Hiring Technical People

A Little More on How to Hire a Manager

June 30th, 2008

Lisa has a nice post, How to Hire a Manager - A Time Tested Recipe. She’s close. I’m not so sure about the “humble” part, and I would add something like “advocates for team.”

But the piece Lisa missed is integrity. Without integrity, the other qualities, preferences, and non-technical skills are useless. To be fair, she implies it in her post. But I like making it explicit, because then I can ask questions such as, “Have you ever been in a position where the company wanted you to do something that went against your integrity? What happened?” If you want to ask about what the person learned, ask, “What did you learn from that experience?”

It’s possible that less seasoned managers have not been in an integrity-binding position, yet. I have yet to meet a manager who’s been managing for more than a couple of years who has not been in this position. When I’ve been in a position to hire managers (or to be hired as a manager), I want to know how the candidate has performed while in the integrity bind, or how my potential managers have performed.

Entry Filed under: job analysis, manager