Avoiding Hiring Mistakes: Listen to Questions

At the end of the interview you ask a sacramental question: “Do you want to ask us any questions?” Now, it’s time for a candidate.

Listen what questions are asked. Usually the more questions you hear the better. Sure, sometimes you’ll be killed with a number or type of questions and then it doesn’t help the candidate any more. Anyway, generally it works.

Another important thing is what exactly you’re asked about. It happened several times I had quite an insightful discussion about our products or our market with a candidate and it was always a sign of interviewee’s real interest in a job. It also tells you something about their knowledge and approach.

As often, there’s no silver bullet here, but when you listen carefully you will find at least a couple of hints when you are asked questions on interview.

Whole avoiding hiring mistakes series.

People Problem

Several stories.

1. Poor architecture prepared by a lead developer who rejected to redesign the whole thing as he didn’t consider a person who proposed changes as knowledgeable enough. It ended in a series of functionality issues and bugs in the application. The reason laid within people characters.

2. Low efficiency of the whole team which was organized to allow its boss work effortlessly. It wasn’t the team itself which didn’t want to engage. It was the boss who saw the more work his people have, the more he has himself.

3. A developer put extreme effort in to rescue the project. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible anyway. He saw his extraordinary engagement. His bosses saw the failure and rejected to reward him. The guy left few months later.

4. A manager of development team who was considered by project managers as the one who they didn’t want to work with. As far as there was no supervision from the higher management cooperation with the manager sucked. The effect was the projects were dealt unfairly among development teams. Higher management refused to do anything to solve the problem.

5. Guy was made a sacred cow in his department after a couple of other experienced employees left. He ended up forcing ideas which seemed cool for him, not those which were valuable for the project or the team. A list of issues was invited as several cool decisions brought loads of additional work to the rest of people.

6. Higher managers were treated differently. The sales guy was always right while the technical guy was usually ignored. It ended up with selling things which weren’t feasible or profitable. The technical guy was the one to blame. He left. His successor did the same.

OK, where’s the point? The real reason of all this situations is similar. It’s a people problem. No matter if you think about flawed architecture, rotation among valuable people, wrong workflow or poor cooperation. It is people problem

Either individual goals are different than organization goals or the person’s character somehow doesn’t stick to the rest of the team or there’s personal conflict between people which affects everyday work.

You should accept neither of them. In many cases issue can be solved. As far as clear expectations are shown people can change. I saw them leaving their ego aside and then, voila, magic happened. They were using their time and experience to push things further instead of fighting with environment.

When it doesn’t work, well, you always have the ultimate way of changing things in the workplace as a plan B.

Avoiding Hiring Mistakes: Be Ready to Break Schemas

Have you ever met a candidate who seemed perfect but for a different position? Have you ever interviewed a newbie with great potential when you looked for experienced person? Have you ever talk with person who could work only part-time while you needed a full-timer?

You probably have.

And what was your decision?

You could follow the schema, rejecting the candidate as it wasn’t the choice you aimed for. Or better, you could break the schema and try to find the place for a talent. You could look for another team when he could suit. You could dedicate more effort to learn her basics before throwing her into deep water. You could adjust requirements a bit to include part-timers. Or maybe, just maybe, you already had way too much talent in your team.

Whole avoiding hiring mistakes series.

The Best Client

Have you ever thought which people on the client side you most like to work with?

You won’t find there people who squeezes you all the time. You won’t find those who don’t really care what they had to do unless there isn’t even a slightest argument against you. You won’t find guys who play office politics every single time you see each other. You won’t find formalism zealots. Or will you?

You’ll find those who you can talk honestly with. You’ll find people who organize meetings which are constructive and topical and don’t waste your time. You’ll find people who look for solution, not for a problem.

I’m lucky to work with several of them. I hope you do too.

Getting Users Emails

For web-based business one of the most important measures (usually single most important one) is a database of users. When we think “user” we see “email”. Sometimes more but the very first thing is an email address. There are lots of businesses which are valued highly only because they gathered a big number of emails... I mean users. The more emails... I mean users you have the better.

That’s web-business owner perspective.

On the other hand we, as users, are always suspicious when someone wants us to give out our email address before we can see the application or use the service. Who doesn’t have so called spam email which is entered whenever we have to sign up to the application we don’t know we will use longer than five minutes. We don’t even check what is there. We only click the confirmation link and voila. We’d prefer to keep our emails private as far as possible.

That’s user perspective.

I value services which allowed to be used without registration. YouTube is a standard example, but we did exactly the same in Overto. You can use main features (search through auctions) without registering. Although in YouTube when you want to upload a clip or access all content you have to sign in. When you want to use subscriptions in Overto you have to sign in. Service owners get information they want. You trick them with crappy address.

By the way that’s smarter tactic than just forcing users to register before they can do anything. In that case I usually walk away.

Lately I see more and more sites with another approach. They don’t force you to register at all. A good example can be myminicity.com. A kind of on-line game where you build your virtual city. The game keeps people coming back by giving them personalized website (their city). And it works. Sure they won’t spam you with newsletter covering features they have just added but who likes that spam anyway? If you don’t force people to register in any way those who do give you right emails.

That’s always a quality versus quantity question. Think about it another time when you ask your users to give you their email.

Avoiding Hiring Mistakes: Read Between Lines

You are on the interview. You ask. You make notes. Knows what critical path is. Plus. Has the idea how to organize a small project. Plus. Gantt charts have eaten him from the hand. Plus. Yawn. Risk management isn’t one of strengths. Minus. Would deal nicely with tough situations in projects. Plus. Etc.

Is that all? No. So far you know nothing about character of the person and how he will interact with the rest of the team. Sure you will ask about three strengths and three weaknesses but it won’t really tell you much. How the get the knowledge then? Have some soft questions which allow candidate to talk more not necessarily focusing about merits. Then read between lines.

If you ask about the most interesting project and you hear about another simple database application it tells you something about creativity. When you ask how the candidate deals with issues he can’t resolve by himself only the first idea is to go ask the boss you can imagine how self-reliant the guy is. The less obvious questions you have the more you are able to find in answers. Between lines.

Whole avoiding hiring mistakes series.

Dealing with Ass-Covering Project Management

I’ve written recently about ass-covering project management. That’s all about getting a proof something actually was agreed. This isn’t always very easy. How to act when you end up in that situation?

1. Follow-up. In that kind of environment you won’t get much information on paper or in emails. Most of communication will be done by phone. Why? No proof. No stress. After important (from your point of view) phone call just take a while to write a follow-up email: “As we agreed during our phone call...” You will act as you just want to confirm or particularize agreed details.

2. Calm down. You’ll get messages which will make you angry. Unfair. Untrue. You’ll rush to answer them angrily. Wait. Calm down. When you’re angry you’ll probably write something you’ll regret. My trick here is to write the response instantly, but instead of sending the message I read it and then cancel it. Then I write once more. In extreme situations I use a third iteration.

3. Call a bluff. In the atmosphere of trying to find a hook for other side you’ll often face the situation when someone implies you things you haven’t said or done. Call a bluff then. Don’t treat it as a normal situation but state the situation never happened or it’s just untrue. As far as the right is on your side you’ll rarely hear accusations once more.

4. Be active. Treat this as a game. You not only have to defend you actions but you can also attack opponent. Think for a while if the other side owes you something. If yes, just write a nice email: “As you haven’t completed your task we can’t continue the project in that area, which invites a delay...” You’d be surprised how that can improve other side’s engagement in completing their job.

5. Escalate. Use wisely organization structure of both companies (yours and client’s). Depending on the issue sometimes letting higher ranks know can help much. Especially when things are going too far for you. There’s no glory for bringing conflicts to the project when you overreact. Here I won’t give you an easy tip when to escalate, as there isn’t any. You have to try to judge the situation and go for what you feel. Just remember that overuse of escalation can result in adding you to decision-makers’ ignore list.

A little disclaimer: I do not recommend pushing your project into ass-covering mode. Unfortunately that’s rarely your decision and rarely can you change it. Just remember you’re not defenseless.

Ass-covering Project Management

You can define project management in many ways. I’d say the definition will differ depending on the project you actually run, its size, the customer on the far end etc. And definitely there are projects which could be at least partially defined as getting ass-covers.

It will happen usually when (either one):

• Client constantly changes the scope of the project.

• There is significant delay which can’t be clearly ascribed to one of sides.

• Project teams don’t like each other.

• Choosing a vendor was a political decision.

Sure, that mode of running a project isn’t a favorite one for most people, but it’s rarely you who is decision-maker. Usually you just follow whatever rules apply. If you’re unfortunate to work in ass-covering mode you better go and get some of those.

Otherwise you’ll end adding a number of features which weren’t planned. Or reconfiguring the environment multiple times instead of doing it once. Or being blamed for issues you weren’t responsible for. Or paying forfeits which aren’t quite fair. Nothing pleasant here.

On the other hand when you have to run a project that way, which I really recommend to avoid whenever possible, it can be quite a joy to have your ass-cover when you really need one.

Selflessly

Tomorrow do one thing selflessly. Something easy.

Praise someone. Say “thank you.” Help someone with boring task. Do something by yourself instead of delegating work. Whatever.

It will come back to you. It will pay off. It is definitely worth the effort.

Avoiding Hiring Mistakes: Prepare to the Interview

It is told so many times that interviewees should prepare themselves before coming to the meeting. That’s obvious. However interviewers way too often don’t consider the situation as they have their homework too.

When you’re about to hire someone and you go to the recruitment meeting without much preparation you lower your chances for good judgment. You won’t ask right questions. You won’t have ideas how to exploit candidate’s background. You won’t know which areas you should focus on. You won’t know so many things you’ll probably waste both your and candidate’s time.

Preparation should cover at least two areas. The list of questions and candidate’s resume. Candidate’s resume is quite obvious – you need to know who you talk to. The list of questions should be wide and possibly crafted a bit for candidate’s profile – you can never be sure where the discussion would go. Anyway you should be prepared to talk wherever it goes. Yes, that does mean you won’t ask a half or even more of your questions, but still it’s worth the effort. The nice thing is, that the more you talk with candidates the less you need to spend to prepare to another interview.

Whole avoiding hiring mistakes series.

Management with Human Face

Other day I spent the night with my long-time friend who is also a manager in his company. Part of our discussions was about different types of bosses. We went through managers we know, work or worked with. The outcome of discussion was rather not promising. Most of bosses we know are rather poor in managing people. I wouldn’t say the situation on the market is drastically different.

Sure, management is not only dealing with people and you can be poor in that aspect and still successful as a manager. But I strongly believe the manager who gets on well with her team will always perform better in the long run than the one who isn’t capable to do so.

That’s quite a paradox. Even though people could be more successful as bosses if they put some effort to be liked and respected by the team they usually don’t even try. If I had to point several reason why it is so I’d go for:

• Lack of awareness. They don’t see or feel it is important. No one told them it is. They just play whatever they think is the best. And getting on well with the team isn’t on the list.

• Carelessness. They’re aware but they don’t consider it as important. There are more important measures of being good manager than team’s attitude.

• Egocentrism. They look at the world as it was made by copies of themselves. They’re workaholics so why shouldn’t anybody else be too? They feel as everybody else was staring at them trying to copy their approach.

• Asshole. They’re just trying to squeeze their teams as much as possible as they don’t even treat their people as humans. They use all dirty techniques you can think of including those which are forbidden by law.

No matter what the reason is the outcome from the team is usually similar (although intensity can differ). People neither respect nor like their managers. They have no incentive to give something more as no one shows their effort can be worthy. There’s no trust between the team and its manager. Effectiveness is on average level in the best case. People don’t really care.

On the other hand there’s minority of bosses who focus on getting on well with their teams. Sometimes it’s quite a hard job to do, as quite often doing someone a favor produces an issue to be resolved. You let someone to get a day out but still his urgent task must be completed by the end of the day. You don’t force someone to work long hours because he doesn’t feel very well but you’ll have to deal with higher management explaining why the project is late. A list of examples is long.

I know I oversimplify here but I like to think whenever a boss does a favor to one of his subordinates he earns a little plus. He can later exchange those pluses for different things, whenever he’d need that. Moving holidays by a day or two. Staying after hours for a couple of days. Honest feedback. Engagement. Accountability. The list is much longer than the previous one.

As far as you have your bag of pluses received from your team you can feel quite comfortable whenever tough times are about to come. And, what is even more important for me personally, it makes your workplace a bit nicer and contacts with the team better. It’s definitely worth effort.

Squeezing the Team

Several days ago I had a chat with my wife about squeezing employees. You have significant delay in project and what the boss do? This way or another he’s trying to get more from his team. Personally I don’t know any boss who hasn’t done that, maybe except of those promoted this month.

1. Money. There’s always that old simple method. Financial incentive. Stay longer, I’ll pay you more. A bunch of dollars for every hour. Personally I think it sucks when not mixed with other methods. As far as boss’ goal isn’t to have people sitting in the workplace longer but to have the job done. Of course there are jobs and people which response very well for the scenario, but on general it doesn’t work very well.

2. Simple squeeze. Get them in a room, shout at them, tell them to work more. I’m always surprised how often it actually works. How often people response positively for aggression on the other side. Sometimes it doesn’t even ruin atmosphere as team has collectively the same enemy – the boss.

3. Accountability. Let people feel accountable for the job they do. That’s not an easy path. First not everyone will respond as there are people who don’t really care. Second, it requires quite an effort and empathy from a boss. Especially the latter isn’t seen very often. Ah, it’s worth to add some financial prize after all (not before). Bonuses are typically great budget to exploit here.

4. Ask. You’d be surprised how often people have positive attitude when you just go and ask them if they could do something for you. Sure, no one would jump into the fire after you, but sometimes fixing a couple of bugs more or staying late for a couple of days aren’t unreachable. Don’t forget to say thank you.

And one more thing. When you squeeze your team, no matter if you’re on the dark or light side, always try to imagine how your people actually will feel. And while you’re doing that remember they’re usually in drastically different position than you. After all they aren’t bosses.