The document discusses onboarding entry-level talent (ELTs) at LinkedIn. It recommends introducing ELTs to company values and culture, and providing a roadmap and flexibility. Training should include technical and non-technical materials, and mentoring by pairing ELTs with experienced engineers. Managing ELTs requires support, career opportunities, acknowledgment, and avoiding boring work. Relationships, diverse skills, efficient use of time, and feedback are important lessons.

2. ​ Michael Kehoe
​ Senior SRE
​ LinkedIn
College Student to SRE:
Onboarding your Entry Level
Talent
​ Nina Mushiana
​ SRE Manager
​ LinkedIn

3. 3
Topics
● Who are we?
● Background
● Onboarding
● Training
● Mentoring
● Managing
● Lessons Learnt

4. 4
$ whoami who-are-we

5. 5
My Journey

6. Who / What are they?
6
Your ELT’s
● Just graduated from College
● May/May not have enterprise experience
● High aptitude for fast learning
● Non-jaded, highly impressionable/ idealistic thinkers

7. 7
22%
SRE Hires were ELT’s in
2015

8. Before Day 1
8
Onboarding your Talent
● Mentor/ Manager correspondence
● Company merchandise

9. Day 1
9
Onboarding your Talent
● Reaffirm decision to join LinkedIn
● Enforce company values
● New Hire Roadmap

10. Post Day 1
10
Onboarding your Talent
● Engineering Bootcamp
● SRE Onboarding checklist
● StartIn Program

11. 11
Training your Talent
● Provide a strong set of ‘get up to speed’ classes/
documents
● For ELT’s, extra background material may help
○ e.g. High Scalability Blog
● Technical resource they can talk to (i.e. mentor)
● Non-technical training

12. 12
Mentoring your Talent
● Pair with best engineer(s)
● Clone
● Someone to reach out to
● Traits

13. 13
Managing your Talent
● Support
● Opportunities and career
● 1:1
● Acknowledgement
● Morale
● Boring work

14. 14
Lessons Learned
● Relationships matter
● Technical skills only get you so far
● Value your time

15. 15
Advice for ELT’s
● Make the most of the resources around you
● It’s always better to ask questions than to assume and
break something
● Always use feedback as a motivator to improve
​
​

16. Questions?
16
?

17. ©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

18. 18
Onboarding your Talent
● Introduce:
○ Company Values
○ Expectations
○ Workplace culture
● Give them:
○ A short-term & longer-term roadmap of what their
role will encompass
○ Flexibility

19. Hiring your Talent