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