Your Boss Wants This Candidate; You Don’t
I emailed with a colleague today. He’s been looking for a position that shouldn’t be too hard to fill–but it is. Let’s assume the position is a development position. He interviewed a candidate. He’s not thrilled with the candidate; the candidate doesn’t have quite enough functional skill to do a good job. The interviewing team is neutral to positive, so he’s not alone with this lack of thrill. But his manager wants him to hire this candidate, for a slightly different position, as a release engineer.
I suggested he make it clear to his manager that hiring this candidate as a release engineer does not fill the development position. If the organization needs a release engineer, then interview and possibly hire the candidate for that job. But don’t fool yourselves into thinking you’ve covered the development job; you haven’t.
Make sure your manager understands your test strategy and your hiring strategy and your job analysis before you agree to this hire. Point out the risks, “Ok, we can hire the candidate, but we don’t get more development done. Want you to know that.”
Don’t settle for less than what you need in a candidate. I have several ideas about what to do when you can’t find someone. I’ll start a series about what to do when you can’t find a candidate. But don’t settle. You won’t get the work done that you need done.
3 comments October 24th, 2007