Hiring Managers: Ask Better Interview Questions

We are in the tightest candidate market in recent memory and hiring managers continue to squander hiring opportunities by asking irrelevant and impracticable interview questions. Ultimately this allows the candidate with multiple opportunities, a reason to focus on more engaging interview processes. Don’t get me wrong, there is not a candidate in the market that misunderstands the purpose or thought behind the Google interview. In fact, most candidates agree for the type of company and culture Google promotes, this hiring method is quite effective. The consensus is that asking candidates why manhole covers are round, or how to fit a giraffe in a refrigerator, will result in a room filled with insanely smart researches that consistently find theories worth proving wrong and/or right. Many of these will fizzle out via extensive R&D, prototype and test. While fewer and far between, will actually make it to market. Furthermore, the flaw is that there is only one Google yet a majority of the companies hiring try this approach first before finding frustration and alternative interview methods.

Yes there is value to knowing Linked List by definition and off the top of your head, but at the end of the day implementations such as this are often times saved on a Safari bookshelf or one key stroke away from copy and paste.

Why is this important you ask? Because with an already depleted candidate market to begin with, it is ever more important to keep candidates engaged in the process and becoming a part of the solution. And if you are part of a business that has clearly defined goals and trajectory then hiring someone who can help stay on track and accomplish said goals is more important than patenting the world’s longest algorithm.

Keep things simple, get the candidate engaged:

• Here is a problem we’re trying to solve currently. How would you go about tackling this problem?
• Here is a problem we just solved. At first we tried it this way but it was a fail. Do you know why?
• We have an X-week release cycle. What is your current development release cycle and how would you adjust coding habits to our current cycle?
• In the near future we are thinking about this new feature. If you had a say in the choice of technology what would you choose and why?
• I know you are an engineer, but if I asked you to QA this application where would you start? What order would you proceed?
• If three senior managers approached you in the same day with problems called “urgent” how would you prioritize

This approach will allow you subjectively analyze the answer content while identifying whether or not this candidate will bring fresh and new perspective and experience to the team. In summary, the idea behind interviewing is getting a feel for how someone solves problems and uses the resources available. In this tight market, you may want the guy who nails the “google interview”, but guess what: Google wants that person to ;)

Hiring During the Holidays

When everyone seems to be focused on wrapping up the year and getting ready for the next, there is a surge in hiring that rivals any other quarter of the year. The common thought that companies don't hire during the holidays is a myth, however on the candidate front there is a massive drought that makes hiring during the holidays extremely difficult.

During the holidays the common candidate that is thinking about testing the job market usually puts their job search on hold until the new year. Even if they were looking before the holidays, they tend to take a break around this time to pick it up in the new year when "everyone is hiring again. It's always funny to me when I talk with a candidate that has this line of thinking because it's the exact opposite advice I would ever tell someone if they were looking for a job. Search for a job when your competition is thin, not when it's at its peak. The companies that are interviewing right now are serious about hiring someone before the end of the year, waiting for next year is a gamble that could have the candidate wait for longer than they think. It's the most honest job market you can find because the people who are looking to make a change or looking to find talent aren't window shopping, they've tested the market and they're looking to land something or someone before the end of the year - the exact opposite of what you'll get in January.

It's not all roses though, there are some serious challenges you face during the holidays when it comes to hiring. Here are just a few:

Long start dates

Be wary of some of these drawn out start dates. No one wants to be the bad guy and tell your new hire not to take that long holiday vacation but nothing is worse than hiring someone, waiting one month for the person to start only to find out that they had second thoughts about the opportunity a few days before their start date. You wasted all of that time waiting for the person to start when you could have continued the interview process. What do you do to prevent this?

• Ask if they can start for a few days before their vacation.
• Invite them to meet the team during one of your epic Holiday Parties.
• Ask if they could push off their vacation toward the end of the Holiday season and incorporate that in their PTO.

Counter Offers

This one stings the worst. You do all the work only to find out the candidate was fishing for a raise or a promotion and because of your courtship, they ended up getting a good holiday bump. Companies will do anything they can to keep their talent through the holidays so they can rev up a new search in the new year. Why not? If you need deadlines to be hit, throwing someone a $20K raise to their salary, paying only a month or two worth of that new salary and then hiring someone in the new year is a lot cheaper than feeling the pinch during the holidays, hiring someone urgently and most likely paying an agency fee for. What can you do?

• Tell the candidate from the beginning that they will get a counter offer and you're not interested in playing those games.
• Tell the candidate that they will get a counter offer and if they take it they'll be back looking again in 90 days once the original reason for leaving resurfaces.
• Be very aware and sensitive as to why they're looking to leave their current company – does it make sense to you? Does it seem like it's a dead end?
• Ask the candidate if there's anything that their current company can do to keep them? If yes, tell them to ask for it now before you continue the process any further. Save yourself the frustration.

Competition

You're not the only company hiring during the holidays. You're also not the only company that needs someone to start before the end of the year. So what do you think happens when you find someone that's perfect for your role? You're not alone in pursuing this candidate and you're one of many competing for the same talent. So how do you hire them?

• Listen to what they're looking for and make sure you don't just sell them the reasons why you took the job. Most candidates want a growth path. Most technical candidates want the latest technology. But not all candidates are alike, so don't fall in the trap and sell what "most candidates" are looking for but tune in on what this person is looking for.
• Ask them directly if they want your job. Make them tell you why they want it. If they can't verbalize compelling reasons why they want your job then most likely they're not going to accept an offer, they're going to shop your offer somewhere else. Save yourself some time and move on to someone who does.
• Ask them what do you need to offer them to shut down their search? Remember, if the candidate's number is $100K but you know they'll still go on a few final round interviews while they consider the offer, find out what it will take for them to not go on those interviews. It might only be a few thousand dollars and in this market you don't want to take any chances on missing out on qualified people. You showed your cards and nothing gives your competition the advantage more than knowing what they're up against.

So if you're hiring right now and find it difficult to find people, stay focused and determined because waiting for next year's talent will only result in finding someone much later in the quarter than what you needed. You'll also be lined up against the majority of companies opening up their new positions for the year and you'll be lost in the shuffle. You'll find some really good talent during the holidays but finding and hiring are two separate things. Stay focused and determined to hire your next candidate and don't waste any time in the process.

Where do you find talent?

Where do you find talent? 

That is the question I’ve been asked more recently than any other. There is no isolated answer and for those who are currently spending countless hours and endless amounts of money trying to perfect the recruitment process with software – good luck.

My answer is an honest and simple one – get out and be a part of the community. This post by Robert Scoble aka @scobleizer following our one-on-one dinner is a great use case on this exact topic. Throughout the post he references the idea of taking on the unknown. He also uses the term “random” more than once and that works for me too. In his case he appreciated meeting me. In your case, it could be meeting the next lead engineer that helps you drive home a multi-million dollar initiative.

The traditional approach to hiring of posting ads, collecting resumes, conducting a batch of phone screens which lead to technical screens, which lead to more technical screening… are out. Open source technologies are converging on enterprise integration and the community is growing. The push is self-organization – being proactive and getting out to Meetups, conferences, Tweetups, Hackfests and/or any other type of event you can think of that is centered around technology.

 Attending a social function to find engineers may have been an awkward suggestion at best or a hypocritical suggestion perhaps – even five years ago. Today though, that is the only way to truly build a network of expanding interest and attraction within the developer community. Next time you are sitting in your office late at night trying to figure out why it has been so hard to fill your open role, ask yourself when was the last time you actually went out into the community and actually talked to people about the project, vision and opportunity on your team.  

So where do I find talent? Put yourself on an edge. 

Hiring Managers: Manage Yourself First

I hear a lot of managers talk about the proper way to manage people. There are many different theories on how to motivate your team in a way that makes them perform at very high levels, but everything comes down to not what you say but what you do that motivates your team to perform.

The days of commanding and controlling your team are largely over and there's a new cloud of awareness centered around the idea of empowering your employees. The idea of making your employees feel replaceable doesn't motivate them to perform at unusual levels, it makes them perform just enough to keep their job away from the firing squad. However, the confident manager allows every interaction with their team to foster the idea of mutual dependence.

Be Humble

It's a virtue, yes, but every manager struggles with this at the start and for some it cements into their management style and they don't know why people don't like working for them. Many new managers are nervous about proving themselves, so they end up discouraging their subordinates from speaking up and thereby fail to benefit from their experience. In other words they rely on war stories from the past to use to teach and instead of teaching it turns out to be just gloating on how the manager solved a similar problem in the past.

The tone can be, listen to me because you know nothing and I know everything. Ask yourself next time you find yourself waxing on about a situation that happened in the past, "Am I giving absurd details on how I figured out problem because it's relevant to a current problem or am I just making myself look better?"

You're just showcasing your own insecurities if you go on and on about yourself. People want to know your stories, but tell them when you're asked and don't go on about what you've done to get where you are today. So recount your experiences very briefly, but only if they directly relate to a current issue that needs to be solve.

Prove to your people not that you have a record as a problem solver but that your ideas and advice can help them now.

Finally, remember to share both your mistakes and your successes. Achieving that balance brings you down to earth in the eyes of your team, and it makes you reflect on why you are telling stories in the first place.

Don't Be Obsessed with the Rules

Rules are a good thing but to simply state the rules because they're a rules isn't enough for the motivated team member. You need to understand and state the why behind the rules so that the person understands why they're there even though they may not agree with them. It becomes more about the manager doing a great job being a manager and following the rules and less about cultivating a team of people that feel like they have the ability to change things within the organization. No one wants to work with the manager who can't affect change.

If you find yourself continually referencing the "hand book" to solidify to your people why you're making a decision your team will soon realize that you're not a manager but the police to make sure you're following the rules. You will lose your team's confidence very quickly as the person they entrust with their career and the smart ones will seek out the person who wrote the "hand book" to further themselves and effect change within an organization.

Listen and Show It

One of my turning points in my career was when I first started with my organization and the COO, Brian, was visiting Chicago from Boston for one reason or another. We went out as a region one night and had a few beers, Brian sat down with me and started asking questions about who I was and what I was looking to do here. It became very apparent to me, a month into the job and by far the most junior person in the region, that Brian was listening to my every word. He wasn't looking elsewhere when I was talking but he was looking right in my eyes and commenting on my stories. We talked about my upbringing, college and a few stories about my early obsession with U2 and a new band called Kings of Leon. The conversation went on for about an hour at the bar we were at and soon the rest of the senior region left to go home, leaving myself and my COO just chatting one on one. I remember apologizing to Brian for taking up his time while the more accomplished people were leaving, surely he didn't travel from Boston to chat with an unproven trainee. It mean a lot to me.

It wasn't until a year later, however, that it really started to impact me on how great of a leader Brian truly was. I saw Brian in Boston this time for a company party and out of 300 people, Brian came up to me and immediately reference our conversation about U2 how, after our conversation, went to listen to Kings of Leon and how he didn't agree that they were similar to a U2. I was floored. Not only did Brian recognize that the time he spent with me meant more to me than if he had spent that same time with someone who was more "worthy" of his time but he remembered it. Brian knew how to get more out of his time.

The point is that communication is multifaceted. Not only did Brian listen to me, he was 100% present in our conversation. His body language was engaged, he looked into my eyes when I spoke and then he referenced the conversation a year later. Every time I spoke to Brian and still to this day realize that every word I choose to say with Brian is heard. This taught me one of the most valuable lessons in how to manage people effectively and it happened before I was even managing people. If people know that you're listening and processing what they say they will make sure they look to impress you every time they interact with you. That breeds a culture of people looking to impress and everyone performs at a high level if they're continually looking to impress one another. They stop trying to impress when they feel you're not even noticing their efforts.

First Round Interview? No, First Round Impressions

Preface: This post is written less as my opinion and more as a culmination of all the feedback (use cases) some four thousand high-end technology professionals have given me over the past three plus years.

We are in one of the tightest, if not the tightest candidate markets since, well…forever. More open positions than qualified candidates and new companies sprouting up every day (like the dot com). That said, the technical community has maintained a very high bar for talent and experience to make the cut when interviewing (not so much like the dot com). Modern day job descriptions look like a good action story super hero or better yet, Mark Zuckerberg. This and the fact that many still think we are in a soft market due to lasting effects of a recession, lead to ineffective first round interviews often, so I hear.

The first round interview is a first impression of your organization, and a lasting one. With the supply-and-demand curve favoring them, candidates are more likely to just move on from a bad experience. So, is it better to cover technical strengths? Or weaknesses? Code test?

If you use this simple model while conducting first round interviews you’ll find the ability to make a good assessment while also leaving a great impression on each candidate you interview whether or not you decide to move forward with them in the process.

1. Set the agenda (Duration of the call and topics covered)
2. Start by asking about them (Above and beyond your resume, tell me your story)
3. Ask more questions about them (What technologies were you using, what are you building, team size, % breakdown of role)
4. Tell your story (Before this, when I got here, why I joined, since I joined, why I’m staying)
5. Tell the story of the company (Who, What, When/where we started, where we came from, where we are, where we are going)
6. Dive into the product/application (Core business, user base, market, competitors)
7. Detail the team break down (Overall employees, tech numbers, tech stack, seniority, tenure)
8. Light overview of the role as it pertains to the current business need (Describe business need in a way to objective the must have skills)
9. Ask an open ended question to incite communication and articulation from the candidate (Personalized question about their story)
10. Wrap up the call and set a reference point regarding next steps (Set up a second round at the end of a first round or check-in call if unsure)
11. Follow through with next step (Let the NOs go)

Be the First to Make a Job Offer

The technical recruiting world in the last few months has been eye opening. The truth is that the current job market, at least in technology, is as competitive as ever.  If you haven’t hired this year yet you need to read this article because things have drastically changed.

Across the country, different markets typically have very different market trends for a similar type of skill set. As an example, it might be much easier to find a C++ embedded candidate in San Jose than it would be in Philadelphia because of the type of companies located in either city that attract a certain type of skilled workers. Today it doesn’t matter if there’s a plethora of companies that employ a certain type of candidate or there’s only a few, the same blanket of frustration is draped over every metropolitan city in their hunt to find an appropriate candidate. You don’t have to be desperate to know that it’s frustrating and damaging when a position stays open.

The frustrating part of this is that when you do find that candidate you usually have plenty of competition. Aside from moving quickly which a lot of your competition is already doing, the key to landing your candidate is to make the right offer first and don’t seek to make an offer that you know you can counter.

Yes, you’re right, in negotiating a price everyone knows the tactic of lowballing and countering. You never know, they might accept your lowball offer first or you can meet in the middle somewhere. When you’re hiring someone, lowballing someone can and will be taken personally so if you make someone an offer that’s lower than their asking price it will turn them off even if you intended to counter them at a higher price. Lowballing says that if the person doesn’t take this offer than it’s not a big deal to you. That’s how they’re taking it and if that’s what you mean by making that offer, why are you making that offer in the first place?

So that concept should be cemented into every hiring manager’s head before extending an offer. Now what do you do when you want to hire a candidate that’s interviewing at multiple places with a few final round interviews scheduled? Do you make the offer and have them shut down their search or do you wait until they finish those final rounds to potentially beat your competition’s pending offers?

Be the first because:

• There are candidates that know where they want to work before any offers get made and then there are candidates that will wait until all options are laid out in front of them. My thought is that if they’re willing to risk losing an offer to see the rest of their suitor’s offers then the first offer wasn’t their first choice anyway.
• You’ll know quickly whether the candidate is serious about your opportunity and you don’t risk waiting for them to get all their offers to extend yours only to lose out anyway.
• It shows confidence in your opportunity to be the first ones to extend an offer. Waiting to counter the candidate’s other offers shows you’re not a leader and not willing to take the first step.
• Making the first offer also shows your decision making abilities, when you make a decision to move forward you move. How a company hires is how they manage.

So how do you make offers? Do you put your best foot forward first or do you wait until you see what the candidate is getting before slapping together your offer? 

Hiring Managers: Work With People Who Want to Work With You

Reflecting back on this post, I recognized a significant improvement in the hiring expectations throughout the community over the past two to three months. That being said, there are still enough needs out there that seem to be unbalanced that I thought to revisit the topic from another angle.

In many cases a simple request for smart engineers often times morphs into a half-human half-robot engineer request which, as far as I know, is still unrealistic. If one’s expectations refuse to be compromised then perhaps the project need should be revisited as well. This fast-paced M&A market, IPO in less than 4 years market, is pushing lean environments and agile shops that continuously look for the “top 1%”, “A Players”, “rock star”, etc. but seemingly do not often stop to ask, what is the long-term outcome of that recruitment target?

In many cases though, the end all be all skill set recruited is one that will inevitably run out of challenges and motivation just months into a project. This should come as no surprise though because it all starts in the interview and hiring process. (more on this)

Can I just put name tags on them?

Wouldn’t that be great if a candidate walked in with a name tag that said, “Hi, my name is Primadonna” or “Hi, I’m really looking for the top dollar and cutting edge technology with no allegiance to the company or product even though that is devastating to a consumer and overall product-centric market.” So the last one was a bit much but you get the point. Unfortunately the answer is no. I’m not even entirely sure that would be legal.

How to identify people who want to work with you

Look for people who seem interested in you, your company and your product from the beginning. This day in age there is simply too much information at our finger tips not to have researched an opportunity beforehand. With so much information available, what you should look for is someone who is passionate about your product/company, with a strong foundation, and great research skills. That is the person that will wake up in the middle of the night to research CoffeeScript and Node.Js to implement your latest web solution without you having to tell them to do so in the morning. If you are working with a recruiter then you should be able to rely on them to increase pre-interview interest and excitement by sharing your story with the candidate beforehand.

People who want to work with you know who you are when they meet you. They have a general understanding (if not more) of the industry, product and technology stack you are working with. Minimally they’ve googled your name to confirm it is something they are interested in at the root and walk in with an open mind and positive attitude. Positive and progressive thinking will lead to production. If you are looking for reasons to hire and people who want to work with you and the candidate is looking for a great opportunity and something to believe in, then the result will always be more productive than two parties coming together with the intention of screening one another out.

Six Ways to Think Like a Great Recruiter

When you’re managing a successful team you know it. You see and hear it happening to other people but it hasn’t happened to you - yet. You’ve even done it to other teams whether you know it or not in order to build your existing team. The better your team is, the more likely they will get recruited or leave for something that’s better for them. At least they think it’s better.

Face it, one of the prime characteristics a successful employee possesses is to think bigger about things and act. When a successful person conquers a project or a role they seek for the next great challenge right around the corner. If it’s not right there, they’re going to find it somewhere else. It’s crucially important to offer that type of mobility and challenge at work. The truth is that you can’t keep the great ones forever unless you give them the golden handcuffs and even that has been known to self-destruct.

So think like a recruiter. An even better way to say it is to think like a great networker. No matter how great your team may be now, there are always other people that will add a new element to the team and the way the market is going, it’s better to be proactively recruiting than reactively.

Here are six ways to think like a great networker:

Build outward, not inward.  Start by remembering that the point of collaborative networking is to connect people who wouldn't ordinarily work together. You are the reason they got together in the first place and they never forget this. Most people make the obvious connections: recruiter to jobseeker, single male to single female, etc., but it’s the great networkers who think like a great recruiter and after listening, realize that a connection can be made. Don't waste your time deepening connections with people you already know. Balance these connections by staying in touch with people in other teams or in other companies. Don’t make the trunk larger but make the branches reach further.

Focus on quality, not quantity.  Rather than aiming for a massive network, focus on building an efficient one. An efficient network requires knowing people with different skills and viewpoints. They should be different from you, of course, but also different from one another. Just applying this rule alone can make the previous a lot easier. Don’t preach to the choir, collaborate with the unpopular.

Build weak ties, not strong ones. The strong ties are already there, they are the people you already know well and talk to frequently and probably someone who knows a lot of the same people you do. A weak tie forms a bridge to a world you don't normally walk in. To maintain a weak tie, you only have to maintain it once or twice a month. Keeping this tie is more beneficial than not having it at all. The road less traveled isn’t built with a highway.

Use hubs, not familiar faces. Usually when you’re faced with an issue at work, you gravitate to the people that you’re closer with to ask for help. But because we tend to befriend people at our own level, our closest contacts are unlikely to know more than we do. Instead, identify the "hubs" in your company or community who are already great organizational networkers and ask them to connect you to someone who knows more. These hubs tend to be long-tenured people who've worked on a variety of teams and projects. If you're in a leadership role, consider it part of your job to help develop more hubs. Weave a web not a flock.

Swarm the target. This will help you capture value, which if you think of networking as a vehicle to only capture value you’re already looking at it poorly. If you’ve built a network that is based on complexity, using the help of a hub you find someone who can help you: a target. But before you approach that person, the smart networker enlists the help of their network to increase the odds that the target will listen. Ask a shared contact to reach out to the target person. Ask someone high in your network to talk to someone high in your target’s network. Share your vision of building a team, starting a company, recruiting for a client and remember reciprocity: make sure to highlight how this benefits them. The best leaders think of themselves last.

Strengthen ties by investing time. Now you’re building a team, and while the term "Team building" is a little cliché there are times when it's crucial. If you’re managing a team that is facing a challenging task (who isn’t?), make sure to invest time and resources to build stronger connections. Help the team get to know each other better. You'll start to see results very quickly and you won’t need to be the aggressor all the time, the bond becomes so tight that you no longer need to be the glue. Once you have the ropes in place, you need to tighten them for the mast to sail. 

To begin this and be comfortable at it, start by mapping the networks internally in your business, both formal and informal. Look at the structure and how the organization is set up. The larger the company the more hubs will exist and most likely you’re not a part of all of them and there are a lot of people who are outside of them that are on islands by themselves. Measure the diversity of the hubs, is it mostly junior people and senior people separate? Are they close because of geographical distance? Gender? Once you can work internally, you can easily see this exist if you go to a networking event and watch the crowd disperse into small hubs.

Break into the hubs, make a connection, and think like a networker. It’s better that you do it because someone is, and sooner or later, the target will be on your team.