Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
In the software industry, we toss around terms such as “Holacracy,” “meritocracy,” and “collaborative environment.” We claim to hire for skills. That’s not what I see. I see hiring managers hiring people just like them (mini-me’s), people who went to their schools, make similar life choices, and are roughly the same age. That’s because these …
Continue reading “Do You Hire for Confidence, Comfort or Capability?”
I’m a big fan of auditions in an interview. (I have many posts about auditions in this blog.) However, some hiring managers and teams push interviewing and auditions too far. When you’ve had three interviews, and your interviewer asks you to solve a problem for them—again—is it a hiring issue, or are they asking you …
I retweeted a link to Here’s a Thing: There’s No Correlation Between a College Degree and Coding Ability. I was a bit surprised by some of the reactions to that link. One colleague said, “I question whether people who wait until a college assignment to learn to code have the same obsessive interest in the topic.” …
Continue reading “Do You Need a Degree to be Hired to Develop Software?”
Have you seen Nick Korbel’s series about hiring techies? See On Hiring Techies. There are several posts: Evaluate Potential, Not Accomplishments. He’s talking about evaluating qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills. Coding Challenge: A pre-interview audition. The cool thing is that they then discuss the audition in the interview. The Team Interview. I dislike panel interviews. …
See Three Tips to Streamline Your Hiring, Part 1, Three Tips to Streamline Your Recruiting, Part 2, and Three Tips to Streamline Your Phone Screens, Part 3 to see our story to here. When my client talked about his interviews for developers, he said, “I interview people on the phone and then ask the candidate …
Continue reading “Three Tips to Streamline Your Interviews and Auditions, Part 4”
My client in Part 1, where we talked about streamlining your analysis, was also having trouble finding people. He needed to hire two developers. He just “knew” there was a boom in Boston, and could not hire more people. Well, considering I had just been at a SPIN meeting the night before and met people …
Continue reading “Three Tips to Streamline Your Recruiting, Part 2”
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 …
Continue reading “Hiring for an Agile Team: Create the Agile Interview”
I saw a post on a google+ circle that I can’t post to, because I’m not part of the circle. The author has a pretty good hiring process. But, it doesn’t quite help the author learn enough about the candidate fast. The interviewing meanders. Here’s my process from Hiring Geeks That Fit, after you’ve done …
Continue reading “How Does Your Hiring Help You Learn About the Candidate?”
Your interview questions and your auditions should sell people on working for you. It’s that simple. You don’t need to sell people on working for your company. When I teach interviewing, that’s what I teach. And, every single time, my workshop participants roll their eyes and don’t believe me until we start crafting their interview …
Continue reading “Are Your Interview Questions Selling People on Your Organization?”
I’ve been trying to record movies to promote my books. I have not been successful. I don’t like the lighting. I sound funny–not ha-ha. I sound strange, like a Stepford wife. Not me at all. So I decided to go for really not me at all, in my first promotional movie for Hiring Geeks That …