Jason Yip’s Hail Mary software development talks about what happens when you defer all the finishing to the end of the project. In the dashboard chapter of the book, I have a sidebar called “How Can We Have No Completed Work?” which talks about exactly the same thing. The more serial your lifecycle, or
So you’ve interviewed a candidate you like. The interview went well. You’re checking references, and thinking of making an offer. This time is a perfect opportunity to market the job.You haven’t finished selling during the interview until you’ve extended an offer and the candidate has accepted the offer. With any luck, you learned what the
A reader emailed me and asked, “how do I interview a manager who will be my superior?”The short answer is the same way you interview peers. However, your feelings about your position or your potential boss’ position (or even someone “higher” than one level above you) will certainly influence how you feel and how you
I don’t normally market a job or “sell” a candidate during an interview. I have found that by asking great interview questions, and having everyone on the interviewing team ask great interview questions, I don’t need to sell. One of my clients is convinced that they need to sell during the interview. If you too,
So you’ve got a job description that offers an opportunity, not a job. You’ve come to terms with how you see the value of the job. Now it’s time to start looking for people–candidates–to help fill that job. One way to make a job highly attractive is if you, the hiring manager, actively participate in
We’re on our way home from a ski vacation. Mark’s the driver; I’m the navigator. This morning (in the dark at 5:30am), Mark said, “I don’t need a GPS. I already have a voice to direct me.” I, of course, cracked up. Labels: humor, personal
Part of making a job attractive is to market it well. But you can’t market it if you don’t respect it. So the first part in marketing is to come to terms with how you feel about the job. Are you hiring someone to do something you consider “grunt” work? That’s a hard job to
A number of my clients and colleagues are struggling with the problem of bringing people into their organizations. In Hiring the Best …, I recommend the buddy system for bringing people on. I wrote a little article, How2 Create a Buddy (Informal Mentoring) Program. But maybe you didn’t know that, or can’t figure out how
The first step in making a job attractive is to create a job that’s an opportunity for someone, not just a job (Adler). An opportunity allows people to grow in some dimension, not just do the same-old, same-old. That means you need to develop a hiring strategy, and do a job analysis so you can