For bootstrapped software founders: a proven system to filter hundreds of applications into genuinely hire-worthy candidates without a recruiting team.
If there’s $10 billion of venture capital invested in helping candidates use AI to apply for jobs, there’s another $10 billion invested in helping companies screen them. How can candidates and companies stand out? How do you hire the right people for you?
In this Lightning Talk, David will share the hiring process he has built for his growing software company. First-time hirers can use it as a starting point; experienced hirers can stack it up against their own and take away what works.
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Transcript
The first thing to understand about hiring is this: you’re not special, and neither is your job posting. Both applicants and employers are playing a numbers game. A Twitter thread David saw recently made this clear: someone posted 1000 job applications and complained that only 5% of applicants even tried to stand out. But he wasn’t crafting custom applications for each company. He was just posting to job boards like everyone else.
The same applies to you. You can’t ask candidates for specially crafted cover letters or non-standard applications. You post a standard application, and you’ll get flooded with responses. But here’s the catch: most of them won’t be serious. You can’t do anything sneaky to filter them out in the application process itself.
So how do you cut through the noise?
The Trick: Video Submission as a Scalable Filter
The answer is a video submission filter. This sits between the initial application and in-person interviews. It’s scalable, it’s efficient, and it works.
Here’s the process:
Step 1: Initial screening (6-7 seconds per application). When applications come in, spend no more than six or seven seconds per resume. Trash the obvious rejections. You’ll eliminate a lot of junk immediately.
Step 2: Message everyone else. Send a message to all remaining candidates. Don’t be shy about volume here. Message everyone because most won’t respond. Applicants ghost. You don’t know if they didn’t read the job carefully, don’t understand the hiring process, or are just not interested. But silence tells you something useful: they’re not seriously considering your company.
Step 3: Wait for responses. You’ll get a set of candidates who actually responded. These are people who are engaged and worth moving forward with.
What to Ask in the Video Request
When you send the video request, keep the message simple:
“You look like you could be a good fit for this position. I’d like you to submit a video application. I won’t judge you on video quality. Just send something. Please respond to three questions:
- What interests you about this position?
- How would you be a good fit for this role?
- [A wild card question]”
The first two questions are standard interview fare. They give candidates a chance to talk about themselves and how they fit your company. It’s an opportunity for them to shine.
The third question is where you learn something unexpected. It could be: “Tell me about a recent project you’re proud of” or “What’s something you’ve learned recently?” Look for personality, cultural fit, or work approach. Whatever matters most for your team.
What the Video Tells You
You learn several things from the video submission:
Can they actually send a video? This sounds obvious, but it’s not. Some people will email you asking how to record a video. Others will send you a five-minute talk chopped into one-minute segments. In 2025, for a software company, submitting a basic video should be straightforward. If someone can’t or won’t do it, that tells you something.
You might worry this filters out older candidates. David has seen this concern before. In practice, it doesn’t. He’s had plenty of applicants in their 20s fail this test, and plenty of 50 and 60-year-olds succeed. The filter is on whether someone can complete a basic technical task in 2025, not on age.
You get answers to your questions. Now you have scalable information about these people. You can actually judge their communication, how they think, what they care about, and whether they’re a fit before you spend an hour on an in-person interview.
Move Forward Strategically
Once you have videos from responsive candidates, you have real data. Now go back and read their resumes carefully. Only now. Look at their education, their experience history. Put that together with what you learned from the video, and decide who’s actually worth interviewing.
Then move on to whatever your standard hiring process is: phone screens, in-person interviews, technical assessments, reference checks. You’ve already cut the field down to people who are engaged, can follow instructions, and show some promise.
The System in Two Parts
The Tip: You’re not special. Run your hiring process assuming you’re just one of a hundred jobs any given candidate is looking at. Don’t ask for custom applications or special effort. Post the standard thing and accept the flood.
The Trick: Use the video submission as a scalable filter. It dramatically reduces your candidate pool while giving you real information about the people in it.
David Robison has been running Design Master Software for 25 years. He’s scaled it from three to six employees, grown the ARR from $1M (2021) to $2M on pace this year. All while staying lean. This system works because it respects everyone’s time: candidates who aren’t genuinely interested opt out naturally (by ghosting), and you only spend real time on people who are actually engaged.
David Robison
Founder CEO, Design Master Software
David has been running a B2B SaaS company the old-fashioned way: slowly, profitably, and without outside funding. He started in 2001 helping electrical engineers design buildings. Today, 25 years later, the company has six employees, seven figures in ARR, and a team that works together in person in Raleigh, NC. A longtime member of the BoS community, David attended from 2007 to 2015 and is excited to be back this year.
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