Hiring Technical People

A Little More on How to Hire a Manager

Lisa has a nice post, How to Hire a Manager - A Time Tested Recipe. She’s close. I’m not so sure about the “humble” part, and I would add something like “advocates for team.”

But the piece Lisa missed is integrity. Without integrity, the other qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills are useless. To be fair, she implies it in her post. But I like making it explicit, because then I can ask questions such as, “Have you ever been in a position where the company wanted you to do something that went against your integrity? What happened?” If you want to ask about what the person learned, ask, “What did you learn from that experience?”

It’s possible that less seasoned managers have not been in an integrity-binding position, yet. I have yet to meet a manager who’s been managing for more than a couple of years who has not been in this position. When I’ve been in a position to hire managers (or to be hired as a manager), I want to know how the candidate has performed while in the integrity bind, or how my potential managers have performed.

1 commentJune 30th, 2008

Entry Filed under: manager, job analysis

Being Specific When Analyzing a Job

I led a 90-minute Hiring for an Agile Team workshop at AgileItx! this past week. I ask each team in the workshop to call out a candidate’s quality, preference, or non-technical skill that they look for in a team. One of the teams said, “teamwork.”

Well, teamwork means a lot of things to lots of people, and what this team meant was along the lines of “subordinating what a candidate wants for the good of the team” or “making sure the team meets its goals before attempting to meet my goals.” Those definitions are different to me. I prefer the second definition rather than the first.

But you can see, that even though these two definitions of teamwork are similar, they are not the same. And, if you only write down “teamwork” or “communication skills” or “team player”, even if you do perform a job analysis, you may not be in agreement with the rest of the hiring team as to what the skills are that you need.

When you analyze a job, avoid shorthand words. Spell out what you mean. If you mean “able to communicate across geographical distances and cultures and time zones verbally and in writing, without pissing off the people in East Nowhere,” say that. If you mean “able to present project status to senior management and help them understand it,” say that. Those are both examples of “communication skills,” but they are quite different communication skills.

The more specific you are when analyzing a job, the better your phone screen and interview questions are going to be. The more you’ll have interview team agreement on who is–and who is not–a great interview candidate.

1 commentJune 29th, 2008

Entry Filed under: job analysis

Why is Ageism Alive and Well?

One of the nice things about the social networking sites such as LinkedIn, is that they allow me to reconnect with people I worked with years ago. I recently re-met a colleague from my undergraduate days, and a colleague I worked with 25 years ago.

I mentioned to one of these colleagues’ peers that I’d know this person for over 30 years. His response was, “You don’t look old enough to retire.” !!!! My silent response: I’ve got news for you, buddy: people who start to work at 22, work for 43 years if they retire at 65. Maybe you missed addition in elementary school.

What I actually said was, “I’m not. Hey, with one in college and one soon to be, Mark and I may never retire. Even if I was ‘old enough to retire,’ why would I retire when I’m still learning and having fun?”

If this had been the only couple of conversations about ageism over the last couple of months, maybe I could ignore it. But when I met a colleague of long-standing (an old friend) at a conference, his hair was dark brown again. I asked him why. “I’d been passed over for a promotion to the C-level, so before I started my new job search, I dyed my hair to look younger.” Another C-level colleague asked me to explain to his staff we’d known each other for a few years, not the 15 years we’ve actually known each other and worked together.

Once I have more than one hand’s worth  of data, including, Age and Agile Are Orthogonal, I decided I wasn’t nuts about this, and people in our industry are discriminating about people over 40 or 50 or 60. (Until they meet me

HR folks: you and I know it’s illegal. Hiring managers, not only is it illegal to discriminate based on age, it automatically removes people from your consideration who may turn out to be some of the best employees you can hire. Some benefits of hiring a mature candidate can be:

• With any luck, the candidate has emotional maturity. That makes the candidate more able to ease into a team.
• More often, I see more mature candidates who are happy where they are. They don’t want your job. They don’t want to backstab you to get ahead. They want a reasonable job for a reasonable pay. Moving up the ladder makes no sense to them.
• They want to do good work, and they know what that is.
• They know how to pace themselves.
• They know (more than young candidates) how to evaluate options and not just pick the first option that appears.

Not all mature candidates are perfect. I’m certainly generalizing here. But let’s be clear: Turning 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 does not prevent someone from being a great employee. Will you have trouble getting that person to work a lot of overtime? I hope so–lots of overtime means lots of mistakes. Will you get someone who may have more adaptability? I hope so. Will you get someone who doesn’t have to be taught what a good job is? I hope so. I can’t guarantee these things, but in my experience, a more mature candidate can be a great employee.

Don’t discriminate based on age or what you think the person requires for salary. At least do a phone screen. You won’t be able to hire someone cheap to work all hours, but remember, you get what you pay for. Don’t rule a candidate out because you saw the date he or she graduated from university. You might get someone with one year of experience many times, see What’s a Year of Experience? But you might just find a great candidate who can help your team jell and help create a great product. Ageism is not helpful. Don’t help make it part of our industry.

4 commentsJune 24th, 2008

Entry Filed under: age, discrimination

What Are Your Expectations for New Grads?

Jack Vinson writes in New Grad Hires: Ready and Willing, but Are They Able?,

The solution is to hire people who have the general skills, capability, and/or experience you need and then train them in the missing aspects. That’s the way it has always been.

For technical staff, expect to spend time helping them develop interpersonal skills, such as being able to facilitate a conversation and come to consensus, how to give and receive feedback, how to work with other people. If you’re a new-ish manager, you may not have had specific training for these skills either. (Read Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management and practice.)

If you’re not sure how to interview new grads, read my column, Interviewing New College Grads.

3 commentsJune 6th, 2008

Entry Filed under: new grad, first day

What Makes a Great Technical Manager

Jurgen’s post, How to Select a Fine Technical Manager, along with the posts he responded to prompted this one. I’m not agreeing much with Jurgen today. I suspect it’s because we have very different experience. In my experience, only technical people who want to manage want to be managers–unless HR has screwed up the salary ranges. If the salary ranges don’t go high enough for technical staff to make a good living, they want to be managers to increase salary.

I addressed part of this question in How Technical Does a Project Manager Have to Be?. And the answers are similar for a people, not project, manager.

Technical managers need to have these technical skills: None.

Seriously, when was the last time you needed your manager to tell you how to solve a technical problem? Unless your manager is coaching you, the last time was when you only had a year or two of experience.

Technical managers need an in-depth understanding of the process by which the technical staff can perform the work. That may well mean an experience in where coding can trip developers up, where testers might have blind spots, how to help business analysts talk to the people who have requirements and how to translate those requirements into user stories, and so on. But the manager does not need to be the star of the group–and in many cases, the star is not interested in management, so makes a bad manager.

What’s way more important is all the interpersonal skills. Here are some from the chapter in Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers…:

• Provide effective feedback.
• Influence and negotiation skills.
• Problem solving and decision-making. Managers need to be able to solve problems and make decisions in the face of ambiguity.
• Delegation.
• Ability to manage things, such as projects or groups of tasks. Technical people don’t need supervisors; they need leadership, guidance, and effective decision-making, especially when faced with too many options or insufficient information.
• Ability to observe current state and choose another action to change state.

Jurgen goes on to say

Give the job to a technical person who never asked for it.

Well, I don’t buy that either. I have asked people who were critical of management if they wanted to try it. Some organizations make effective management just about impossible. I was a middle manager, had a technical lead who was critical of everything, and asked him if he wanted to try management for a few months. He lasted three months, and gave up. I told him not every place was as screwed up as that one, and to try management again later.

Potential managers need to want to work with people. They need to make decisions without enough information. They need to wean themselves off the technical work. They need to learn how to hire, give feedback, and all kinds of other management skills. (To see how great managers work, read Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management.) But they don’t need to be dumped into a management role, or think they aren’t good at technology and that’s why they’re managers.

BTW, if you’re wondering, I started my career as a developer, did some small-project management and people management starting once I’d been working a few years, still developing. I became a tester and took on a bunch of project management and coordination work because I liked it. After a couple of years, I became a full-time project and program manager. After a few years, I became a manager, then a group manager, then a director. Then, I went back to developing test code for a while, then a manager, then a consultant. Don’t think you need a linear career path. You can try management and return to your technical work if you don’t like it or if you’re not ready for more responsibility. But don’t try management unless you want to work with people. Management is a people-centric role.

4 commentsMay 27th, 2008

Entry Filed under: manager, hiring strategy

Q&A with the Recruiting Animal

For the recruiter interview series, I had a conversation with the Recruiting Animal:

JR: How long have you been in the recruiting field?
RA: Over ten years.

JR: Do you have any specialties?

RA: I’m a generalist but I have done a number ofsearches for internal auditors in recent years. I have also worked on teams recruiting a wide range of people for large public sector organizations. Years ago, I specialized in technical sales reps for hardware and software companies.

JR: What do you think hiring managers should know about recruiters?

RA: That we go crazy when they push us to bring people in quickly and then drag their feet on the interviews. This is most relevant for large organizations. (JR editorial comment: For smaller companies too! Sigh.) I’ve recruited Audit Managers for large accounting firms and had the partners take so long to schedule the interviews that the candidates were hired by other people before we even got rolling. Some of these people hadn’t even been looking for a new job but once we got them thinking about it they were ready to go.

Here’s the worst example. I once recruited an instructional designer for security software programming. I don’t think there was anyone better in the country. This person lived two thousand miles away but was coming to Toronto for one day on his way to write some certification exams in another city.

The client organization had a rule that candidates had to be interviewed by three people. Only two of the interviewers could make it to the interview on the one day the candidate was in town so the company couldn’t extend an offer. (He was hired a month and a half later but I can’t remember how the problem was resolved).

That’s more of a bureaucratic problem though than merely as scheduling problem.

JR: What do you think candidates should know about recruiters?
RA: Well, they should know that third party recruiters work for the client company. And we don’t like it when they try to claim strengths that they don’t really have.

I was recruiting a Director of HR for a large international resources company. They needed someone who had strong experience in pensions and benefits. Not every HR person is financially oriented but few would admit it.

I had to force them into a corner conversationally in order pin them down and get a clear answer. By that time, I knew that they were feeling hostile toward me and it didn’t endear them to me either. If they don’t have the experience they are going to get knocked out so they might as well do it gracefully.

JR: What do you think internal recruiters should know about external recruiters?
RA: I don’t deal with many internal recruiters. I work directly with hiring managers or with other recruiters on an external recruiting team.

I do have a message for the relationship managers in that situation. Don’t be afraid to go back to the client and ask for more information. Sometimes these guys don’t want to look dumb so they don’t ask too many questions and we have to start the search with minimal information.

I guess that’s a recommendation for recruiters who have a deep knowledge of a certain field. They have more of a chance of understanding the requirements without coaching.

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Recruiting Animal does a talk show, The Recruiting Animal Show. If you’re a recruiter or a hiring manager who’s interested in recruiting, give it a listen.

3 commentsMay 16th, 2008

Entry Filed under: recruiter interview

Using Your Network

I found my first job with the help of an on-campus recruiter, and with a local Boston-area recruiter. I found my second job through the newspaper. I’ve found all my other jobs (all of them, including my consulting engagements) via my network, which does include recruiters. That’s about 25 years of jobs.

Louise Fletcher has a great post about companies responding to online applicants, Is there Anybody Alive Out There? Sure, companies are not responding, so what’s a candidate to do? Network.

Candidates: Let me echo Louise’s advice: If you’re not on LinkedIn, join now. Stop reading and go there, join, fill out at least part of your profile, and then come back here. Find the people you’ve worked with before, invite them. Recommend a few of them. The more you recommend, the more likely they are to recommend you. (I’m not affiliated with LinkedIn. I receive no money from this endorsement.)

Is this a pain in the tush? Yup. And, it’s worth it. I know that some of my recommendations have made a difference in people calling me for consulting engagements.

If you’ve been working for more than 3 or 4 years, you’ll need your network just to find good recruiters, if that’s one of your job-seeking strategies.

Hiring managers: If you want the ability to know a little about a candidate before you phone screen or interview them, or if you want to do a behind-the-scenes reference check, you need to be on LinkedIn also.

I don’t recommend Facebook or Myspace for professional networking. You can’t see the connections or recommendations. My kids use Facebook to post pictures and gab with their friends. It’s for social networking, not for professional networking. No, I’m not friends with my kids. That’s just wrong. But when they graduate from college and are ready to increase their professional networks, I will connect with them on LinkedIn, offering them the use of my network.

You need to be ready to offer something to your network connections, and a recommendation is a great way to start.

It’s rare for a more senior person to find a job without networking, so make sure you pay attention to your network (whether you are looking or not), and manage it.

Add commentMay 13th, 2008

Entry Filed under: network

How Do You Know if a Recruiter is Trustworthy?

Matt Buckland had some great comments about my post Why You Should Make Friends with Recruiters. In his post, Why you should make friends with Recruiters, Matt rebutted a couple of points (which is just fine!). He made a great point at the bottom:

I’d add one major exception to the list, make friends with a recruiter you trust.

So the question is: How do you know if a recruiter is trustworthy? There are two parts to the answer, and I’m assuming we’re talking about external recruiters here, not people who are part of your company.

Part 1: Looking for trustworthiness if you’re a hiring manager:

• Is your recruiter willing to work with you on your hiring strategy and job description? You might not know exactly what you’re looking for at the beginning of a search, and a good recruiter is, at least partially, a consultant.
• Does your recruiter trust you to do your own phone screens? I stopped working with a recruiter who tried to assure me he knew best. BS.
• If the recruiter offers the job to the candidate, does he or she offer exactly what you explained the offer was? I’ve never let a recruiter offer a job to one of my potential hires, but some hiring managers do.

Part 2: Looking for trustworthiness if you’re a candidate:

• Does your recruiter want a blank check to send your resume to his/her client companies? If you’ve been working for more than three or four years, you know a bunch of the local people in your field. (Ok, I hope you do.) You and the recruiter should expect to talk about places to send your resume.
• Does your recruiter blast your resume to “everyone who’s hiring” without considering whether you would be right for the organization or the hiring manager? If so, run away.
• Does your recruiter not want to show you your resume on his/her letterhead? I stopped working with certain recruiters when I was a candidate and a hiring manager, when I realized they just *lied* about me or their candidates.

What other actions help you know if a recruiter is trustworthy?

1 commentMay 9th, 2008

Entry Filed under: recruiting

Why You Should Make Friends with Recruiters

In response to my first recruiter interview, a colleague wrote in with the reasons he stays in touch with recruiters:

• Some of the best jobs / candidates are rarely advertised
• If you refer people to your friend the recruiter, there is the possibility of a finders fee
• They can keep you aware of trends in the local market
• You might be able to get a free lunch every so often

I still keep in touch with recruiters I’ve known for over 30 years. When I refer someone to these people, my referral means something. I’ve even sold books and landed one consulting engagement based on meeting someone through a recruiter.

Think about it and make friends with a recruiter today!

2 commentsMay 6th, 2008

Entry Filed under: recruiting

Q&A With Dave Freireich

I decided to start a new series, interviewing recruiters. It’s not clear to me that either my hiring manager colleagues or candidate colleagues are using recruiters as well as they could be. Here’s the first interview with Dave Freireich, one of the authors of Getting the Job. I loved his An interview is a blind date. Don’t screw it up.

JR: Please tell my readers a little about you. How long have you been in the recruiting field?
Dave: 9 or more years, at least 5 or 6 focused solely on delivering great software engineering talent to companies on the frontier of software development.

JR: Do you have any specialties?
Dave: Yes. Very passionate, energetic, quirky, extraordinarily skilled software developers. We introduce them to the companies that make them happy. Win win.

JR: What do you think hiring managers should know about recruiters?
Dave: I wish hiring managers knew how difficult it makes our jobs (as external recruiters) when they try to make us work only through internal/corporate recruiters. It’s not possible for us to do a great job unless we interface with the team we are recruiting for as well.

JR: What do you think candidates should know about recruiters?
Dave:I think they should learn how to QUALIFY recruiters. We have a lot of information on our blog about this. I talk to a lot of candidates who I could have gotten a job at one of our clients that failed because they were submitted by another recruiter who didn’t help them prepare to do well in the interview.

JR: What do you think internal recruiters should know about external recruiters?
Dave:We are not the enemy. We are a part of the team. We may have some things to teach you. You may have some things to teach us. Together we’ll make the team win.

JR: How has blogging made a difference in your ability to attract clients and candidates?
Dave: Blogging helps solidify their comfort with us. We hold ourselves to a much higher standard than ordinary recruiters. The blog is the place where we talk about how and why we do that. I am able to get responses from candidates when I send them an email whereas 95% of my competition would not. The candidates check our corporate page and blog and can assess that I have been in the business for a while and know what I’m talking about.
JR: What kinds of differences are you noticing about high tech candidates compared to the candidates of 3-5 years ago and 6-10 years ago?
Dave: I don’t see a lot of difference in the candidates. They are always bright, energetic, concerned people who have an interest in bettering themselves and the companies they work for. Each one is totally individual and in a unique situation but they all have the same needs-growing.

Dave’s bio: Dave Freireich started Core Search Group, the company that has this mission:
“Bridge the divide between proven software engineering talent and the companies on the frontier of software development.”

1 commentApril 29th, 2008

Entry Filed under: recruiter interview