hiring strategy

Why You Want to Hire Older People

This morning, I read For Economy, Aging Population Poses Double Whammyย (registration required). If you don’t read the WSJ, here are some interesting takeaways: On average, every 10% increase in the share of stateโ€™s population over the age of 60 reduced per capita growth in gross domestic product by 5.5%. … The authors note: โ€œAn older …

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Five Tips to Hiring a Generalizing Specialist

We talk a lot in agile about generalizing specialists. Scott Ambler has a terrific essay on what a generalizing specialist is: Has one or more technical specialties… Has at least a general knowledge of software development. Has at least a general knowledge of the business domain in which they work. Actively seeks to gain new …

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Creating a Succession Plan for Your Technical Team

We often think about a succession plan for managers. But, if you’re not thinking about a succession plan for your technical team, you’re falling prey to local shortages, and hiring the same old kinds of people. You’re not getting diverse people. That means you may not be able to create innovative, great products. It also …

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Hiring for an Agile Team: Create the Agile Interview

When I talk about interviewing an agile team, many people think, “Oh, we should pair!” and that’s it. But, many teams don’t pair regularly. If you pair in the interview and you don’t pair at work, you have an incongruent interview. That’s not helpful to you or your candidate. Instead, you want to create an …

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Hiring for an Agile Team: Look for the Growth Mindset

I said in Hiring for an Agile Team: Making Tradeoffs, that we have a shortage of qualified people for the open agile positions. That’s based on anecdotal evidence, i.e. every hiring manager I talk to who says, “Johanna, I can’t find any agile people.” Most of the time, their ads are broken. But, once we …

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