Archive for March, 2004
I was talking to a hiring manager recently, and she said, “I’d like to get another developer just like Stan.” Well, Stan is a good guy and a talented developer, but why look for someone just like him? The manager explained, “I’m staffing a particularly risky project and with someone just like Stan, I know we’ll do well.”It’s possible that’s true, but it’s more likely she’s wrong. When you manage a risky project, you need access to more than just technical strengths, you need access to all the other things that make people succeed at work — their personalities. If you hire similar personalities, your staff will have the same blind spots.If your HR group does personality testing, don’t let them pigeon-hole people. In MBTI terms, INTPs make the “best” architects — but not all INTPs want to be architects. SJs aren’t the only people who can manage projects, NTs can do so, as well as NFs and SPs. Of course, if you have an NT project manager, ask questions about how that person knows how to acquire the necessary details and finish the project.It’s useful to know about personality types. Rebecca says, “if you find out your coworker … is apparently hardwired to [act in a certain way] you might judge him less harshly.” It’s helpful to know personality types, to make sure you have diverse groups and that you’re aware of everyone’s blind spots. Just don’t hire an entire group of one type. You’ll miss out on the best diversity of all, that of personality.
March 31st, 2004
Thanks to Brian, I discovered this gem on resumes and first impressions.I especially like the first point: “Concise
March 18th, 2004
Ok, I admit it. I have this strange fascination with “The Apprentice.” This morning on the “Today” show, Donald Trump and Matt Lauer “interviewed” 8 candidates to be on “The Apprentice” next season. (If you’re watching for interview tips, stop. Watch for the entertainment value 
I heard one fabulous interview question: “Do you love your job?” One candidate said no, and Trump told the candidate to find a new job. It’s not worth spending time at work unless you love your job.Some of you unemployed folks are snorting, and saying, “I’d love any job that paid me.” And yes, if you’re not receiving an income, any job looks pretty darn good. Hiring managers, you can hire people who aren’t in love with your job in this economy, and you’ll still receive lots of value from them.But there’s an even better way to determine if a candidate is right for your open position. You can ask, “What about your job do you love?” And follow that up with a why or example sort of question. If the candidate says “I love the people,” ask “What is about the people that makes you love your job?” and “Tell me about a time the people made the job wonderful.” If the candidate says “I love the technology” ask about the technology and ask “Tell me about a time when the technology rocked your socks.” Don’t forget to ask about the previous job, not just the latest one. I had jobs I loved for widely varying reasons.Once you’ve heard the answers, review your organizational culture, the people, the technology, whatever. Is the candidate going to find the same kind of fulfillment with your open position? If not, is it worth changing anything so the candidate can love the job?If the candidate admits to not loving any job, ask more questions. The candidate is probably in the wrong role. You don’t have to perform career development for the candidate. Nor do you have to provide feedback. But you also don’t have to hire that person.You don’t have to care if your employees love their jobs. Not everyone will. But people who love their jobs stay longer, becoming more productive. They bring their friends and colleagues. Pretty soon you have an extraordinary culture full of people who love their jobs who help you hire people like them. If you’ve ever worked in an organization like this, you know how wonderful it can be. The technical staff accomplish way more than you could ever imagine. If you don’t care if your employees love their jobs, remember this: when the economy picks up, the best employees will be looking for jobs they can love.
March 17th, 2004
There are two kinds of domain expertise: solution-space and problem-space. When a candidate understands the technical issues behind how your product solves the customers’ problems, that’s solution-space domain expertise. When a candidate intimately understands the problems your product is trying to solve, that’s problem-space domain expertise. One kind of domain expertise does not imply the other.Here are some examples:
- A developer has worked on embedded systems before and discusses the merits and tradeoffs of differing architectures with you. The developer has solution-space domain expertise of the embedded systems architectures.
- A writer has documented systems internals before and discusses how she organized the documentation, comparing that to your systems internals. The writer has solution-space domain expertise about internals and how to document them.
- In an audition for a tester on database system, the tester turns to you and asks about the stored procedures and the schema. Based on your answers, the tester modifies his approach to testing. The tester has domain expertise about testing database systems.
These people understand the insides of the product. They understand the implications of how the product is organized (its architecture or design), and the kinds of issues your product team considered when designing or implementing.People with solution-space domain expertise tend to be expert system users, or can learn to be. They understand the problems the customers have, and why solving those problems will benefit the customer.People who can easily learn solution-space domain expertise tend to be more expensive than people who can only learn problem-space domain expertise. As a hiring manager, your job is to determine which candidates require which kind of expertise.
March 16th, 2004
I was reading Alan’s blog and came across this gem, Progressive Recruitment. Computers are good for lots of things, and mindless searching is certainly one. But mindless searching isn’t sufficient when sourcing candidates.If you’re looking for sourcing support, ask questions and check references. (OK, I’m a broken record:-) Here are some possible questions:
- How do you determine the search criteria for your sourcing? (You want someone who’ll work with you and who understands what your needs are.)
- What kinds of databases do you have access to? (There are several databases of people around, and you want someone who knows about them.)
- What kinds of sorting do you perform on candidates?
- Do you ever send soliciting emails with my company’s name in it?
- What kinds of guarantee do you give with your rates?
- May I have some references of people who’ve used your service recently?
When you check references, ask about the job the service sourced (so you can compare it to your position), how it was to work with the service, how long it took to acquire names of people who were potential candidates, and how many candidates the service supplied. I also ask if the reference plans to use that service again.Sourcing may be the first introduction potential candidates have to your company. Make sure that first contact is a positive one.
March 15th, 2004
It’s common for candidates to be experts in some technical area that the manager knows little about. Sometimes managers don’t realize how to ask questions about the qualities, preferences, non-technical, or technical skills, so the manager asks, “Where do you want to be in five years?” Managers, if you want to know about ambition, ask another question such as, “When was the last time you wanted to improve a skill? What did you do?” instead.Candidates, when you’re faced with this question, consider your options. You can answer jokingly, “On a sailboat with a gin and tonic.” Of course, you run the risk that your potential boss will think you’re a lazy lush:-).A better answer is to help your interviewer by answering a question the interviewer didn’t ask. Interviewers want to know about ambition, but they also might want to know how you’ve improved a particular skill, or worked differently with a group of people, or where you’re trying to learn different skills. Maybe the interviewer wants to know if you need a technical track or a management track job. Take stock of your functional skills, domain expertise, tools expertise, and industry expertise, along with your non-technical skills and practice your answers before the interview.Hopefully you’ve thought about your past jobs and how they’ve shaped your career. (If you haven’t, read Jobs and Careers and Career Calculus.) Now, look at your progression throughout your career. Tell your story of the last five years: the experiences you had, the skills you learned, the lessons you learned, what you would do again and what you would not do again. When someone asks you where you want to be in five years, you can say, “Hmm, I’m not sure. Here’s my progression through the last five years. (Now tell your stories.) I couldn’t have foreseen this, but I’m looking to grow as a (developer, tester, writer, manager, whatever you are) and I’m willing to work hard to do so.”Without telling the interviewer the question is a bad question, you’ve answered with a behavior-description answer — valuable information for the interviewer. You don’t need a specific plan for the next five years, but you do need enough introspection to reflect on your past experiences to see where you’ve added value, so you can explain that to the interviewer.
March 12th, 2004
I was discussing how to hire a senior manager with a colleague the other day, and he said, “How do I know I’ll hire someone with integrity?” Good question.In my experience, a person requires at least dozen or so years of experience, taking on successively more technical leadership and/or more management tasks before the person is faced with a conundrum that taxes their integrity. Once a person has reached middle management, integrity problems become more frequent. And, from my coaching, I think integrity issues are a source of many of the problems of senior management.For any of these people a good starting question is: “Tell me about a time you had to make a difficult choice about which action to pursue. Why was the choice difficult and what did you choose?” You may hear any number of possible answers. If you heard a technical choice, ask a question like this, “Have you ever been in a position where a senior manager asked you to do something that you felt was inappropriate?” (You can substitute illegal or unethical for inappropriate, if you want to cut to the chase.) “What did you do?” Sit back and wait for the story.For senior managers, also consider questions in this vein:
- “Have you ever been in a position where you worked with a manager who asked you to do something unethical or illegal? What did you do? Would you do the same thing again, or would you do something different?” This is a behavior description question, followed by a hypothetical question. You can’t always believe the hypothetical answers, but you can ask more questions about how a person changes behaviors based on events in their lives.
- “Have you ever asked one of your staff to do something slightly shady (or unethical or illegal)? What was it? Why did you ask?” I have to admit, I’ve only asked this question twice, but both times I heard enlightening answers.
You can create auditions that deal with integrity. Place a management candidate in a position where the easy out is to give you information that the candidate doesn’t have or can’t obtain. See if the candidate can tell that he or she doesn’t know. Beware of creating an audition that allows you to spy on a candidate in an office. Once, someone described an audition that left the candidate alone with some papers on the desk and was gone for several minutes. Some candidates will look at the papers, thinking it’s information about the interview, such as who the candidate will see next, or some interim evaluation. That’s a trick audition, where if you can have several interpretations about the candidate’s behavior. I’d rather create an audition that judges the candidate’s actions in a particular situation.Evaluating integrity isn’t always clearcut. You can only ask these questions after you’ve built rapport with a candidate and the candidate is relaxed. But, you can always ask this question of a reference, “Can you give me an example of the candidate’s integrity in action?”Integrity is crucial for management candidates — especially the most senior management candidates. So think about how to ask the questions, and then ask. Consider an audition to check on integrity. Check on the answers with reference questions.
March 8th, 2004
I write a “management fix” column (alternating with Esther and Elisabeth) for Better Software and February’s column was “Two Candidates, One Position.” Enjoy!
Labels: hiring decision
March 3rd, 2004
In Michael’s comment to When Candidates and Interviewers Disagree About “The Answer” he raised a critically important point: how much does the the candidate know about this issue and how hard will the candidate push to make sure that the interviewer hears his or her side of the issue?First, let’s separate the two issues (I’ll bring them back later). Part of the technical interview is asking technical questions. Some of them have one right answer, “What’s a linked list?” But most technical answers have a variety of answers, best discussed in the context of the work the candidate has completed. “Give me an example of a time you used a linked list. Where did you have issues in design? In coding? In debugging? After the product was in the field for a few months? A few years?”That’s the easy part of asking technical questions. Now comes the hard part, the second part of the issue. Part of working in a technical group is being able to succeed in the culture of the group. If you work in a group that’s constantly challenging each other, you want to know if a candidate can succeed in that culture. So, you can ask questions that see how well a candidate deals with that environment. Part of the way you can determine whether the candidate can fit in the culture is to see how well the candidate answers questions that reflect the way the environment works.When I’m interviewing for a group that likes a lot of give and take, I make sure that the first couple of people on the interview team ask questions in a way that doesn’t require that back and forth — unless I’ve already explained the group’s culture to the candidate. I want to make sure the candidate is comfortable. Then, I’ll schedule the technical audition. Assuming the candidate has done well on the technical audition, I’ll then ask the next interviewer or two to ask more technical questions, looking for how well the candidate stands up to the interviewer. Here are some examples, especially post audition:
- For a tester: “That’s not really a defect.” I’m waiting for the tester to say, “Yes it is and here’s why.”
- For a developer: “That design doesn’t work.” I want to hear the developer say, “Sure it will, and here’s why.”
- For a project manager: “You can’t schedule a project that way.” I want to hear “Here’s why that schedule will work.”
You see the pattern. Take a piece of the work the candidate has just completed, disagree with it, and see what happens. As the interviewer, you especially want to hear why the candidate believes in that work.Consider when to ask these questions. If you need testers who can stand up to developers (a common problem), make sure to integrate these kinds of questions into the audition. Don’t ask, “How do you advocate for defects?” without also checking the answer to that question with an audition.Your interview style should reflect your culture, especially if you have an abrasive, challenging culture. Either explain the group’s culture to the candidate, or first help the candidate over his or expected nervousness with a couple of “easy” interviews. But certainly, don’t scrimp on interviews that test the candidate’s mettle, if he or she will deal with that every day. And, don’t forget to ask references about how well a candidate advocates for what he or she believes.For many organizations, whether they are challenging or not, consider using these kinds of questions after an audition. You’ll hear more about what the candidate was thinking.No matter what your culture, make sure you treat the candidate with respect. Even if you have a bunch of arrogant know-it-alls, there’s no reason to be rude to candidates.Michael, thank you for making me think harder about your comment
March 1st, 2004