I’m thinking about the hiring process again…
I don’t care what you say you can do. Lying is a least common denominator skill (anyone can do it).
I’m kind of interested in what you demonstrate you can do. But not really. I’ve worked with too many Great XYZs (engineers, programmers, designers, project managers, etc.) who lack so many other crucial skills that they’re marginal team members, at best.
What I’d really like to learn about is your network. Not just its size–although I’m interested in that. I want to know who’s in it and what they think of you. Think references on steroids. And not so much because I want to do a background check on steroids but because I want to know who you bring to the table besides you.
I want to know that you have a network of peers that can help you with our problems. I want to know that you have a network of peers that we can turn to when the business grows. I want to know that you have a network of peers that can teach you something new.
Bottom line, I believe in networks and I want to work with people that believe in networks. After all, by working together we’ll be forging a new link in each of our networks.
- Bandit
N.B. As I write this and contemplate hitting “Publish” I realize that what I just wrote will probably make a lot of people nervous. Who wants to know their boss that well? Who wants their boss to know them that well?
So really… instead of interviewing a potential employee, should you not be interviewing the people close to that person, instead?
Imagine a former client walking into the office of a possible future employer of someone they worked with to have a discussion on whether the future employer should hire that person.
That’s an entertaining scenario!
Honestly, I have to say that I always learn a lot more about someone from others than I do from the person. People are amazingly non-objective about themselves.
Would I / should I ever hire an employee I wouldn’t consider adding to at least one of my various social networks?
Would I / should I ever hire an employee who can’t objectively tell me / show me something about his/her network of peers?
I completely agree with you (mostly).
In a large corporation, team members have roles that are minor enough that their background isn’t going to matter. In virtually every case I have ever seen, the HR department has no idea how to interview for the skillsets required by the company, and certainly will not take the effort to check someone’s network beyond the spoonfed yes-men they gave as their 3 references. It doesn’t matter so much though, because in a large corporation you can be a lazy cog in the giant machine and get away with it.
In a coworking or small distributed team scenario there is no giant machine. Everyone on the team has to be a rockstar, and they have to pull their own weight (and then some).
In this type of situation, the small window you get into a person’s personality during an interview is rarely enough to make a good judgment call on how well they are going to work on your team. It’s important to check what they know and who they know.
Find them on LinkedIn. Find someone you both know, talk to that person. If they aren’t on LinkedIn, perhaps they would prefer to be a clock puncher at a giant corporation where they will get asked scripted questions during the interview and the interviewer will not understand any technical answers you give them.
Thanks Cameron.
Your comments force me to dig deeper into my thinking.
What I really want are 1) team members who are 100% into the game. I also want 2) team members who bring connections to the table. Whatever the size of the organization.
The two don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand, although I’m going to learn more about #1 if they have #2.