Mike has a fine (and funny) piece on what to do (and a little about what not to do) as a candidate, Applying for a Java job - HOWTO. His major points:
Your cover letter or email should be in readable English
Your experience should be relevant
Read the bloody job ad (his words, not mine)
Do something, anything to stand out
So you have experience, explain it!
Lose the insanity
Candidates, employers do want to hire you. But they want to hire people who are (at least) close to being suitable for the job. Match your technical skills to open positions. Remember, you could be a hiring manager someday.
I’m presenting a webconference on Thursday, Feb 10, 2005 (EST) via Kennedy Information called “Detecting and Resolving Cultural Fit Issues.” Here’s the information and signup page. I’ll be discussing:
The myth of “corporate” culture as the only culture you need to care about
Five key areas to probe for culture issues
How to use context-free and contextual questions to probe your clients’ cultures
Eight questions to verify the job analysis and culture
Four key questions to ask candidates about their cultural preferences
How to coach your clients to asking questions that help them detect cultural fit
Joel has a great essay on how you’re probably not hiring the top 1% — even though you think you are.But here’s what Joel didn’t say: not everyone wants to hire the top 1%. I’ve worked with managers who only wanted to hire people who weren’t as capable as they were. (They didn’t understand why it was in their self-interest to hire stars.) I’ve also worked with managers who wanted to hire the cheapest people, thinking that eventually they’d get the product, even if it took a little longer. (They didn’t understand opportunity cost.)
I have on my to-blog list to write about the problems of hiring warm bodies instead of no bodies. Maybe next week…
I will admit it. I am no fashionista. I know what to wear for everyday work, for speaking, for weddings, and for funerals. I’m not so hot at everything else. But I have two daughters who sound just like my mother, “You’re wearing that??” if I make a mistake.
If you’re a man, Anthony has some lovely suggestions in Casual Fridays. (I asked him in a comment if he had suggestions for women, and sheesh, you’d think I’d asked him the “do my hips look fat in this” question. Every man who’s ever been involved in a relationship longer than 2 minutes knows there is no answer for that question. Not if you want to keep the relationship.)
Hiring managers — read Anthony’s advice. You don’t have to be dressed up. Do remember the candidate is here to see you. At least make sure your jeans and t-shirt don’t have holes.Candidates — it’s ok if you’re slightly more formal than the people you’re interviewing. That shows you’re interested in the job and are treating this whole experience with respect. People will look at what you’re wearing and make snap judgements about you. Make sure it’s a positive one.
Oh, if you’re a bloglet reader, you’ve missed several postings. Bloglet was confused.
True confessions: I can’t tell jokes. I can do knock-knock jokes, but that’s about it. I received this in email today. With any luck I won’t spoil it
Want to hire only lucky people? Take your stack of resumes. Divide them in half. Throw one half away — those are the unlucky people.
I checked with the person who sent me this, to make sure no one was serious about this technique. Here’s what he said to me: “Not at all. It was a wonderful moment of watching everyone give a puzzled look for about 3 seconds, and then spray whatever they were drinking as they collapsed into laughter.”Good for your daily chuckle, if you haven’t had one yet.
I was surprised by the comments I received on my Stickyminds article last week. Then I read Brian Marick’s insightful Tester who can script and I may have the words to describe my surprise and concerns.
I was surprised by the people who commented that they were looking primarily for personality fit and cultural fit. I don’t see how to hear enough answers on a phone screen to really judge personality or cultural fit, unless the answers are so far out of bounds that it’s easy to to tell. I’m not clairvoyant, and I bet there are people who can fake personality and cultural fit on a phone screen. I’ve certainly run into people who talk a good line on the phone screen and look like different people in the job interview.I was concerned by technical managers not looking for technical things in a phone screen. ‘Cause it’s easy to probe for technical skills in a phone screen. Brian’s article gave me some insights as to why. His point #2:
I would think less of a tester who was unwilling to learn those things(testers learning a little programming). What’s interesting to me is that everyone I consider a reasonable tester would agree with me. Programming sticks out (to me) as somehow being treated specially: it’s a burden many testers think they should be exempt from.
So here are the lessons I learned from this column:
Some managers are not putting enough emphasis on a tester’s ability to perform technical work such as programming.
Maybe because of this, or just because of personal preferences, they don’t screen for the ability to perform technical work.
While it might be tempting to learn more about a person’s fit with the group, use a technical phone screen to screen for technical abilities. (Don’t forget the dirt-bag phone screen, but that’s not a substitute for a technical phone screen.) There is no point interviewing someone in person who doesn’t have the technical skills to perform the job — no matter how nice a person the candidate is. That’s why asking technical questions in a phone screen helps you create a diverse, capable group of people.
In December, I presented a webcast called “Creating On-Target High Tech Job Descriptions for High Tech Workers”. I could have titled it “11 Questions for Analyzing a Job” The PDF is here. Remember, it’s a presentation, not an article. So if you’re confused, please ask me questions.
I can’t imagine doing a phone interview or discussing an open position with a hiring manager without having strong knowledge of the functional space.
If you’re a hiring manager inside an organization, using an internal recruiter, take the time to teach the recruiter what he or she needs to know about how your group works. If you’re considering using an external recruiter, make sure that person understands the functional skills required and how your product is similar or different to other products (a little about domain expertise). And, if you’re a candidate, make sure you choose a recruiter who does understand the kinds of jobs you would want.
Recruiters can be invaluable, but they need to understand the position you need filled.
I thought that most of my readers were inside large-ish organizations, where they had people to worry about the budget for them. But it appears that some of you are owners of or work for smaller (generally consulting) organizations, where you (lucky you!) make the decision about when to hire another person.
There are two major components to the decision to hire another person:
Remember that everyone’s productivity decreases when you add a person into the organization.
You need to add in your overhead costs to salary (the overhead costs are a little less with a contractor).
Here’s a graphic that shows the time it takes someone to come up to speed and how long it generally takes. When people in the organization start interviewing, their productivity goes down, and when the new person starts (at week 10), productivity drops dramatically. (That’s why I recommend a buddy for a new person, so only one other person is affected for the first month.) Then, slowly, overall productivity starts to rise. About 6 months after the new hire starts, productivity is back up to where you were. And, about a year after the person is hired, productivity is up to where you wanted it to be. As far as I can tell, it takes a minimum of 6 months for a person to be completely integrated and totally useful in an organization. For some products and organizations, it takes a year. The smaller the organization, the more effective the person can be sooner.
This happens every time you add a new person, which is why I prefer to hire people in clumps rather than spreading them out, especially if you have seasonal or inconsistent periods of work. Hire people in the downtime, and they’ll be up to speed by the time you need them.
Overhead costs are the costs of outfitting a person to work with you. If you hire a contractor, you have less salary to pay (for taxes and it’s not an ongoing promise of work they way a salaried employee is).
It’s always a tradeoff: when to hire to obtain more work hours in the week, how to manage the hit to current productivity, and how much to pay. Only you can know the risks and rewards of when to hire. The smaller the company, the higher the risk and the reward.
When people in the organization start interviewing, their productivity goes down, and when the new person starts (at week 10), productivity drops dramatically. (That’s why I recommend a buddy for a new person, so only one other person is affected for the first month.) Then, slowly, overall productivity starts to rise. About 6 months after the new hire starts, productivity is back up to where you were. And, about a year after the person is hired, productivity is up to where you wanted it to be. As far as I can tell, it takes a minimum of 6 months for a person to be completely integrated and totally useful in an organization. For some products and organizations, it takes a year. The smaller the organization, the more effective the person can be sooner.