich Community geben. Um diese zu besetzen, startete ein Aufruf, auf den in allen Wikimedia-Projekten hingewiesen wurde. Welche persönlichen Fähigkeiten dabei ausschlaggebend sein können, beschreibt Sue Gardner, die Geschäftsführerin der Wikimedia Foundation, in ihrem Blog. […]
Sue, after reading the recent profile of you in the Toronto Globe & Mail I’d say you sound like a dream boss in a dream workplace, and after reading this blog and some of the ads I’d have to add: with dream colleagues. It would take a lot to make a tenured professor jump out of academe, but it sure sounds appealing. I measure myself up against your criteria and I think it almost looks possible, though I graduated from high-school before anybody I knew even had personal computers. Is an academic/administrative skill set something you’re looking for, or what you’re trying to avoid? (only half kidding)
Thanks, Steve — you are very kind! And we have actually talked quite a bit about the hiring of academics :-)
We do intend to increasingly work with educators. (For example, here is our our public policy project.) In a nutshell: post-secondary students have always been the core Wikipedia contributors because they have the time, the brains, and the inclination — and working with professors is a terrific way for us to motivate and organize and support the work of students. So an academic background is indeed relevant to us.
You should check out our outreach wiki: there is lots of interesting stuff going on there which may prompt you to get involved :-)
Well if you need a mascot, I’d be willing to wear a giant puzzle globe on my torso with silver spandex pants.
Sue, I think this is worth looking into.
I love wikipedia! I have a job already though so stop trying to headhunt me!
Dear Sue:
I love Wikipedia and of course I have that five characteristics, the uniques problems are that I live in Mexico, I am twelve years old and I don’t think than you whill accept me because I have that two unique problems.
Waiting an answer: Gibran Ortega
Hello Sue,
Is it all distance work or does one have to live in the United States?
I am a French postgraduate student, currently completing an English Literature Masters in Australia. I am also following a Research Methods class, for which the final paper has to be the creation of a new entry on Wikipedia.
As a regular reader as well as voluntary editor of the online encyclopaedia for years, I take this assignment very seriously and would like to seize this opportunity to thank you for this thrilling adventure that is the free, community-oriented sharing of world knowledge.
Justine
Hi Justine,
Mostly we aim to bring to new staff to the United States, because it’s a new team and people need to get to know each other in order to work well together — but we’d be open to making an exception if it were impossible for a person to relocate. Please do send in your CV: we would love to hear from you.
Thanks,
Sue
Thank you Sue,
I am sure anyone would be ready to move over to San Francisco if given the opportunity to work with the foundation!
I have a pdf version of my CV ready, should I send it to the general info@wikimedia.org or is there an address for applications?
Regards,
Justine
Hi Justine –
There’s an online application form at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:CommunityHiring
Thanks for your interest!
Philippe Beaudette
Head of Reader Relations
Wikimedia Foundation
i really want to say thanks, while i was reading this i thought how can i easy-donate? my meaning is that people like me (not wealthy and unemployed living of charity) would like to make a small donation, some cents maybe one tiny microscopic grain of gold or anything one can do at that very moment of satisfaction when one gets the answer.
I sincerely love this page its a great tool and: “… could become as important a journalistic tool.” like the times magazine printed.
Thanks again and best wishes for you all
Andres Tao Weissmann
dear wikimedia:))
to be honest i always like to read information and tell information for all people , when i found this website long time ago i couldnt stop reading at:))) and so it would very nice for me to work with u , coz i like to put info’s i know at a huge website …maybe in my language or in engliah language:)
thx for u wikimedia:)
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