Before my webinar last week, I was chatting with the organizer, and experienced project manager. He said that when he interviewed a project manager, and hear words such as “I control projects” that’s a red flag for him. No, he’s not an agile project manager–he’s a smart and effective project manager who realize that people control their own tasks. But he got me thinking about other red flag words.
When I hear testers say, “I control the release” that’s a red flag for me. Testers provide information. The release decision is way above their pay level.
When I hear business analysts (or anyone!) say, “I just know what the customers want. I don’t have to go back and talk to them.” Oh yeah? If they’re so clairvoyant, why doesn’t all software work the way I want it to?
When I hear architects say, “I don’t write code. I architect a system.” Oh sure they do. On paper. Or in PowerPoint (full credit to Venkat and Andy for naming these people PowerPoint Architects in Practices of an Agile Developer). Architects who don’t participate in product development are just as bad as house architects who never use the bathrooms they “design.”
Red flag words are an indication that the candidate is not sufficiently introspective about why the company pays him or her. You might still want to hire a candidate with red flag words, but you’ll have to work with that person to make him or her a fully valuable member of the team.
I’m writing about a post a week for ITJobBlog. I’ve already written a couple of posts about how to develop your interview skills when you’re a candidate, part 1 and part 2. Please join us over there, too!
Organizations suffer with bad resources because they don’t know how to ask for good resources.
I wish I’d been there. I bet this was a great talk! I don’t think Pradeep had heard of my book until that conference, so he did buy one while he was there. I’m sure we will keep up our email conversation.
A manager that takes mid-interview smoke breaks and badgers a talented candidate about salary expectations is someone that I want working for my competitor.
I’m still astounded when I hear stories like that.
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.
* What specific results are you expecting in the first three months? Six? One year? How will you measure those results?
* To whom can I go for questions as I’m learning my responsibilities? How much time will you have to devote to getting me up to speed?
* Who are the strongest performers on the staff and would they be willing resources to help me with day-to-day questions and processes?
* What are the biggest problems that need resolution within the first six months? What has been done thus far? Who would I have to work with to settle these issues?
* Why have you gone to the outside to fill this position?
* May I meet some of the staff before making my final decision? That way we can make sure it’s a good fit from all perspectives.
If you’re a hiring manager, you need to answer these questions before you start interviewing, so you can answer a candidate. Yes, you need to answer them.
You are allocated a training budget, what is the first course, conference or workshop you would attend?
This is an excellent question to see if people are keeping up with thinking about what they want to learn. I would follow up with “Why?” The one concern I have is that there are some great candidate who’ve been beaten unto thinking they don’t “deserve” training. They might not have an idea. (Even when my management refused me training, I always knew about some course I wanted to take.)
In a recent workshop, one of the participants explained, “I like to ask personal questions to see if the candidate will fit in with the team socially.”
Well, that’s anillegal discrimination. * in the US, but not in other places. (It’s illegal because if you reject a candidate based on their answer, you’re discriminating about something not work-related, a big no-no in the US.) Even for non-US interviewers, I still think it’s a bad idea.
People enjoy different activities at different times in their lives. Before I had children, I took bicycling vacations, camping and cycling for a week or two. But by the time I had children, there was no way I was going to spend precious vacation time doing something active when I could sleep in
Even without the obvious difference of kids/no kids, people choose to spend their time and money differently–a difference that doesn’t make a bit of difference for the job.
Assessing cultural fit is important, and the questions you want to ask might be some of these:
“Tell me about your greatest successes. What caused your success?”
“Tell me about your greatest challenges. What caused them?”
“How has the work environment helped you or prevented you from being successful?”
Now you’ve got a conversation about work, and how people fit in (or not) at work–a much more relevant set of questions than what people do in their off time.
* Thank you to askamanager for your comment. You are correct; unless you hit on a protected class, the questions aren’t actually illegal. Ill-considered, not helpful, but not illegal.
I was supposed to be doing an informational interview with an upcoming college grad now. She cancelled because she felt terrible. She said, “I’ve been feeling nauseous all day. I really wanted to talk to you when I’m at my best. Can we reschedule?”
You betcha we can. If I’m going to give my time to someone, I want to know they will use it wisely. I bet you do too.
If you’re a hiring manager and you can’t give the candidate 100% of you, postpone the phone screen or pull yourself out of the in-person interview loop.
If you’re a candidate and you’ve got a bad head cold, please reschedule. If you can’t get the nausea under control, please reschedule. If you have pneumonia, please, please, please reschedule. I don’t want to get sick. I will respect you more for explaining you don’t want to infect the rest of us. You need to give 100% of yourself to the interviewing process.
I met a software developer recently, who studied physics as an undergrad. He’s now working in an IT organization on financial processing software.
He’s part of the interviewing team for his organization. They’re trying to hire 6-7 more developers before the end of the year. He told me, “I like to ask a question about physics, to see how smart the candidates are.” I asked him how many candidates he’d rejected due to his question. “Only 2 out of 5.”
Ouch. He rejected 2 potential candidates not because of an answer that’s relevant to the job, but to an answer that is irrelevant to the job.
Instead of asking a question that you think will get you information about how smart a candidate is, ask questions that really tell you what you need to know.
“Tell me about a time you had to learn an application quickly. What did you do?”
“Tell me about a time you had to bring someone else up to speed on a system. What did you do?”
“Tell me about a time you got stuck on a problem. What did you do?”
All of these questions are much better than asking a candidate about physics, art history, Spanish, or anything else you took in school. And, they’re relevant to the job.
Don’t ask about physics. Ask about job-relevant experiences. You won’t be falsely rejecting potential candidates. And you won’t be opening yourself up to a lawsuit about discrimination. Ask about issues relevant to the job you have open now, not experiences you had in school.
