Posts filed under 'candidate'
I ran a workshop recently about hiring for an agile team, and one of the people learning to interview said, “I want a candidate who can take criticism.” I replied, “Don’t you mean feedback?” He asked, “What’s the difference?”
Oh, boy. Plenty. Criticism is when you you’re looking at a piece of code and you say, “This seems brain dead.” But if you say, “I’m confused by this piece of code,” you’ve provided me some feedback. I guarantee you, you want candidates who can take feedback.
So, if you want to know if a candidate can take feedback, here are some possible interview questions:
- “Have you recently been in a position where someone reviewed your work?” (wait for a yes answer.) “What happened?”
- Offer to work with the candidate in an audition (possibly pairing) and review as you go.
- Ask for feedback on some of you work as part of an audition and see how the candidate provides feedback.
- “How do you know your work is good?” Wait and see where the question goes. You might be able to follow up with a question such as, “Is there a way you prefer feedback on your work?”
Asking candidates about their ability to take feedback is useful. Asking about criticism is not.
March 26th, 2008
You’re interviewing someone for a position at your company. You remember working with that person years ago, and you were unimpressed. Maybe it was the jerk factor, maybe it was the way he didn’t quite finish work, or maybe it was her perfume. Whatever it was, you were not excited about the candidate then, and you would like to avoid working with the candidate in the future. What do you do?
Tell the hiring manager. Explain with examples. “Back 10 years ago, when the candidate and I worked at SmallerCo, I was unimpressed by these things.” (Explain the things. If it’s not finishing, explain what you thought done meant and what the candidate did.) “When you check references, can you please check on this?”
The hiring manager should then ask the references, “Can you give me an example of a time the candidate did a great job finishing something?” and “Can you give me an example of a time the candidate had trouble finishing work?” and “How often do you think the candidate was great at finishing and how often did the candidate have trouble?” (Change this question to be the issue concerning you.)
You should let your manager know about your reservations–that’s the unintentional reference part. But you should make allowances for people having changed over time.
February 11th, 2008
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.
October 24th, 2007
A bunch of my clients are having trouble filling their positions. They can’t find a bazillion years of Java or .Net or something else.
There is a relative candidate shortage, compared to the candidate glut of a few years ago. But of people start looking for attitude and general problem solving ability and ability to collaborate, they won’t need to look for technical skills. See what Anton says he’s looking for.
You can send someone to a class and they can learn a particular tool. If you then buddy that person with someone else, you’ve got a great coaching/mentoring relationship, and the new person will be up to speed quickly.
But if you don’t hire for the more intangible things, such as initiative or teamwork or problem solving, you won’t find the right people who can make a huge difference in your organization.
October 19th, 2007
In his comment, Gregbo asks what I mean by “bad” judgment.
Here’s an incomplete list:
- Frequent job changes, at least one job a year for several years
- Months of no discernible work or lag times between jobs.
- Titles that appear to move up and down the ladder.
There are more, but those are the common ones. Sometimes, people take jobs because they need a paycheck or health insurance (or both). Those people tend to feel as if their jobs are sucking the souls out of them. If you see a resume like that, don’t discard it. That candidate wants a good job–and may almost be desperate for a good job.
I once had a job for two weeks. The same week I was hired, I got a call to report to headquarters in another state, where they laid me off. I made a bad decision to take that job. Luckily, the hiring manager at my next job thought it was funny, and didn’t consider that small interlude a problem job.
So that’s what I mean by a “bad” decision. Candidates can’t tell if a company is on the skids, or will cancel the project they got hired for. If you’re a hiring manager or a recruiter, you have the opportunity to offer the candidate a great start in your organization. Don’t let your prejudices about length of service persuade you to avoid this candidate.
September 17th, 2007
I’ve been working with more and more senior managers (and executive recruiters), helping them assess their CxO candidates (CEO, CIO, CTO, Senior VPs, you name it). By the time someone’s made it to the senior management level, they know how to make themselves sound good, so you can’t ask the strength/weakness question, even if you wanted to. But you do have other choices.As with all jobs, the job description is key. Let’s assume you care most about strategic planning and the ability to turn those plans into tactics, succession planning, and general management style. Based on those qualities, preferences, and skills, here are some questions you could use.:
- “Tell me about your management style when it comes to strategy. Give me a couple of recent examples.” Strategic thinking is an ongoing issue for senior managers. If all they do is one off-site every 19 months, they are not managing the strategic direction of the organization. When you ask for a couple of examples, you’re allowing people to use last week’s Operations Committee meeting, where they readjusted the product roadmap plus the quarterly strategic planning meeting, plus whatever else they have up their sleeves as examples.
- Follow up that question with, “Tell me about a time you changed strategic direction. Why did you choose to, how did you choose, and how did you carry out the changes.
- “Tell me how you make things happen in your current organization.” Some senior managers work through groups of people, some give more specific direction to their managers. This question helps you learn whether this person prefers more group decision-making or one-on-one decision making. You’ll need to ask more questions to see if your initial assumption is correct. “So based on what you told me about working with your OpCom, you tend to work more with each manager to set direction, and use the OpCom to bring the group together for information?”
- Some very young senior managers haven’t had to do succession planning yet. But you can ask this question, “Have you ever planned for any management job’s succession? What did you do?” and follow up, if the first answer was a yes with, “Have you ever planned for your succession? What did you do then?”
- Asking questions about general management style can be a little tricky. Here are some questions you can consider. “Tell me how you prefer to manage and give me an example.” That’s so open-ended, you need to be more specific and ask about the particular functional skills, such as giving feedback, coaching, organizing the work, and so on.
When you interview senior managers, do you look for something else? Let me know and I’ll post more questions.
Labels: candidate, interview, senior manager
May 22nd, 2007
I just read this gem, In Honor Of Stay-At-Home Moms referring to To grandmother Pelosi’s house we go. The quote I loved,
At a minimum, it teaches you just how many supposed grown-ups only need a good, long nap to be decent neighbors and co-workers.
If you’re not sure about whether you should hire stay-at-home Moms who are now rejoining the workforce, think about Nancy Pelosi. And, one of my clients says, “I love those Moms who raised children for a few years–the more the better. They are great project managers and have great organizational skills.” (He was talking about people who had enough technical expertise to manage technical projects.) So, take a chance, assuming these candidates meet your needs, with the exception of recent workforce experience.
Labels: candidate, stay-at-home mom
January 11th, 2007
Roman asks Whether he should move to start a company. So where do you start a company? Where the people are, of course.You need enough people who are willing to take a risk on a startup. Roman’s in the Atlanta area–I bet there are plenty of people there. I don’t think he needs to move to Silicon Valley or Boston if he wants just a handful if people to start. But if he needs 200-300 people, it’s possible he might need to move to Silicon Valley, where more people expect to work for a startup.When you’re starting a company, you need enough depth in the candidate base–or a sufficiently attractive startup–to attract candidates. But the startup phase doesn’t last all that long (we hope), and at some point, you need enough candidates to keep the hiring proceeding. You can either be in a location that has a large number of potential candidates or be a sufficiently enticing employer to be able to attract candidates.There is something about the old phrase about real estate: Location, location, location. But any reasonably large city will be attractive enough to potential candidates. It’s the companies who are more than an hour from a large city who have real problems.
Labels: candidate, location
January 9th, 2007
I’m caught up with my project management book, at least until I receive more edits from my editor. So I’m catching up with my blogging.I was looking at a client’s site today. They have a couple of hundred open positions–not surprising, since they’re a large company. You can sort by date opened and location. But you can’t sort by type of job. Well, you sort-of can–by alphabetical order.So if you’re a developer, do you look under “A” for analyst? Or “P” for programmer? or “D” for developer? And, since the page only shows 10 jobs at a time, your readers–potential applicants–don’t have enough context to see.It makes some sense to name jobs by the job title. But the job title is an internal name, not an external name that means anything to potential candidates.If you’re a hiring manager or an HR person, take a critical look at your site. Can your potential candidates find the jobs that fit for them? Or, are the jobs organized so that it’s easy for you to post?
Labels: candidate, posting jobs
January 9th, 2007
From Andy Lester comes a pointer to Hugh’s The Career Manifesto”. Andy’s writing a book called “Pragmatic Job Hunting” (working title). If you’re looking for a job, consider subscribing to Andy’s feed.
Labels: candidate, career manifesto
December 21st, 2006
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