Eduardo Chapola has conducted a lot of hiring conversations in his career, but he bristles at calling them interviews.
"I call them meetings instead of interviews because I'm not battering the candidate with questions," he says. "My meetings are easy and relaxed. We're just getting to know each other. No stress." For Chapola, the distinction matters — and it shapes everything about how X-Team brings new engineers aboard. In roughly two and a half years, he has risen from Technical Recruiter to Recruitment Specialist to Recruitment Team Lead, earning a perspective on talent acquisition that is both practical and unusually personal.
In this story, Chapola, an X-Team Recruitment Team Lead, walks through how he prepares for every candidate conversation, what separates a strong X-Team applicant from the crowd and what it felt like to finally meet — in person — some of the engineers he had helped hire remotely.
The Meeting, Not the Interview
Chapola's philosophy begins before he ever opens a video call. He reads every candidate's LinkedIn profile and CV in advance — not to quiz them on their résumé, but to avoid wasting their time on questions the documents already answer. "It stops me from asking redundant questions and improves the candidate's overall experience," he says.
The meeting itself is deliberately unhurried. Alongside questions about professional background, Chapola asks about hobbies, preferences and any skills the candidate has that have nothing to do with their job. The goal is a full picture of the person, not just the engineer. He tells candidates upfront: bring your personality, talk about whatever energizes you. Nothing is off-limits.
That transparency extends beyond the conversation itself. His team keeps candidates informed as their application moves through each stage and, when X-Team cannot move forward with someone, they send written feedback that highlights strengths alongside areas for growth. "This all contributes to our candidates having a great experience," he says — even when the answer is no.
What Makes an Engineer Stand Out
When Chapola is asked what separates a compelling candidate from the rest, he keeps it simple. "First and foremost, the ability to communicate clearly and concisely. That's crucial in a remote environment." Pair that with genuine enthusiasm for the role and a candidate has, in his words, "the whole package."
It is a bar that X-Team's engineering community consistently clears. "I'm consistently impressed with how energized and enthusiastic X-Team engineers are," he says. The culture of clear communication that the recruiters screen for is, by his account, already alive inside the teams those engineers join.
For candidates wondering how to increase their odds of being considered, Chapola offers advice that cuts against the conventional wisdom of job boards. Most candidates create a profile on the X-Team jobs platform, which is a good starting point. But a direct message to a recruiter on LinkedIn can dramatically outperform a passive application. "Not everything requires a complex approach or solution," he says. "A quick message doesn't take a lot of work but can dramatically increase your chances. Simple, yet effective."
When Remote Becomes Real
The most unexpectedly moving part of Chapola's role has nothing to do with sourcing or screening. It happens when a remote relationship becomes a face-to-face one.
At a recent X-Outpost, Chapola met in person some of the X-Teamers he had interviewed and helped hire. He had known them through screens and Slack, guided them through the selection process and watched them land at X-Team — but he had never been in the same room as them. "To finally meet X-Teamers in person is an unforgettable experience," he says. "When you speak to the people whose selection process you led, you're almost certain to develop a strong bond."
Those connections have turned professional relationships into friendships. The engineers he meets at Outposts tell him how much they love the community, how X-Team's events and collectibles keep improving. For Chapola, who spends his days looking for the right people to join that community, hearing it firsthand from people he helped recruit carries a particular weight. "It really is a priceless feeling," he says.
He still keeps a Slack journal — updating it alongside the sales team as a record of the work, the conversations and the people who became X-Teamers because of a meeting that felt nothing like an interview.
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