LEADERSHIP

The Best Hiring Process-Part IV

Second criterion: curiosity.

Curiosity is a proxy for, do you love what you do? Anyone who loves what they do is inherently intensely curious about their field, their profession, their craft. They read about it, study it, talk to other people about it... immerse themselves in it, continuously. And work like hell to stay current in it. Not because they have to. But because they love to. Anyone who isn't curious doesn't love what they do. And you should be hiring people who love what they do. As an example, programmers. Sit a programmer candidate for an Internet company down and ask them about the ten most interesting things happening in Internet software. REST vs SOAP, the new Facebook API, whether Ruby on Rails is scalable, what do you think of Sun's new Java-based scripting language, Google's widgets API, Amazon S3, etc. If the candidate loves their field, they'll have informed opinions on many of these topics. That's what you want. Now, you might say, Aziz, that's great for a young kid who has a lot of spare time to stay current, but what about the guy who has a family and only has time for a day job and can't spend nights and weekends reading blogs and staying that current? Well, when you run into a person like that who isn't current in their field, the other implication is that their day job isn't keeping them current. If they've been in that job for a while, then ask yourself, is the kind of person you're looking for really going to have tolerated staying in a day job where their skills and knowledge get stale, for very long? Really? Remember -- because of the Internet, staying current in any field no longer costs any money. In my  Insurance experience, drive and curiosity seem to coincide pretty frequently. The easiest way to be driven is to be in a field that you love, and you'll automatically be curious.

The Best Hiring Process-Part V > NEXT BLOG

Today's Humour

Phone call to the Electricity Board from Ladies Hostel

Ladies Hostel: Electricity Board???? Now Power here at Ladies Hostel, feeling Hot, please send Men.

EB: Very sorry Lady, I can understand your plight. Currently no men Availaible, Use candles for time being.

The Best Hiring Process-Part III

First Criterion, Drive.

I define drive as self-motivation -- people who will walk right through brick walls, on their own power, without having to be asked, to achieve whatever goal is in front of them. People with drive push and push and push and push and push until they succeed. Winston Churchill after the evacuation of Dunkirk: "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

That's what you want.

Some people have it and some people don't. Of the people who have it, with some of them it comes from guilt, often created by family pressure. With others, it comes from a burning desire to make it big. With others, it comes from beingincredibly Type A. Whatever... go with it -MOTHER OF INSECURITY.

Drive is independent of educational experience, Grade Point Averages (G.P.A.), and socioeconomic background.

(But Aziz, isn't a 4.0 GPA a sure sign of drive? Well, it's a sign that the person is driven to succeed on predefined tests with clear criteria and a grader -- in an environment where the student's parents are often paying a lot of money for the privilege of having their child take the tests. That may or may not be the same thing as being driven to succeed in the real world.) Drive is even independent of prior career success. Driven people don't tend to stay long at places where they can't succeed, and just because they haven't succeeded in the wrong companies doesn't mean they won't succeed at your company -- if they're driven. I think you can see drive in a candidate's eyes, and in a candidate's background.

For the background part, I like to see what someone has done. Not been involved in, or been part of, or watched happen, or was hanging around when it happened. I look for something you've done, either in a job or (often better yet) outside of a job. The business you started and ran in high school. The nonprofit you started and ran in college. If you're a programmer: the open source project to which you've made major contributions. Something.

If you can't find anything -- if a candidate has just followed the rules their whole lives, showed up for the right classes and the right tests and the right career opportunities without achieving something distinct and notable, relative to their starting point -- then they probably aren't driven. And you're not going to change them.

Motivating people who are fundamentally unmotivated is not easy. But motivating people who are self-motivated is wind at your back. I like specifically looking for someone for which this job is their big chance to really succeed.

For this reason, I like hiring people who haven't done the specific job before, but are determined to ace it regardless.

I also like specifically looking for someone who comes from some kind of challenging background -- a difficult family situation, say, or someone who had to work his/her way through school -- who is nevertheless on par with his/her more fortunate peers in skills and knowledge (Sometimes I see a lot of me in these candidates).

Finally, beware in particular people who have been at highly successful companies.

People used to say, back when IBM owned the industry: never hire someone straight out of IBM. First, let them go somewhere else and fail. Then, once they've realized the real world is not like IBM, hire them and they'll be great.

And remember, an awful lot of people who have been at hugely successful companies were just along for the ride.

Career success is great to look for -- but it's critical to verify that the candidates out of hugely successful companies actually did what they claim in their roles at those companies. And that they really get it, that the real world is a lot tougher than being IBM in the 80's, or Microsoft in the 90's, or Google / Facebook today.

Second Criterion >> to be followed on Part IV

The Best Hiring Process-Part II

The Best Hiring Process-Part II

But let's get specific on Recruiting right

Most of the lore in our industry about the role of intelligence in company success comes from two atmospherically successful companies -- Microsoft, and now Google -- that are famous for hiring for intelligence. Microsoft's metric for intelligence was the ability to solve logic puzzles.     (I don't know if the new, MBA-heavy Microsoft still does this, but I do know this is how Microsoft in its heyday worked.) For example, a classic Microsoft interview question was: "Why is a manhole cover round?" The right answer, of course, is, "Who cares? Are we in the manhole business?"

(Followed by twisting in your chair to look all around, getting up, and leaving.)

Google, on the other hand, uses the metric of educational achievement. Have a PhD? Front of the line. Masters? Next. Bachelor's? Go to the end. In apparent direct contraction to decades of experience in the computer industry that PhD's are the hardest people to motivate to ship commercially viable products -- with rare exception. (Hi, Aziz! Hi, Mahesh!)

Now, on the one hand, you can't question the level of success of either company. Maybe they're right. But maybe, just maybe, their success had a lot to do with other factors -- say, huge markets, extreme aggressiveness, right time/right place, key distribution deals, and at least in one case, great products. Because here's the problem: I'm not aware of another Microsoft that's been built by hiring based on logic puzzles. And I'm not aware of another Google that's been built by hiring PhD's. So maybe there are other hiring criteria that are equally, or more, important.

Here's what I think those criteria are Follow up on Part III

-Team Winteg United

HUMOUR -Office Jokes

A Hen Lays Egg on the Ind-Pak Boundary. Both start fighting over the Egg.
The BSF of both India and Pakistan say its theirs.
Finally after much disputes they came to an agreement (A MINUTE TO WIN IT), 
whoever kisses more women in other country within ONE MINUTE wins the Egg. 

Pakistanis say ok and asked Indians to go first so they can beat them in the count 
when its second. Indians goes to Pakistan kisses 1000 women within a minute and 
comes back.For Pakistanis that was like peanuts. 
They were excited and say "Its our turn". Indians say. 

"Keep the Egg"

The Best Hiring Process-Part I

There are many aspects to hiring great people, and various people smarter than me have written extensively on the topic.

So I'm not going to try to be comprehensive.

But I am going to relay some lessons learned through hard experience on how to hire the best people you've ever worked with -- particularly for a startup. I'm going to cover two key areas in this post:

Criteria: what to value when evaluating candidates.

And process: how to actually run the hiring process, and if necessary the aftermath of making a mistake.

Criteria first.  Lots of people will tell you to hire for intelligence. Especially in this industry.

You will read, hire the smartest people out there and your company's success is all but guaranteed.

I think intelligence, per se, is highly overrated. Specifically, I am unaware of any actual data that shows a correlation between raw intelligence, as measured by any of the standard metrics (educational achievement, intelligence tests, or skill at solving logic puzzles) and company success. Now, clearly you don't want to hire dumb people, and clearly you'd like to work with smart people.

But let's get specific - Follow Us on the Part -II Next Week.

 - TEAM WINTEG UNITED, 2012