Dump him

Post #203,308 by tuberculosis 4/14/05 3:23:33 AM Reply	Dump him And I concur that you need to examine your hiring process to prevent it from happening again. Our hiring process is incredibly rigorous and definitely gets us the best people most of the time. It involves a workflow management system that hides people's input from each other until decision time. We each interview the candidate on various topics separately, then write up our impressions and vote on a scale from 1 to 4 (1 = hell yes, 2 = yes, 3 = no, 4 = hell no). It takes minimum of 2 phone interviews to get in the door for a face to face. Once in, a team of 6 people are given areas of focus and each gets an hour with the candidate (one of the hours is typically lunch - just a chat and get to know you). One interviewer is a subject expert who is focused on making sure that this person is better than at least half the people we have so far. If they are not better than average its a no-hire. Once all impressions are written up and votes are in, a meeting is held and all votes/write ups are revealed. If one person is adamant against the person, then its no hire. Usually most people agree or abstain. Occasionally discussions ensue where we work at coming to consensus - kind of like a jury. I realize it is resource intensive and probably not practical at a smaller company, but you should have at least 2 people interview and only hire when they agree. I have occasionally thought a candidate was a good fit and only when I heard other people's impressions did I realize that I'd overlooked something important. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #203,357 by folkert 4/14/05 11:34:29 AM Reply	Have you seen things others didn't and they all changed? I am very interested in this process Todd. I really like your layout. Are you able to share any "formal things" about the whole process? I am not asking for Precious, Sensitive or Critical Data. What I am looking for is the "Forms" that must be filled out during the process before the group chat. Not for the forms, but for the data that is important to the process. I know this sounds like I am being lazy, I just want to compare things to the way I am going to do things pretty soon. I got a good PFY out of the testing process I use. (Though I had little choice about the "who" in the matter, this time.) P.S. My PFY is doing Great. He is/was a pure Windows guy, not a zealot though, he hates them as much as I do (GREAT!). Never played with anything but Windows. He is now using putty and the CLI interface to do support our users. I tell the people to go ask for him to fix it, they do, he comes to me when he can't figure it out (like not knowing howto setup a vacation message for a user, versus changing their password at their request). Most people are immunized, against knowledge transfer. My PFY is not immunized against knowledge transfer, this is good, knowledge is contagious. GADS This is heaven, I absolutely enjoy imparting knowledge, through giving them enough info to figure it out, but not the answer. I'll sit and watch them. Seeing that Light turn on is an awesome sight to behold. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* [link\|http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=134485&cid=11233230\|"Microsoft Security" is an even better oxymoron than "Military Intelligence"] No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link\|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp\|source]
Post #203,359 by tuberculosis 4/14/05 12:03:14 PM Reply	It happens There's not much data involved - your vote and a writeup of your impressions are all you contribute. You get the guy's resume prior to the interview. The hiring manager will assign areas of coverage prior to the in-person interviews. There is a set of core qualities in a potential hire that are enumerated in policy and looked for. It does happen that all but one will be positive on someone and the naysayer will make some points about shortcomings he spotted and others will realize that they were seeing clues to this gap at the time but did not recognize it. I've never seen multiple negatives won over though. I reckon I devote 2-8 hours a week to hiring, but since last September I've only participated in extending 2 offers. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #203,390 by ben_tilly 4/14/05 4:22:07 PM Reply	Something like that even works for a small group In my programming group we have every potential hire pass a resume screen then a basic tech interview (do you know what % means in Perl?). Then they come in for lunch/interview with all interested programmers. This interview lasts a couple of hours. Then we all count, "1, 2, 3" and on 3 we all put thumbs out and then discuss. One thumb down is a no, there is no point discussing it. Anyone with a thumb sideways is probably a no. We happily hire on all thumbs up. It is rare for people to disagree. Since I arrived we've hired 2 programmers. Both have worked out very well. (Usually we are not looking for anyone. Making a hire when we want one usually takes a couple of months.) I'm not sure how much the procedure will change the next time we want to hire. But it worked for a small company. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

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