While perusing some of the Joel on Software discussions, I saw the pointer to “Mini-me” syndrome…a major hiring risk for companies. Heather discusses her concerns: Recruiting from certain schools can prevent you from hiring the best — because that recruiting limits your intake of candidates. It tightens your screen before you’ve even gotten to resume […]
If you’ve been interviewing for a limited number of open positions, you know how hard it is to decide between two great candidates. If you’re already asking behavior-description questions about work and cultural fit, consider adding auditions to your interviewing toolbox. Watch a Candidate in Action Auditions help you see a candidate work—either literally or
My colleague, a senior manager, is inundated with too much to do. Hundreds of emails, seven of hours of meetings every day, hundreds of emails, hiring the next level managers so he doesn’t have to backfill, project portfolio management, and backfill of those management roles not yet filled. My colleague is trying to manage
Read “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes”, and when you’re done chuckling, note the necessary ideas: His point #5: throw away reference books. This works for all first drafts. I don’t care if you’re writing a novel, a spec, or code. It works. Interrupting flow and what do you
Take a look at these links: Tricks of the Trade, thanks to Dave Liebriech. When I was a tester, I read the code (this tip is far down on the list.) I’m not sure the developers appreciated my questions, but if I didn’t understand something, I asked. Here’s a tip I learned for people
I had lunch with a friend-of-a-friend today. She’s considering moving to a process improvement position. I suggested she not move from a technical lead to a process improvement position — I don’t trust staff positions in this not-yet-robust economy. So I asked her why not do process improvement where she is, in her circle
Thanks to Brian Marick, I read Dave Thomas’s Weeding Out Bugs. Much of Bug-Weeding is developer turf. But here’s what managers can do to help: Look at defect counts by module. When you see a module that has more than it’s fair share of defects, start asking questions about what the developers are considering. You’ll
Candidates need to know where they stand — from the time you receive a resume until you’ve either hired them or rejected them. Make sure your autoresponses — or real rejection letters — don’t look like this: Subject: Got your pathetic resume. To: (name withheld out of decency) Look: We here at insult.com got this
I was reading Hiring Great Hackers, and I realized what went wrong in the places I’ve worked who hired great hackers. (In this case, a hacker is not a derogatory term, it’s someone who lives and breathes producing great software — just not software that yet has a customer base.) The problem was the
Esther‘s here this week (again), so we can finish the pre-review draft of the book. We’re telling the story of a great manager who’s just arrived to a new organization. We describe meetings ,where we wanted to say “Everyone nodded.” I wanted to add “like bobble-headed dolls.” While that’s humorous, it’s not very respectful to