In December, I presented a webcast called “Creating On-Target High Tech Job Descriptions for High Tech Workers”. I could have titled it “11 Questions for Analyzing a Job” 🙂 The PDF is here. Remember, it’s a presentation, not an article. So if you’re confused, please ask me questions.
I recently received an email asking me about salary ranges for architects and project managers. The author of the email wasn’t sure which job to take, and thought he’d make a decision based on money. Candidates, don’t make a decision based on money. Do what you love to do. Certainly there are people who are
I’m in Israel this week, teaching project management. In one class, a student asked, “How technical does a PM have to be?” The inevitable answer: it depends. A project manager needs to understand the dynamics behind the work of the project. I was teaching software (and hardware) project management today. A PM for a software
Take a look at Boston Red Sox: Backstop Your Business. (Read the PDF or the printer-friendly version.) Here’s my big take-away: You have to know what differentiates your top performers from everyone else — and it’s not a single dimension measurement. If you live in a yank-and-rank organization, figure out what you need to do
I’ve talk about ads that help candidates screen themselves in or out. Here’s a great example from Ikea: “We’re hiring Why-Sayers” See Phil Wolff’s entry for the details.
Sorin’s comment got me thinking. How do you make the decision that a candidate’s technical skills aren’t worth the candidate’s lack of relationship, communication, listening, or some other soft skill? Esther was talking about collaborative teams, so someone who won’t or can’t collaborate is not going to work in your environment. But there are
If you manage people, at some point, you’re going to deal with titles and job descriptions. Here are my perceptions about the constraints on titles: Make sure the titles for developers, testers, writers, anyone who performs project construction are parallel. That is, don’t have junior testers unless you also have junior developers. Make sure the
Take a look at Adam Kalsey’s post on Writing Realistic Job Descriptions. I particularly like this part: “Give people half a chance and they will pre-qualify themselves for a job. No one wants to take the time to send resumes and cover letters and never get a response. If you want to receive quality resumes
I’ve been working on an article for about a year now, trying to discuss how to decisions about which kinds of testers to hire when. The only good thing about working on an article that long is that I’m finally learning how to describe what I mean (I think). I’d like your feedback on these
Uh oh. I’m seeing laundry list job descriptions. You know, the kind of job description that so carefully bounds the job with so much technical tool skill, that no one could fit the job. If your job descriptions are laundry lists of tool skill, reconsider how you’re describing the job. I like to think about