John Sumser is writing a series of articles about the hiring paradox on HR Examiner. Read the first one, The Hiring Paradox (Skills Gap 1). The gist is this: It takes more time to hire when you have more alternatives. And, boy oh boy, do employers have more alternatives right now. What I found fascinating […]
I realize that many successful technical people have degrees. But the former Yahoo CEO was canned for lying on his resume about a bachelor’s degree Computer Science. Now, let’s think about this for a minute. A senior manager with 20 years of experience who felt the need to lie about a bachelor’s degree? Why does
You’ve been unemployed for a over a year. You’re looking for a job. You have not been sitting home, eating bon-bons. You’ve been contributing to open-source projects, or studying for a certification, and networking like there’s no tomorrow. You have not found another job yet. So, what do you say when hiring managers, HR people,
I’ve been reviewing job descriptions from clients that are a laundry list of tools. Or, that ask for “significant experience” with a particular technology. No, no, no. People are not tools. They are human beings who have specific qualities, preferences, and technical and non-technical skills. When you think about those personal qualities, think about these
I recently spoke with a recruiter. “I don’t understand the QA market anymore. No one is hiring except for agile people. And they want people who are developers. What’s happening to QA?” Manual testing was never quality assurance; it was testing. And, manual testing is low-value, high cost work, especially when you compare it to
I just read Most Likely to Succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job? by Malcolm Gladwell. He talks about how a football recruiter agonized over his decisions: …“This guy threw lasers, he could throw under tight spots, he had the arm strength, he had the size, he had
“I need another tester for my team” – Test Manager “I’m looking for a developer/architect/someone senior for my team” – Development manager Two managers, two teams. Although each manager has a group he calls a team, the teams are quite different. The test manager has a pool of people whom he assigns to projects in
I was talking to a relatively young developer the other day, and I asked him about his career plans. “Oh, I don’t do career planning myself,” he said. “I wait until my manager talks to me.” Oops. While it’s true that some managers are interested in and want to coach you through your career planning,
As part of an interview, a reporter asked me what the single biggest mistake managers make when hiring. Unfortunately, I see three common mistakes: Hiring based on a tools checklist (some number of years of Java or WinRunner or some other tool) as opposed to hiring someone who can adapt his/her knowledge to the products
Laurent has a great posting on Hiring Programmers. Note that he doesn’t say people have to be great writers. On the contrary, the bar is fairly low: awareness of spelling and typos, introduction, structured discussion, conclusion — that’s it. My kids practice this kind of writing all the time in school (in preparation for the