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.

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