If you are (or work for) a fabulous manager, you have weekly one-on-ones with your staff and discuss their accomplishments, and file those accomplishments in a folder. At the end of a year, you know what people have done, you’ve given them feedback on their work, and writing their review is a piece of cake. […]
You’re a candidate. You’re talking to a couple of technical interviewers. One of the interviewers asks you a question. You answer “black.” The interviewer says, “No, it’s white.” Wishing to avoid confrontation, you don’t push the answer. Geek that you are, you check the answer when you get home. Sure enough, it’s “black.”Well, you have
Smart hiring managers know to use a phone screen to screen in appropriate candidates and screen out unsuitable candidates. And they know that before you start the phone screen, you verify this is still a good time to call. But what if you call the candidate and he or she answers the phone? Can you
Sometimes, I’ve found stock (equity) to be a motivating factor in an offer. But in my experience, it’s turned out to be more cynicism-creating (hey, it’s a blog, I get to make up words) than motivating. My good friend and colleague, Stever Robbins, has just written a great article about equity-based compensation. If you’re a
My teenage daughter is attempting to find a job this summer. She dutifully filled out an application for a camp counselor position at a not-so-close-to-our-house camp. The idea is that she and my nephew would both work at the camp, staying at my sister’s house. We discovered last week that the person reviewing the applications
I had an email conversation with Allen, a blog reader. One of the questions he asked is “What do you know about my company?” Allen used this question as a technique to determine how much initiative a candidate has and how much they want to learn about the company. Allen has a good question. And
If you’re like one of my readers, you only have two reqs and a perceived need for three people. It’s hard to know what to do, when you only have enough money for two people and want three (or any other case where you have N reqs and N=1 (or more!)) people. Here’s one technique
On Artima, a treasure trove of technical articles, there’s a great article How to Interview a Programmer. Note that the points the people in the article make are: Look for talent, not skills Ask them to critique something (Pete McBreen describes a small audition) Ask them to solve a problem Look at their code (always