It’s funny how sometimes you’re in the middle of dealing with a particular topic and it seems that everywhere you look you find pertinent articles. We are actively looking for experienced .Net developers to add to our small staff in Saint Paul, MN. Given that we develop manufacturing software, we also have a strong desire to find people with a manufacturing background. Given the right candidate, I personally do not believe the manufacturing lingo is a barrier – it translates to a few types of core algorithms for handling bills of material, routings, etc.. However the type of person that can see through the lingo, actively attack the problem domain and quickly understand the root issues is a rarity.
I’ve come across a number of articles discussing how to attract qualified candidates and even some articles that question the concept of ‘qualified’. I read Peter Coffee’s article discussing Google’s unique hiring process(here and here). He poses the point “the company would rather turn away a dozen people who might have worked out than hire just one who turns out to be toxic to the organization. He then turns around and poses the point that
“A players hire A players, B players hire C players and C players hire losers. Let your standards slip once and your only two generations away from death.”
Coffee gets that quote from Joe Kraus’ entrepreneurial blog which poses some very good points topped by the title – “hiring no false positives”. But after reading the rest of Kraus’ blog, I found his entry ‘Hiring: Sabermertics for startups?’ to be extremely thought provoking. Kraus discusses his introduction to the book ‘Moneyball’ and its look at the recruiting practices of the Oakland A’s who consistently compete in the postseason against teams with 4 times the payroll outlay. Unlike the A’s, we are paying competitive salaries in the industry, but the article certainly makes you question the concept “the right fit”.
On the other side of the spectrum, I came across somebody's blog entry today that talked about IT employees being 'tools'. (Sorry, I cannot remember whose blog this came from and do not have a link.) This blog entry made me happy I work for software company where our product is our focus. The unknown blogger states that IT employees are tools, if they stay off the problem radar they are doing their job and are unrecognized for the efforts. That's depressing!
I think interviewing can be fun if you go at it with the right attitude, especially being the interviewee. I learned early in my career that being interviewed is the least of my concerns, and that interviewing the people put in front of me is the most important thing I can do during the process. The trick is making the questions probing without putting the interviewer on the defensive. (However a defensive interviewer can also tell you practically everything you need to know without opening their mouth.) I've always wanted to interview with Microsoft to see how I would do. Perhaps Google would be just as interesting. I think these processes are interesting and taking a run at it would be fun. But I really can't walk into an interview situation without specifically wanting the job and being fully engaged in the possibilities of such an offering.