I may not have been blogging much these days, but I have been busy. I’ve posted three templates to my website. Job analysis template (in pdf) Job description template (in pdf) Job advertisement template (in pdf) As with all templates, the key is in the writing. I’m still organizing m site, so if you want […]
In description prescription, Don Blohowiak asks the question, “How much of a factor do you think job descriptions are in influencing what people do at work all day?” (None is his cynical answer :-)Part of the manager’s job is to review those job descriptions during the year and see where people are outperforming their description
Dave Liebreich has a post Job Descriptions Made Easy, where he describes the value of following the job analysis template in Hiring the Best …and a technique to use Tinderbox to see the job analysis. Cool.
Amit Rathmore has a thought-provoking essay, Recruiting and the Butterfly Effect. His conclusion is that the people closest to the founding team need to be the ones interviewing candidates, so that the newest hires are as close the ideals and capabilities as the original hires. My only quibble with Amit is that this technique does
Let me pose a situation facing one of my clients now. Their business is expanding, and they’ve agreed to develop a product that’s tangential to their current product line. This new product requires a new piece. If you’re a software company, imagine it’s a piece of hardware. If you’re a hardware company, imagine it’s software.
Auren Hoffman has an intriguing post, It is too risky not to take a risk, suggesting that people take what appears to be the “risky” job rather than the safe job.I see it differently. I don’t see jobs as risks, but as opportunities. I tried to select my jobs based on where I would learn
During a recent workshop, one of the hiring managers asked, “How do we attract people to unattractive jobs, such as contract or temporary positions?” The first thing is to change your mindset. This job might be unattractive to you, but it’s bound to be attractive to other people. This job is an opportunity to some
I’ve ranted about certifications before. But I recently encountered another job description with a certification that I just don’t understand. For a Quality Manager (not a Director or VP), the description asked for PMP. (The PMP is the PMI’s certification for project managers.) Here’s why I think requiring any certification is nuts: all the certification
I’m having an email conversation with someone who’s trying to hire some developers. He said, “For some reason, I think that developer who is comfortable in Lisp can take on any project, because I do know Lisp, and I feel that I can take on any project :)” Unfortunately, I don’t buy the transitive property
My colleague, Will, has been attempting to hire developers. He’s a bit frustrated. Take a look at Explaining the tech job market. Will is frustrated with the level of competence he’s seeing in candidates. That prompted him to discover Parnas’s Law of Hiring: Parnas’s Law: The more incompetent developers you hire, the more you need.