At the company behind BarkBox, the HR department has found itself fielding applications for a new top dog role — “chairdog” — being added to the executive team.
Bark this month began advertising for a Chairdog of its Dog Committee “to lead the pack.” The company is not looking for a “dog person;” they want “a literal dog.”
“As Chairdog, for up to one year, your pup will report directly to our CEO and work paw-in-paw with teams across creative, product, social, and more. They’ll be the top dog in all things taste-testing, toy-approving, and generally being a Very Good Boss,” the job ad reads.
Since starting the hunt for a chairdog, Bark has received more than 3,400 applications, including one from a pig, the company’s senior manager of people operations, Hayley Musket, said. The ad will remain open until Aug. 1, when the team will begin its interview process. The goal, Musket said, is to announce the chairdog on National Dog Day, Aug. 26.
Bark hopes to identify 10 semi-finalists and five finalists, but narrowing down the pool of applicants has been a challenge, Musket said. “It is tough out here rejecting dogs,” she said.
Each furry candidate selected as a semi-finalist will go through a two-part interview process. The company will send each pup’s human representative a BarkBox that will be kept secret until the interview. The interview will consist of the dog opening the box and interacting with the toys and treats.
Dog finalists and their humans then will meet with some of Bark’s executive team to share more about themselves and what charity they would like to support. As part of the role, the chairdog will receive $50,000 and be able to help direct another $50,000 to a charity.
Initially, the company planned to have members of the brand team work with Musket to sort through applications.
“But because of the volume that we’ve gotten, we’ve been able to create a chairdog application committee that includes people from our customer experience team, both here in the U.S. and in the Philippines,” Musket said. “There are probably 15 or 20 people that are going in and being able to look over applications and share out fun ones.”
Musket started at Bark on the recruiting team before moving into a broader HR role and while she never expected to be leading a dog interview process, she’s used to the company being “a little bit more off the beaten path.”
“I am not surprised. Every day is a new day here at Bark, and we’re always doing something different and new; that’s part of what’s kept me here for the past five and a half years,” she told HR Dive from Bark’s spinach burrito conference room.
The chairdog will serve a one-year term, and the team hopes to hire a new one each year going forward, Musket said.
“So if this year is not your year, it might be next year. I’m excited to see how this evolves and grows into something that will be a long-lasting thing,” she said.
While there have always been dogs in the office, there’s never been a dog on the executive team, Musket said.
“Just proving that we really are the dog-first company is what we’re looking to take one step further on. When you look at other companies that are dog companies, is anyone else taking dog-first to this extreme?” she said.
