Entries Tagged 'Hiring' ↓

Are you hiring manager? Want to hunt the best talent? What is the most effective and efficient technique? Is there one?

Yes, there is. The technique is called “Hiring Smart”.

by apesara

In his book 45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game Pierre Mornell outlines 45 techniques for hiring smart. My favorite is #45 - “Design Your Own System”.

For me the easiest way to design my own system is adopting working one and adapting it to my needs. So here it is, below is the template I adopted form the book. There are many techniques from the template I already use and they are effective for me. Some look way farfetched like #27. But I still leave it in the list - some day I might decide it is exactly what I needed. Use “TODO’s…” column to capture actual facts. Use “What I think” column to write down assumptions, conclusions, and questions. Enjoy.

Think it is too time consuming? Think twice and listen to those who are in the know:

“You cannot spend too much time or effort on “hiring smart”. The alternative is to manage tough, which is much more time consuming” - Gary Rogers, Chairman & CEO, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream

Happy hiring.

I am not HR specialist but sometimes I am asked to conduct professional interview. I use Joel On Software simple technique - The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing -  for this purpose which Joel summarizes as follows:

• Introduction
• Question about recent project candidate worked on
• Impossible Question
• C Function
• Are you satisfied?
• Design Question
• The Challenge
• Do you have any questions?

During the interview course I try to simulate different situations from my day-to-day practice with the customers and see how the candidate behaves and reacts. What I am looking is base knowledge of the subject, soft skills, and the ability to maneuver unexpected situations. I really appreciate when the candidate demonstrate depth and breadth knowledge but soft skills are very important. On other hand good behaviors cannot replace subject matter expert.

Above categories help me quickly identify both technical and soft skill of the candidate.

“You’re only as good as the people you hire.” - Ray Kroc

Proper preparation for job interview is crucial to make good first impression. I found  very useful. I used its “Interviewing” part at http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/interview to prepare for interview after several failures. My favorites are: