So the economy isn’t so hot right now and you’re looking for a new job. Not the easiest of circumstances. You’re calling people to network. You’ve updated your resume. Maybe you’ve even called me. I looked for you on LinkedIn, but I can’t find you because your name is Tom Smith and there are several other people with your name in my area, you all do similar work, and each of you have 10 or 12 connections, and I can’t tell which one is you.
Dear colleague: Please fill in your LinkedIn profile. Please fill in your FaceBook profile. Please fill in any profile on any social media network. How can I network with you if I can’t find you?
Once you’ve filled in your profile, add some people. I can’t believe you’ve been working for 10, 20, or 30 years and have 10 people as connections. You don’t have to be me–I’m a promiscuous networker . But, please, add people who are your colleagues. You can add people with whom you have social relationships. You can add your family. (Do you think I’m not going to add my daughters when they graduate from college?) You can add all your friends from college, even if you haven’t talked to them in 20 years. (What a great way to network, catching up with college friends. You think they don’t know about jobs?? Sure they do.)
I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care that you haven’t thought about social media before. If you are unemployed, you have a responsibility to make it easier to network with people to find that next job. Your responsibilities:
Make it easy for people to find you online, at least at social media outlets
Help people know which Tom Smith you are
Listen to your children about how to use the Internet
I want to help my friends find jobs. I want to help acquaintances. But I can’t help if I can’t find you. Yes, call. Yes, send resumes. Yes, use recruiters. But for heaven’s sake, use social media. Use it, don’t just play with it.
I read a bunch of blogs, and Evolving Excellence is consistently good. I was struck by this post, Homozygosity – That’s The Problem!. I had never heard of homozygosity before, so I looked it up. According to Merriam-Webster, it’s
having the two genes at corresponding loci on homologous chromosomes identical for one or more loci
The result: you get enough people (in this case) who think alike and get them to work together, they inbreed their thinking. That leads to
There is an old saying that ‘great minds think alike’. Probably, but I’ve noticed that morons think alike too.
I laughed out loud at that one.
But Bill is right. It’s too easy if you have insufficient diversity to achieve group-think without meaning to. If you’re hiring for problem-solving skills, which is what we do in high tech, you want diversity of all kinds: personality, schooling, race, culture, to name just a few. Insufficient diversity leads to an inability to generate other and different solutions.
Think about what diversity might mean for your group and how you can find it.
At SD West last week, one of the folks in my talks asked about how to hire a Scrum Master. First, don’t do this:
Don’t look for a CSM. A CSM means the person has taken a 2-day workshop where he or she may have practiced some pieces of Scrum. There is no guarantee that the candidate did get through an entire timebox or finish a project.
Ok, here’s what to do. Ask these kinds of questions:
Give me a recent example of how you helped a team develop a drumbeat, a project rhythm.
How do you know the project is on track? (Ask for examples)
What have you done to help a project get back on track? (Ask for examples)
How do you obtain status from people? (Ask for examples)
Tell me about an obstacle you recently removed. … How long did it take?
Have you ever been in a position where the product owner wanted to add a new item to the iteration backlog after you’d started the iteration? What happened?
Because a Scrum Master helps the team stick with the process and remove obstacles, you can start with questions such as these. Consider adding an audition such as facilitating a standup meeting, working with the product owner on the backlog.
. But, please, add people who are your colleagues. You can add people with whom you have social relationships. You can add your family. (Do you think I’m not going to add my daughters when they graduate from college?) You can add all your friends from college, even if you haven’t talked to them in 20 years. (What a great way to network, catching up with college friends. You think they don’t know about jobs?? Sure they do.)