Hiring Technical People

Webconference on Cultural Fit, 2/10/05

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

Hope to see you there.

Add comment January 28th, 2005

Hiring the Top 1%

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…

3 comments January 28th, 2005