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Column: Cultural Fits and Starts

February 7th, 2005

My first column for the Fast Company/Inc. Hiring Center is up. See Cultural Fits and Starts. I don’t see a way to leave comments there, so please do leave comments here.

Update: Oskar Syahbana translated this article into Bahasa Indonesia. It’s here. Oskar has other fine articles on his site.

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1 Comment Add your own

  • 1. Chip Patton  |  February 8th, 2005 at 1:54 pm

    Skills, Fit, or do you really need both?
    In the 1/31/05 post “Potential Employer Sounds Off” you reference an article titled “Applying for a Java job - HOWTO”. That article is pretty much about matching skills and experience to an advertised job.
    Here in “Cultural Fits and Starts” you quote the adage “Hire for attitude, train for skills”.
    There’s a bit of a conflict there and one way out adds a little complexity. Life is never as simple as our aphorisms, is it?
    If you really need particular, hard to find skills, and you need them now, for a defined period of time, bring in contractors or consultants. Also look for those skills among people you interview that fit your culture and hire them permanently. But the surest long term solution is to hire potential talent that fits the team and build the long term skills you need. Java expertise doesn’t require decades of practice — only an aptitude for objects and a year or so of application on top of a solid programming base.

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