My publisher sent me email — the printer shipped them the book yesterday, so Hiring The Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science Of Hiring Technical People is available. Amazon still has it listed at the pre-release price. Dorset House, my publisher, has a page about the book. I’m so excited!Update as of 9/23/04: Softpro in Waltham and Denver is also carrying the book. Softpro is carrying the book for 5% less than Amazon.
Take a look at Personality for a psychologist’s view of using any personality test for hiring. I particularly liked these quotes:
It means that our everyday belief that people are consistently “themselves” across a wide variety of kinds of circumstances is unfounded.Given enough time to understand a person’s situational patterns, and a reasonably clear description of what that individual might face, we might be able to tell you something about how that person might behave. But don’t expect anything like the accuracy of predicting the results of a chemical reaction.
Also, check out the comments for Fast Company’s Corporate Shrink Question of the Week.In my experience, behavior-description questions and auditions are reasonable — athough not perfect — predictors of a person’s ability to work in another environment. Certainly, they’re not foolproof, but using these two techniques together helps.
I love it when the experts agree with me. So imagine my glee when reading, Against Types by Drake Bennet. The subtitle is “Personality tests are everywhere — from the workplace to the courtroom. But critics say the tests themselves don’t pass the test.”I don’t know anything about the academic personality tests used to diagnose mental illness. But I do know about and use MBTI in my work. For example, I find it useful to know if the person I’m dealing with is an I, Introvert or an E, Extravert. If the person is an I, I’ll tend to write down the issue first and give the person a chance to think before we speak. If I’m dealing with an E, I block out time to talk to the person. I use the same amount of time; I spend it differently. And of course, I use the other axes of MBTI as well. I see hiring managers and HR staff misusing MBTI when they assume a person can only act in one way. Just because I’m an E doesn’t mean I don’t know how to think and write without speaking. I prefer speaking first but I can speak later.Types are just one aspect of a person — a person’s preferences, not the only way that person knows how to act. If you ever saw me manage a project, you might think I was an SJ, given the level of detail I sometimes use for my lists. But I’m not. (NT here.) Does that mean I can’t be a good project manager? Nope. It means you should ask me behavior-description questions, such as “How do you manage the complexity of a project?” to understand what I think complexity is, and what I actually do. (BTW, in my highly non-scientific study of answers to that question, SJ’s ask “What aspect of complexity?” and NT’s answer.)Understanding a person’s type can be useful when creating and maintaining a good working relationship — but not for a hiring decision.
I decided to write a few articles on auditions. The first one is posted at Stickyminds, Watching Testers in Action: Auditions During Interviews. I received a request for someone to translate it into Russian. When he tells me it’s done, I’ll post the URL.
Some not very nice people are spamming my blogs with inappropriate comments, so I’ve turned off comments for now. Unfortunately, I only know how to make them all unseen, rather than than not post new ones. I have questions into my comments provider about that. I’ll turn commenting back on when I can make it safe — or at least, safer.
Recruiting from certain schools can prevent you from hiring the best — because that recruiting limits your intake of candidates. It tightens your screen before you’ve even gotten to resume review. This is a USA-attitude. For those of you in Europe, and other places where school could actually mean something, take a look at the comments from this link.
If you hire similar people, you’re more likely to end up with group-think.
Focusing on where people came from doesn’t help you assess how they could get the job done.
If the manager hasn’t written a good job description, the requirements for the job are unclear — and the manager is more likely to hire someone just like him or herself.
Sometimes, the best person for the job is just like you — but not often. Make sure you define the requirements for the job, not just the pedigree.
For those of you who subscribe via bloglet, something happened to the feed mechanism. I think I convinced bloget that the blog works, but we’ll have to see. When bloglet works, it’s great. But when it doesn’t, it’s aggravating to me.
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but I can speak later.Types are just one aspect of a person — a person’s preferences, not the only way that person knows how to act. If you ever saw me manage a project, you might think I was an SJ, given the level of detail I sometimes use for my lists. But I’m not. (NT here.) Does that mean I can’t be a good project manager? Nope. It means you should ask me behavior-description questions, such as “How do you manage the complexity of a project?” to understand what I think complexity is, and what I actually do. (BTW, in my highly non-scientific study of answers to that question, SJ’s ask “What aspect of complexity?” and NT’s answer.)Understanding a person’s type can be useful when creating and maintaining a good working relationship — but not for a hiring decision.