Welcome Pierre, can you introduce Yousign to our readers?
.png)
With pleasure, Nicolas! Yousignis first and foremost a French story. We're a software publisher born and bred in France, and we develop SaaS products for electronic signatures. But that's not all! We are currently working on other products to enrich our customers' signature experience by integrating elements of collaboration and contract management.
We were founded in 2013 by two engineers, Luc and Antoine. In fact, we just celebrated our 10th anniversary last June. Today, Yousign is a team of 200 enthusiastic and dedicated people, most of whom are based in France. But we also have colleagues in Germany and Italy. Our adventure is just beginning, and we can't wait to see where it takes us.
If you had to describe your corporate culture in a few words...
We've sought to evolve while remaining true to the culture of our beginnings, when we were a small team, launched in Caen in an incubator. It's a culture that encourages initiative, sharing and benevolence. We have continued to reflect on and adapt our culture so that it still resonates as strongly with 200 people as it did in the early days.
There are several key elements that define our culture. First, ambition. Our ambition today is to become a European leader in the electronic signature market for very small businesses. This may sound specific, but it's actually a huge market. It concerns all companies with between 0 and 2,000 employees looking to contractualize agreements and sign documents.
The second great characteristic of our culture is two concepts that I like to link together: transparency and trust. For me, these two elements go hand in hand. Being transparent means sharing where we're going as a company, why we make certain decisions, and how we share them with everyone. It's about our projects, our strategy, the competition, the health of the company, our salary policy, our expansion, and so on.
The final keyword in our culture would undoubtedly be team spirit and inclusiveness. As we grow and already reach 200 employees, it's essential for us to preserve this startup DNA, while establishing iterative processes that involve everyone at Yousign.
If you had to convince a candidate to join you in one minute, what would you say?
First of all, it's a question of timing. I think it's the perfect time to join a company like ours. We're creating not only a fantastic product, but also a complete experience. If you're an entrepreneur, small business, VSE or SME, we're not just providing you with electronic signature tools. We're rethinking what it means to contract an agreement, collaborate on the preparation of a contract, and manage the entire business process.
It's not just a matter of saying, "Here's how we're going to do this." We're really thinking about what we're trying to do, and how to make it easier and more accessible for our users. So, the first reason to join us would be: come along, because we're creating something unique.
What do you think attracts candidates to Yousign?
That's a very pertinent question, Nicolas. I wouldn't be so bold as to claim that we're the best in any particular area, and there's always room for improvement. However, I can tell you that the aspect we focus on most is candidate experience and satisfaction. Our aim is to ensure that every interaction is enriching and instructive for candidates.
Each exchange is an opportunity to learn and share with people with whom the candidate could potentially work. If the candidate realizes that this isn't the right time or place for him or her, that's no problem. As a recruiter, I make it a point of honor not to multiply unnecessary interviews and not to add interlocutors just for the sake of the meeting.
I make sure that each interview brings value and progress in the candidate's projection within the company. We do everything we can to make the candidate's experience as satisfying as possible, and we believe it's this effort that attracts candidates to Yousign.
What does a "Made in Yousign" recruitment process look like?
At Yousign, most of our teams are recruiting, have recruited recently, or will be doing so in the near future. This means that all our leaders and senior managers are potentially hiring managers. We have two in-house recruiters: Mélanie, who looks after the business side of the business, and myself, who recruits for technical and product positions.
We use a variety of tools to facilitate our recruitment process. We have an ATS called Teamtailor, we use the Welcome to the Jungle dashboard, we have an in-house job board we created via Teamtailor, and other tools we use to outsource certain stages of technical or other testing.
In general, our recruitment process aims to be as efficient as possible to avoid a series of interminable interviews. The classic process begins with an initial interview with a member of the recruitment team to carry out an initial filter, validating the match between the candidate and the position on offer, as well as Yousign's culture.
This is followed by a second interview with the hiring manager, during which we go into more detail about the candidate's experience and technical skills, as well as his or her aspirations and ambitions. For all positions, a technical situation or "use case" is carried out to assess the candidate's skills.
Depending on the level of seniority of the position, a final step may be to meet either the manager's N+2 or our CEO, although this step is not mandatory for all profiles.
Finally, a 15-20 minute interview is organized with the recruiter to formalize the offer and explain the advantages and administrative aspects of joining Yousign.
What about onboarding?
We have a well-defined and proven onboarding process that we put in place around two to three years ago, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. We had to introduce much more structured onboarding procedures than before.
Our onboarding process is organized in monthly cycles, enabling us to offer a comprehensive and interactive onboarding program. New arrivals have the opportunity to discover different aspects of the company: the vision of our founders, our strategy, our positioning, our competitors, marketing, signature regulations, the workings of our product, sales and legal teams, and so on.
This onboarding course takes place over two full days in our Paris offices, with presentations, exercises and modules. We also organize a dinner to enable newcomers to get to know each other in a more informal setting.
After this initial training, each new employee is integrated into his or her team and begins a job-specific onboarding, which can last from two weeks to a month. During this period, they meet the various people involved in their job and gradually familiarize themselves with their new responsibilities.
A unique aspect of our onboarding process is "product testing". We believe it's essential in a product-centric company that every new employee understands how our product works. So all new employees receive a use case and are invited to log in to Yousign, test the product and share feedback on their experience with our Customer Success and Product teams via Slack.
This not only helps newcomers to understand our product, but also to contribute to its improvement right from the start. It also encourages ongoing use of the product on a daily basis. We think it's a great way to engage new employees from the outset.
Positions in demand or current events?
Right now, we're very focused onstrengthening our security team. This is an area that has always been of paramount importance to Yousign, given our status as a trusted third party for signatures and the fact that we are an ANSSI-certified entity. We handle personal data and officially sign documents, so security is a very important issue for us.
We are looking for both application security and compliance and certification specialists. This will help us to be ready for the security challenges of late 2023 and early 2024.
We are also looking to strengthen our sales team, particularly in Germany and Italy, where we are expanding our business. We therefore need people who know these markets and can directly address the needs of our customers and prospects on the spot. As a result, you'll see plenty of sales, account management and business development positions for Germany, France and Italy on our job boards.
These positions are very important to us, as these are the people who make the first contact between Yousign and our potential users. So, yes, that's a big part of our news at the moment.
Last question: why should we NOT join you?
Well, if you're not curious or interested in working collaboratively with people with different skills, knowledge or perspectives to your own, then Yousign probably isn't the right place for you.Our culture, working methods and decision-making processes are based on diversity of viewpoints and interdisciplinarity.
Our mission is to make the electronic signature of documents simpler than handwritten signatures, which requires in-depth reflection on simplifying processes and taking into account the diversity of user needs, which requires in-depth, collaborative reflection.
So, on a daily basis, you'll be working with people from other disciplines who will challenge you in different ways, and you'll need to be ready to accept these challenges and see them as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. This requires a great deal of curiosity to understand and anticipate these different perspectives. If this isn't your way of working or thinking, then Yousign might not be the best choice for you.
Thank you, Pierre 😉
.png)