The most common hiring strategy I’ve seen is when the hiring manager is looking for more people to do similar work to the work already in progress in the organization. For technical organizations, this means more developers/testers/writers/whomever with similar functional skills and the ability to easily learn the product domain.
When you have plenty of candidates, it’s ok to look at tools/technology skills. But if you don’t have lots of candidates, make sure you’re looking at how easy it is for people to apply their current functional skills to your tools/technology.
One common mistake I’ve seen, especially in smaller organizations growing quickly is to assume that you need all people at one level. If you consistently hire lots of senior people, you end up with a top-heavy organization. If you consistently hire lots of mid-level people, you end up with a bunch of people who are not able to progress to the top level (which might not be a big problem). If you hire only people with little or no experience, the manager has to take the time to coach them and help them grow technically and personally into responsible staff.
It’s critically important to do a job analysis for the first open position, and continue to re-evaluate the analysis as you hire more people.
John Sumser in Drowning In Information discusses his take on the recruiting.com proposed link swap. And, he includes 96 links to blogs he follows. I’m thrilled this blog is part of his list.
If you’re a recruiter, an HR person, or a candidate, I strongly suggest you spend time checking out that list. If you’re a hiring manager, make sure your support staff in HR or your recruiter(s) are checking out that list. If you do all your own recruiting (are you nuts?), start reading the list and see which blogs make sense to you.
Via Keith Ray, I saw Cory Foy’s Great Job Posting. The reason this ad works is that it’s congruent for the job the developer will do. Wish I’d thought of an ad like that.
…Part I perhaps offers the most valuable contribution. It covers developing a hiring strategy, analyzing the job and writing job descriptions for IT-related work. In my limited experience, these are the most challenging aspects of the whole process, and those that require more work and attention: defining the job’s requirements (both technical and non-technical) and writing clear job descriptions. No techie-hiring library manager should be without a valuable resource like this!
Thanks, Sherry. I realized I hadn’t blogged about hiring strategy, so I’ll start a series about hiring strategies.
The war for talent is back on, according to Gretchen and Rob Merrill. Ok, I’ll buy that. I know fewer unemployed people and it seems as if people are finding jobs faster.But not all people. Those of us with gray hair are not finding it easier to find jobs. I have only anecdotal evidence, but several emails a week seems pretty strong anecdotal evidence to me.I think I know why.
Hiring managers are not doing enough of a job analysis. Instead of looking at functional skills and domain expertise first, they’re looking at tools and technology first. See Four Dimensions of Technical Skill. Too often, hiring managers (or whomever screens resumes) are afraid of even looking at people who don’t have 10 years of experience with whatever technology they require.
It’s possible older technical people are “more expensive.” When I work with hiring managers to teach them how to analyze their jobs, I see two common mistakes: thinking that salary ranges haven’t changed since they last time they hired; and thinking that someone with 5 years of experience has the same skill level as someone with 20 years of experience.
Hiring managers: don’t make the mistake of paying top dollar for anyone unless you’re convinced that person is worth it. But don’t shortchange candidates by arbitrarily setting the salary so low only someone with one or two years of experience can take the job. You’ll get the value of only one or two years of experience.If the war for talent really is on, then the people with gray hair should be able to find technical jobs more easily than they are now. Until I see that, I’m not convinced there’s really a war on.
This one is for you HR managers and folks who don’t normally read my Managing Product Development blog.Esther and I are leading our management workshop: Behind Closed Doors: Managing One-on-One, July 10-12, 2006, in Minneapolis. Interested? Here’s the flyer (PDF). I’ll be adding a workshop page to my site later today. I’ll update this post when it’s done.This is a workshop for managers, project managers, and technical leads. Here’s what we’ll be exploring and practicing in the workshop:
How people really take in information and where things can go wrong, how to recognize when an interaction is off track, and what to do about it.
How to actively listen to what someone else is saying.
How to give–and receive–effective feedback.
How and when to coach and mentor.
What issues to address in career development and how to address them.
How to build trust with each person in your group.
How to have effective one-on-one meetings.
If you ever work with people in a managerial capacity (whether you’re called a manager or not :-), this workshop is for you. HR folks: if you’re looking for management workshops that actually teach people how to manage, this is it. Email me if you have questions.
The article, Blogs ‘essential’ to a good career says a well-executed blog can help you find a job by establishing you as an expert. The key here is “well-executed.”Blogging is great fun, and can help potential hiring managers discover another side of you. And, if your blog isn’t well-written, doesn’t link to others, and talks enough about off-topic issues, your blog may not help.But I’m an optimistic person. So if you’re a candidate looking for a job, start blogging!
I was speaking with a project manager the other day, who’s looking for a job but does not have a PMP certification. He was worried, so I asked him how he presented himself to potential hiring managers and HR people. He said, “I don’t have a PMP, but I’ve been really successful managing projects for the last 20 years.”I suggested he turn around the sentence: “I’ve successfully managed projects for 20 years,” and stop right there. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know how I feel about certifications and their relevance to the position. (Too often, certifications are the lazy manager’s way to avoid analyzing the job.)Candidates, when you’re looking for a job, focus on the skills you have. Consider your answer (or multiple answers to) Your Most Significant Accomplishment. Those are your strengths. BTW, I agree with the comment on that post that deciding what that accomplishment is and writing or speaking about it is a difficult thing to do.
I just added two new blogs to my blogroll: Weinberg on Writing, and Secrets of Consulting. You may be wondering why.Writing cover letters is a non-trivial matter, and too many candidates do a poor job. Learning to write better, especially for something as important as cover letters, is one of those Good Ideas.
A couple of weeks ago, when I participated in Jerry’s consulting skills workshop, we discussed making contact at length. That’s when I realized that the making contact skill and the networking skills we discuss and use as consultants are the same as people searching for candidates or jobs.
These two blogs are not directly applicable to hiring–but you will find useful tidbits on them that you can use as you search for a candidate or a job.
I just spoke with someone who’s looking for a project/product management job in the Boston area (my area). He hasn’t been attending local dinner meetings of the PMI or the PDMA or any other professional society, so I suggested he start.
Making contact with people, networking, is the single most important a hiring manager or a candidate can do to start the search (from either side). Meeting a person, seeing that person face-to-face provides the hiring manager or candidate subjective and objective data that an email or a phone call just can’t do.I have a few guidelines for me when I meet people. (I developed this little checklist because I’m a hopeless geek and can appear rude when I’m not thinking about the other person.)
Keep a smile on my face. If I’m distracted by my drive or work or the kids, I’m not going to look approachable and/or relaxed. I want to be approachable.
Use a firm but brief handshake. I hate those limp-fish handshakes, and they bring out the child in me–I want to grip the other person’s hand harder and longer. (Go ahead, shake your head. I am So I use a firm but brief handshake so I don’t do the macho thing with the other person.
Hug the other person if they start it. I’m very lucky and have had a wide network of people I’ve met and worked with over the years. We have personal friendships as well as professional relationships. So we hug. But I’m geeky enough that I have to wait for the other person to start it.
Making contact–real human contact–with someone is a skill that every hiring manager and candidate needs to develop. You may not need a checklist. If you do, yours may be different from mine. But make human contact with everyone you meet, and you’ll find sourcing or searching for a job much easier.
So I use a firm but brief handshake so I don’t do the macho thing with the other person.