Monthly Archives: May 2003

Four Dimensions of Technical Skill

Uh oh. I’m seeing laundry list job descriptions. You know, the kind of job description that so carefully bounds the job with so much technical tool skill, that no one could fit the job.If your job descriptions are laundry lists … Continue reading

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Do Your Interview Questions Discriminate For or Against Your Needs?

I was reading How Would You Design Bill Gates’s Bathroom? and realized that Microsoft discriminates for people who are visionaries, people who see the big picture. When they do this, they ignore the other types of people necessary for successful … Continue reading

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Interviewing Tip #5: Maintain Your Self-Esteem, Follow-Through, and Sense of Humor

Via the Boston Job Works blog I found this piece on Hiring in Times of Anger and Fear. The points Jack Thomas makes are great, and can be summarized by making sure you keep your self-esteem, follow through on commitments, … Continue reading

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Interviewing Tip #4: Call Your Ex-Employer

In Workplace boomeranging, Jason Butler reports on his experience returning to a previous employer: “I found my previous experience at the company beneficial in minimizing ramp-up time; if you already have a reputation and you already know all the players, … Continue reading

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Create On-the-Fly Auditions

In response to my last blog entry, Questions for Hiring Architects and Designers, Dave Smith wrote this: “I took a slightly different approach when I was a hiring manager. Instead of canned set of questions, I would get the candidate … Continue reading

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Questions for Hiring Architects and Designers

How do you differentiate true designers and architects from other software developers? This may be the hardest question to answer, and the most necessary. A real designer or architect, someone who doesn’t just hack a bunch of software together, is … Continue reading

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Hiring Tip #8: Use Hypothetical Questions to Discern the Difference Between Surface and Deep Knowledge

In previous hiring tips, I suggested you ask behavior description interviewing questions and perform auditions. I haven’t discussed hypothetical questions yet, because they can be difficult to frame well. In response to my current Stickyminds column about how to improve … Continue reading

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Interviewing Tip #3: Reframe Inappropriate Questions

One hiring manager loves this question: “If you had a magic wand, and three wishes, what would they be?” My three wishes deal with enough money to buy a sailboat, paying someone else to drive my kids to their doctor … Continue reading

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