Tag: Hiring

My Diverse Hiring Playbook

I’m really proud of my track record building diverse teams. When I’ve been responsible for hiring, those teams have consistently been more diverse than industry norms, often significantly so. Over the years, I’ve developed a set of “plays”, some go-to tactics for increasing the diversity of my hiring pipeline. This is that playbook.

January 4th, 2024 • dei diversity hiring

Mailbag: Should you give candidates feedback on their interview performance?

Should you give unsuccessful job candidates feedback on what they did or didn’t get right?

August 25th, 2023 • feedback hiring interviewing

Do I need a consultant, contractor or employee?

When is it the right choice to hire full-time staff, and when should you use consultants or contractors instead? The short answer: hire consultants for guidance, contractors for execution, and employees for stability and flexibility. For the long answer, read this article.

August 24th, 2023 • consultants contractors hiring management

Hire for Floors, not Ceilings

When you’re hiring, try not to get caught in the trap of evaluating candidates based on their best possible performance. Look instead for consistency: reliable results in variable conditions, the ability to deliver predictably with consistent quality, and so forth.

August 16th, 2023 • hiring performance

🔗 Canonical: the recruitment process really is that long/complex/you... (#)

If you want to design a good interview process, then read this and do precisely the opposite. Good lord….

August 9th, 2023 • hiring interviewing

🔗 How Are Soft Skills Soft? (#)

The origin of the term “soft skills” really highlights the absurdity of what we now call “hard” skills.

April 21st, 2023 • hiring history skills

The Intersection of Tenure and Seniority

Patterns of short tenure are normal at the beginning of a career, but are more of a red flag in more senior roles. Here’s why.

October 20th, 2022 • careers executives hiring interviewing leadership tenure

When Is Short Tenure a Red Flag?

A pattern of short tenure – multiple short jobs over a small period of time – can be a red flag, but necessarily. I’ll dig into short tenure in this article. What’s “short”? What’s a “pattern”? When you’re thinking of switching jobs, when and how should your tenure factor into the decision? For hiring managers, when is it reasonable to be concerned about job tenure, and what should we do when we become concerned?

October 14th, 2022 • careers hiring interviewing tenure

Role Title Terminology

In my writing about hiring and management, I often talk about role titles – terms like “manager”, “director”, “executive”, and so forth. I’ve found that many readers find the precise definitions of these terms confusing. So here’s a glossary of the terms I use when I’m talking about job titles.

October 12th, 2022 • hiring jargon job titles management terminology

Post-interview recommendations: a case against 'maybe'

If you’re ever an interviewer on a role I’m hiring for, there’s this one thing I’m going to ask you to do that might feel weird. After you conduct that interview, I’m going to ask you to send me a recommendation, and I’m going to insist that the recommendation begins with a very clear “hire” or “no hire”. I won’t accept any form of “maybe”.

September 23rd, 2022 • hiring interviewing

Panel interviews don't work

There’s a Right Way to conduct job interviews: one-on-one, with a single interviewer per interview session. If you need multiple interviewers (you probably do), schedule multiple sessions, each one-on-one. The alternate approach, panel interviews – having multiple interviewers in a session at once – is almost always a bad practice. It increases stress on the candidate, risks measuring the wrong things, and doesn’t lead to better results. Avoid panel interviews: they don’t work.

July 8th, 2022 • hiring interviewing

Checking References: What to do if a reference check goes wrong

Most of the time, reference checks go very well: you only turn up information that confirms your decision to hire this candidate. But sometimes — maybe about 10% of the time — the reference will tell you something concerning. Here’s what to do if that happens.

July 6th, 2022 • hiring reference checks

Checking References: How to Check References

Part two of my reference check series, covering the nuts and bolts of conducting a reference check. When should you check references? How many? How should you contact references? What questions should you ask?

June 24th, 2022 • hiring reference checks

Checking References: Yes, You Should Check References

Reference checking isn’t optional: it can save you from making a big mistake. Reference checks are your last line of defense against hiring a jerk.

June 22nd, 2022 • hiring reference checks

Making a Compelling Offer — in this economy?

An edited transcript of a talk I delivered at the CTOCraft Hiring MiniConf. How do you make a job offer that’ll be accepted when other companies are out there offering candidates over a million dollars?

June 16th, 2022 • compensation conference hiring offers slides talk

Mailbag: Dealing With Misalignment While Hiring

Answering a question from a reader: how do you deal with misalignment – arguments about skills, pay, etc. – when hiring?

May 23rd, 2022 • alignment hiring mailbag recruiting

I was on The Changelog

I was on The Changelog, talking about work sample tests and hiring in general. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or right here.

February 14th, 2022 • announcement hiring podcasts

That Wild Ask A Manager Story

Ask A Manager had a wild story a week ago. A company interviewed someone, hired him, but when he showed up for work … it was a totally different person. A friend asked, “if this was your hire, and you manager asked you to change your hiring practices to prevent this, what would you do?” Nothing. I would do nothing. Here’s why.

February 14th, 2022 • ask a manager hiring

Developing a Values Interview Question

How do you develop an interview question that measures a core value?

January 31st, 2022 • hiring interviewing values

Work Sample Tests: Wrap Up and Q&A

This is the final post in my series on work sample tests. It’s a wrap-up post: I’ll address a few random points I couldn’t quite fit in elsewhere, and answer some questions from readers.

January 6th, 2022 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: What doesn't work (and why)

I’ve written about a bunch of effective work sample tests and the “rules of the road” that make them effective. One thing I haven’t talked about is counter-examples: types of work sample tests that don’t work. I tend not to do this sort of thing: I find it’s usually more useful to talk about what does work than to pick apart what doesn’t. But here, I think it’s illustrative: looking at why certain kinds of work sample tests fail can help illustrate the principles of effective tests. Let’s look at a few kinds of work sample tests that (usually) fail, and why.

December 30th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: Labs & Simulation Environments

The work sample tests I’ve covered in this series so far all involve software development. But what about roles that don’t involve day-to-day coding: roles like security analysis, penetration testing, technical support, bug bounty triage, project or program management, systems administration, technical operations, and so on? For those roles, I turn to simulated, “lab”-style environments. Here are some examples of that kind of test.

December 24th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: ‘Reverse’ Code Review

For most software engineering roles, the best work sample test will be some combination of the exercises I covered earlier in this series. But not every role; there are some circumstances where other types of tests fit better or are better at revealing some critical piece of information relevant to hiring. This post covers one of them: a “reverse” code review, where instead of you reviewing the candidate’s code, you have them review yours.

December 15th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: Bring Your Own Code

If you’re hiring engineers, some candidates will already have code they can share: side projects, open source, and so on. It’s silly to ask those candidates to write new code just for your interview if they already have code they can share. So, if you’re asking candidates to code as a work sample test, you should also offer to let candidates submit something they’ve previously written. Here’s how.

December 7th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

🔗 Shreyas Doshi on the hiring fallacy (#)

Great Twitter thread with some hard truths about “we need to hire more engineers”

December 4th, 2021 • engineering hiring management teams

Work Sample Tests: Pair Programming

I tend to prefer asynchronous work sample tests. The flexible scheduling of asynchronous exercises (i.e. “work on this whenever you like”) works better for the majority of candidates. But for some candidates, and some roles, synchronous exercises work better. By “synchronous” I mean: work sample tests that are explicitly scheduled, and that has both the interviewer and the candidate working directly together at the same time. In these cases, I often turn to pair programming.

November 30th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: Coding “Homework”

Coding homework is my default work sample test: I use it for all engineering roles unless it’s obvious that another kind of exercise is better. There are good reasons to make homework-style work sample tests the default: they’re relatively easy to construct, they scale reasonably well to large hiring rounds, they’re accurate simulations of real work, and easier than most other kinds of tests to construct in a way that maximizes inclusivity. Here’s how to conduct a coding homework work sample test.

November 23rd, 2021 • hiring interviewing management programming work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: A Framework for Good Work Sample Tests: Eight Rules for Fair Tests

What makes a work sample test “good” – fair, inclusive, and with high predictive value? Here’s my framework: eight principles that, if followed, give you a great shot at constructing a good work sample test.

November 17th, 2021 • fav hiring interviewing management work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: The tradeoff between inclusivity and predictive value

Good hiring processes try to maximize inclusivity and predictive value, but unfortunately, work sample tests bring these goals into conflict. There’s always a tradeoff between predictive value and inclusivity. The guiding principle of work sample tests is: construct a test that balances predictive value and inclusivity. Fair work sample tests will be predictive enough to give you a high degree of confidence that you’re making a good hire, while also being designed to be as accessible to as many candidates as possible.

November 10th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management work sample tests

Work Sample Tests: Introduction to Work Sample Tests

Earlier this year, I wrote a series on interview questions. Good interview questions are one key to hiring well, but they’re not the only key. Today, I’m starting a new series on another critical factor in effective hiring: using work sample tests, aka practical exercises. This is part 1: what are work sample tests, and why do we need them?

November 9th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management work sample tests

Mailbag: Adapting Interview Questions for Junior Candidates

Sébastien asks: “Would you say that your questions are equally applicable to junior and senior positions?”

March 29th, 2021 • hiring interviewing juniors mailbag

How Long Does It Take to Hire Someone?

How many hours does it take to hire someone, from approval of the open position to their first day? I tracked a recent hiring round I ran, and found it takes about 100 person-hours. Here’s a breakdown of where that time goes.

March 11th, 2021 • data hiring time tracking

“Why Did You Leave Your Last Job?”

Asking candidates why they left their last job is common… but should it be? I’m not sure. What do you think?

March 8th, 2021 • hiring interviewing

Unpacking Interview Questions: Types of Interview Questions

There are three types of interview questions: behavioral, hypothetical, and trivia. Behavioral questions are the gold standard; they’re the most effective at predicting job performance. Hypothetical questions can be useful in certain circumstances, if used correctly. Avoid trivia.

March 1st, 2021 • hiring interviewing management

Unpacking Interview Questions: Interview Question Series Wrap Up

A summary and wrap-up of my Unpacking Interview Questions series, covering why I wrote this series in the first place, some advice on developing your own questions, and answers to a few questions.

February 15th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management

Unpacking Interview Questions: The Weakness Question

The fifth and final part of my Unpacking Interview Questions series, where I share one of the questions I use when I interview for technical roles. Today’s question is the most difficult-to-ask of the series, but also one of the most valuable: asking a candidate to discuss one of their weaknesses.

February 12th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management

Unpacking Interview Questions: “Tell Me About a Disagreement…”

Part 4 of my Unpacking Interview Questions series, where I share one of the questions I use when I interview for technical roles. Today, an oldie-but-goodie: looking into a candidate’s ability to disagree and resolve conflict professionally.

February 11th, 2021 • conflict resolution hiring interviewing management

Unpacking Interview Questions: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Part 3 of my Unpacking Interview Questions series, where I share one of the questions I use when I interview for technical roles. Today: making sure candidates align with organizational values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

February 10th, 2021 • diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring interviewing management

Unpacking Interview Questions: “Tell Me About a Project You Led…”

Part 2 of my Unpacking Interview Questions series, where I share one of the questions I use when I interview for technical roles. Today: measuring a manager’s ability to lead projects and manage them effectively.

February 9th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management

Unpacking Interview Questions: “Explain a Topic At Multiple Levels…”

Part 1 of my Unpacking Interview Questions series, where I share one of the questions I use when I interview for technical roles. Today: asking candidates to explain a topic at multiple levels. This is one of my favorite questions to ask for engineering roles; strong performance on this question correlates very highly with high job performance on my teams.

February 8th, 2021 • hiring interviewing management

Measuring Hiring Manager Effectiveness

Hiring is one of the most important parts of a manager’s job. Over the last few years, I’ve developed a metric I use to measure hiring performance. It’s simple to calculate, and reasonably effective at revealing performance differences between managers. Here’s the formula:

September 14th, 2020 • hiring management measurement

Training Interviewers

What’s the best way to train folks to conduct job interviews? I have a process I’ve used for about five years that seems to work well. It’s loosely based on the “see one, do one, teach one” methodology used by many medical schools.

September 8th, 2020 • hiring interviewing training

What accomplishments sound like on software engineering resumes

Effective resumes need to contain two things: responsibilities and accomplishments. The first tells the read what your job was; the second, what your results were. Unfortunately, most people fail at the second part. I’ve seen thousands — maybe tens of thousands — of resumes, and most don’t contain accomplishments. This makes it difficult for a hiring manager to get excited about your resume: knowing what you were supposed to do doesn’t tell a reader how well you did that thing.

May 8th, 2020 • engineers hiring job search resumes

Layoffs are Coming

It’s looking increasingly likely that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause a recession. It’s easy to think we might be immune from the effects of a global recession, but my experience is that tech companies are quick to cut staff, especially engineers, in the face of declining markets. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. Either way, it’s not going to hurt to prepare.

March 13th, 2020 • career covid-19 hiring jobs layoffs

My questions for prospective employers (Director/VP roles)

Last time I was looking for a job, I wrote up a list of questions I wanted to ask prospective employees. I just ran across the list again, and figured I’d share. I was looking for a senior management role (Director/VP-level) in Engineering or Security, so the questions are sloped in that direction.

Also note that I was in a fairly strong position; I didn’t need the a job immediately. So, I was able to ask fairly direct, challenging questions. You may have a lower risk tolerance and want to scale some of these back.

April 23rd, 2019 • hiring interviewing job search leadership management questions

My interview kickoff script, annotated

When I interview, I say nearly the same thing at the beginning of the interview. It’s a script I’ve practiced and honed over the years . It’s only eleven sentences, but each has a specific purposes. I’ve iterated on this for years, and it’s pretty tightly honed at this point. I published this script in the guide to interviewing I wrote at 18F last year, but never got a chance to break down where it comes from

November 29th, 2018 • hiring interviewing management script

Hire me to help you hire

Do you have a growing engineering organization that needs help hiring effectively? I can help! I have consulting availability over the next few months to help organizations hire better.

I can design your hiring process, write interview questions, teach staff how to interview successfully, or even run your hiring rounds. Read on more for details, or if you’re interested, hit me up: [email protected].

What I can do for you

In a nutshell: I will help you hire more effectively. If you’re having issues at any step of your engineering hiring processes, chances are I can help you improve. Some of the things I can do for you:

November 27th, 2018 • announcements hiring

Work for me!

Are you looking for an awesome web development gig? Then you should come work for me at Revsys. We’re hiring a full-time Python/Django developer.

Update:

The position’s been filled. That said, we’re continuing to expand, so if you’re an awesome Python/Django developer and want to work with us, get in touch anyway. For the right person we’d create a position.

Revsys is a consulting and services business built around Django; we specialize in scalability and real-world deployment concerns. In practice this means we get to see all sorts of awesome, atypical, large-scale uses of Django. Our clients include some of the largest users of Python and Django in the world.

April 25th, 2011 • hiring job-posting revsys

Looking for a Django developer?

Need an experienced Python/Django developer?

A good friend of mine is looking for a new gig. He’s employed currently and wants to keep his search on the D/L, so I’m putting the word out on his behalf. I can vouch for this mysterious individual: I’d hire him myself in a heartbeat if I could. He’s got years of Django and Python experience, and a killer work ethic.

So if you’ve got a space on your team and would like to fill it with someone awesome let me know (jacob @ this domain) and I’ll put you two in touch.

June 10th, 2009 • django hiring

Strike averted

I’m thrilled to announce we’ve hired James Bennett (a.k.a ubernostrum in #django) as World Online’s new front end developer.

About a month ago he wrote:

I’m desperately looking for someone to pay me to build something with Django, and if it doesn’t happen soon I’m just going to go on strike.

Whew — strike averted.

Seriously, though we’re extremely excited to have James joining our team, and we can’t wait to see the cool shit he’s going to build here.

January 13th, 2006 • hiring ljworld