Hiring Technical People

Hiring for an Agile Team: Possible Questions

Way back in November, I taught a half-day tutorial called “Hiring for an Agile Team” at Agile Development Practices. The participants had several questions I thought you might find useful.

Several participants wanted to know how a candidate would deal with challenging others and taking “criticism” during the workday. They had these questions:

1. Tell me about a time when you participated in a debate on differences of opinion
2. Tell me about a time when you went along with a team decision you disagreed with
3. Tell me about a time you needed info from elsewhere but were initially unable to get it

All of these questions help an interviewer see how a candidate manages the day-to-day interactions with others, including the issue of initiative and getting along with a team.

Several participants thought they needed people who were “out of the box” thinkers. (No, I don’t know what that means, those were the participants’ words.)

1. Tell me about a time when you were successful at getting/having the team take a different approach?
2. Tell me about a time when you challenged the team’s direction.

Some participants were more interested in how a candidate would remove impediments to the team:

1. Tell me about your day to day activities as a scrum master
2. Tell me about your most challenging impediment on your most recent project

When I lead this tutorial, I always hear about “negative feedback.” Esther has renamed this to correcting feedback, and I much prefer her term.

1. Tell me about a time you received feedback. How did you respond to it?

This question could be about reinforcing feedback too (what other people call positive feedback).

Several people wanted to know about flexibility in terms of role:

1. Tell me about a time you started in one rule and transitioned to another role?

This question partially answers some of the commenters in Why Projects Don’t Need Specialists.

None of these questions might be right for your team or candidates, but maybe they’ll suggest questions that fit for you.

1 commentJanuary 1st, 2009

Entry Filed under: agile hiring, interview question

Hope 2009 is a Great Year for You

Thank you for reading and commenting as it fits for you. I hope you have a great 2009.

Add commentJanuary 1st, 2009

Entry Filed under: blog

Defining Fake Auditions

George asked in a comment what a fake audition was. Finally, I’m ready to discuss this. (Sorry for the delay, George.)

A fake audition is when the audition is incongruous with the situation. In the situation described in A Second Chance Audition, the candidate cared about the outcome of the first audition, but the audience did not. The interviewer was not balancing his needs to see the candidate with the candidate’s need to work in a real situation. Although the candidate felt as if this was a real work situation, the audience did not. That kind of unevenness, a lack of congruence is what makes a fake audition.

George’s comment explains how the audition is fake for everyone, which is congruent. I’m curious to know how well the audition is working over time. I’m not fond of role-plays as auditions, but if everyone is playing a role, that works better than when one person is doing some work for real and the others are role-playing.

When you create auditions, make them congruent. That is, make the situation real or fake, but be consistent. Don’t make it real for the candidate and fake for everyone else. That’s capitalizing on the interviewer’s power in the interview and many candidates’ perception of the lack of their power. It’s not respectful and it doesn’t help the candidate show their skills.

2 commentsDecember 22nd, 2008

Entry Filed under: audition

Using LinkedIn for Recommendations

While I draft an answer to George’s fake audition question, let me address Alex’s question about using LinkedIn for recommendations.

I use LinkedIn, especially for coaching recommendations. I don’t know if it helps me get more clients, but I keep thinking it should

Just remember, a recommendation is not a reference. A recommendation does not address any specific concerns you might have about a potential candidate (or a potential employer). A recommendation is just that: data that one person liked something about another person.

So use them, but don’t rely on them for references. After all, how can you tell if what one person liked is something you would like?

1 commentDecember 10th, 2008

Entry Filed under: network, reference

I Check References Each and Every Time I Extend An Offer

Jurgen surprised me in a comment, when he said that only the worst employees provided references. He said he doesn’t check references.

I was astonished. I check references each and every time I extend an offer. I check references for people who do work on our house. I check references for people we ask to stay overnight with our children. I check references for people who work on my web site. I don’t pay someone without having done a reference check. No, I did not check references for Mark (my husband), but I did ask the people who introduced us what they knew about him.

I was wondering, why is my experience and preference so different than Jurgen’s?

Well, I check recent references. I don’t check references back to the beginning of time. And, I focus my reference checks on areas that I have concerns about for this job. I don’t pay attention to what references say that I think is irrelevant. Years ago, I was checking references for a release engineer, and the previous manager said, “He always wants us to integrate all the time. I think that’s because he doesn’t want to do his job.” !!!! (For those of you who don’t know about software, continuous integration is a key way to reduce risk in the project and shorten the project duration. This guy was doing an outstanding job for a clueless manager.)

When I check references, I use behavior-description questions about the issues I care most about. I usually ask somewhere between 5-7 questions, making sure I can keep the reference check to about a half hour. So I don’t ask about everything. I ask about what’s most important, and I timebox that time.

Jurgen’s point about not holding everything in a person’s past against them is a good point. But if they haven’t changed behavior, I do want to know that. Read all of Jurgen’s post, No, I Will NOT Call Your Ex-Boss.

10 commentsDecember 7th, 2008

Entry Filed under: reference

A Second Chance Audition

John Cook pointed me to this gem: a second look - generosity 3. It’s the story of a fake audition that was dissatisfactory and how another real audition helped the author get a great job.

Avoid those fake auditions. People don’t perform as well as they would in more real circumstances.

3 commentsDecember 4th, 2008

Entry Filed under: audition

Asking for References

Recently, a colleague whom I know from my writings and speaking asked me for a reference. I’ve never seen him work and I explained I could not provide a reference. He was quite angry with me.

In Choose Enough References, I suggest asking people who can explain the value of your work. Let me be more explicit: Do not ask people for references who cannot attest to how you work. Don’t do it.

The value of a reference is in the specifics and enthusiasm of the reference. Last night, I gave a reference for a former babysitter who’s looking for a live-out nanny position. I was enthusiastic, told stories about how wonderful she was when my children were little, medium, and even as young teenagers, when Mark and I needed to be away overnight. The woman who asked for the reference said I must have said the word “wonderful” at least 200 times. That’s the kind of enthusiasm you want to engender in your references.

Ask people for references, and make sure they can attest to the value of your work. Don’t ask people who haven’t worked with you directly, even if you think having them as a reference would be helpful. Unless you’ve worked with a VP who was three levels above you, don’t ask unless there is some project you worked on with the VP.

Being a reference is an honor and a responsibility. Don’t ask someone to take on the responsibility unless you know that person and that person knows your work.

3 commentsDecember 2nd, 2008

Entry Filed under: reference

What Hiring Managers Look for in a Resume

A colleague suggested I chat with a more junior person about his job search. I’m trying, but I’m having trouble understanding what this guy does. His resume is too long and doesn’t have what I need in it. I don’t think he’s alone, so here’s what hiring managers look for on a resume.

1. Your address. Yes, the hiring manager wants to know if you’re local. An email address is not enough. You need a street address and phone number also.
2. Where have you worked? I want to see the companies, and under the companies, the projects that you’ve worked on. Don’t overwhelm me with the number of projects you’ve worked on.
3. What value have you added to the project? What did you accomplish? Don’t tell me you reviewed documents or code so that you could understand the requirements. Everyone does that. What unique value did you add?
4. Do not list every single language you ever studied in school, every operating system, every database, every variant of every operating system unless that is somehow material to the job. Honestly, do you really want me to test you on the C++ or the Smalltalk or the Lisp or Forth or the Algol (does anyone learn that anymore?) or PL/1 or Fortran you once learned. Don’t tempt me. I will.
5. You have two pages to catch my attention. If you have a resume longer than 2 pages, I might not throw it out, but a bunch of my colleagues will. Especially if you have less than 20 years of experience. That means that #3, describing the value you’ve added to a project is critical.
6. Ask someone to review your English (or whatever language you are writing in) if you are not a native speaker of the language.

When I see a resume of more than 2 pages from a person with fewer than 15 years of experience, I generally put it in the No pile. That’s because the candidate is not attempting to show me good judgement about their accomplishments.

You have maybe 30 seconds to catch a hiring manager’s attention. Don’t waste the hiring manager’s time. That means you need to spend the time writing a great resume. You spend the time so the hiring manager will spend theirs.

If you think you need more guidance, read Louise Fletcher’s blog. She helps people write resumes for a living.

5 commentsNovember 19th, 2008

Entry Filed under: resume

Change Adjectives to Abilities

I taught my “Hiring for Agile Teams” workshop at ADP today, and finally have words for something I’ve seen for a while. When I ask people to describe qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills, they say things like “easy-going” or “intuitive” or something else that describes behavior. Since I love behavior-description questions, you’d think this would be perfect, right? Nope. They’re not describing abilities, which is the key.

To change “easy-going” into abilities, I asked what easy-going looked like. The person said, “Relaxed in the interview.” I asked if the person would just interview or do other work. “Do other work.” We went back and forth for a bit. So then I asked “Would this be more accurate: able to keep his or her head in the midst of chaos?” Yes, that was it.

That’s different than easy-going. It’s something specific to the organization (which is good), and you can ask for examples in behavior-description questions.

So if you see adjectives, think about the deliverables and activities the candidate will have to do. Then see how to describe that in terms of abilities. You’ll have a better description and be able to ask better questions.

1 commentNovember 11th, 2008

Entry Filed under: interview question, job analysis

Questions From the Debates

I’ve got election fever, I admit it. In the VP debate last week, the moderator asked a useless question: “What  is your achilles heel?” (I’m probably paraphrasing the question.) Both candidates treated it as the weakness question, and didn’t answer the question. They each turned the question around to their strengths. What a surprise (not!).

But in the presidential debate last night, one of the questions was (I’m paraphrasing again): “How do you know what you don’t know and how will you learn it?” Ok, it’s a hypothetical question, not something I would use in a town meeting setting, but was a great opening for the candidates.

If you’re hiring a senior person, this is a good question. It can help you see the difference between general arrogance (”I know everything”) and a smart person who’s introspective enough to learn from past behavior.

Add commentOctober 8th, 2008

Entry Filed under: interview question