I’ve been reading Pfeffer’s Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t and enjoying it a lot. I’ve had a few aha moments, and one has to do with networking for a new job. Here’s a quote: Consequently, an optimal networking strategy is to know a lot of different people from different circles, have […]
After returning from one of the dinners in Brussels at Belgium Testing Days, Mieke Gievers, one of the organizers said, “I don’t think people have the same passion about their jobs. They just want more money.” I, of course, disagreed. The reasons people want money is that organizations have broken the implicit social contract to
One of the ways I organize and plan for interviews is to use an interview matrix. I take the essential skills from the job analysis and use them in the interview matrix to decide who will ask which questions. No, I don’t make those decisions—I ask the interviewers who wants to ask which questions. Now
I spoke recently with a senior project manager who is looking for a new job. I offered to review her resume, and she told me she didn’t think she needed it. She had the “secret sauce” to a great resume: every single line on the resume answered the “so what” question. If she has some
Recently, I spoke with a hiring manager. He wanted to make sure a person he thought was overqualified for a position stayed in the job for two years. (!!) He was asking candidates to commit to his job for two years in the interview process. If an organization can commit to a candidate for two
I hear this story again and again. A hiring manager can’t find the right candidate. Why? You would think it would be easier to find great candidates, because so many people are out of work or are looking for better jobs. But that’s exactly why it’s so hard for hiring managers to find people–there are
Maybe you have a job or two open. You’re reluctant to pay more than you have to for a given position. I understand that employers want to get the biggest bang for their employment buck. I once consulted for an organization who had deliberately hired from the “bottom of the barrel.” (That was their phrase.)
I was reading, Nervous about an interview? Try this! and thought, hmm, I’ve said something like that before, haven’t I? I have, but in slides (for my Hiring for an Agile Team tutorial and workshop and in my other workshops) and in person, but not on this blog. So, let me say it here: Good
Summary: If you’ve been tasked with creating an agile team, first consider what differentiates an agile team from a non-agile team. In this week’s column, Johanna Rothman highlights six behaviors of people on successful agile teams that candidates for an agile team should possess. Are agile team members different from people on other teams? Yes
Andy Lester has written a great book about finding a job you love in any market. He thinks it’s just for technical people, but he’s wrong. It’s for anyone who wants to find a job that he or she can love. The first section is all about preparing to interview: knowing what you want in