about driving, ethics and finding employees

Easy and fascinating article about some of the intricacies of finding and hiring teammates. When reading it, I received true pleasure from both the style and the content.

I hope you also enjoy reading.)
source of translation here
the original is in English here

How to hire the best people you have ever worked with?

There are many aspects of hiring great people, and this topic is already widely described by authors who are smarter than me.
Thus, I am not trying to cover the topic comprehensively. But I’m going to teach you some lessons learned from the actual experience of hiring the best people I’ve ever worked with. This is especially relevant information for those who are just starting their business.
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I am going to highlight two key areas in this article:
Criteria: what to look for when evaluating candidates.
And the process: how to properly conduct the recruitment process and, if necessary, prevent mistakes.

First criteria.

Many people will offer you to hire smart employees. Especially in this industry. You will read: "hire the most intelligent people, and the success of your company is almost guaranteed." I think intelligence is essentially highly overrated.

Certainly, I don’t know any facts proving the connection between intelligence, measured in any of the standard ways (educational achievement, mental abilities, or skills in solving logical problems) and the success of the company.

It is clear that you do not want to hire sullen people, and it is clear that you would like to work with smart employees. But let's define. Most of our understanding of the role of intelligence in the success of a company comes from two fabulously successful companies - Microsoft and Google - who are known for their principle of hiring intellectuals.

Microsoft conducted an intelligence test, offering candidates to solve logical puzzles. (I don’t know if Microsoft is doing it this way, but I do know that this has happened in the past.)
For example, the classic question that was asked to candidates for Microsoft was: “Why are manhole covers round?” Of course, the correct answer was: “What difference does it make? We are doing completely different things ”(Accompanied by a turn in the chair, loud laughter and exit from the office)
Google, on the other hand, uses a comparison of educational achievements. Ph.D? Welcome. Skilled worker? Following. Bachelor? Take a seat at the end of the queue.
Based on a decade of experience in the computer industry, it turns out that PhDs are the most stubborn people who are almost impossible to motivate to promote commercially viable products - with a few exceptions. (Hi Tim! Hi Diego!)

But now, on the one hand, you cannot question the level of success of any of these two companies. Maybe they are right. But only "can be." Ultimately, their success is determined by other factors - for example, huge markets, aggressive strategy, the right time and place, key distributors, and at least, brilliant products.
Since the problem is this: I do not know about the second Microsoft company, which would be built with the help of hiring people who solve logical problems. And I do not know about the second company Google, which has risen due to doctors in the state.
So perhaps there are other criteria for hiring that play the same, or more significant, role.

That's what I think about these criteria.
The first is “drive”.
I define “drive” as self-motivation — people who, heading toward a goal, will walk straight through the brick walls, on their own initiative, without prodding and constant control.
People with this quality will go forward, no matter what, until they reach the desired.
Winston Churchill said during the Dunkirk operation:
“We will not weaken and we will not surrender. We will reach the end, we will fight in France, we will fight in the seas and oceans, we will fight with increasing strength and confidence in the air, we will defend our Island at any cost, we will fight on the beaches and on the ranges, in the fields, on hills and streets; we will never surrender. ”
That's what you need.
Some people are, some are not. For some people who have this trait, it comes from feelings of guilt, often created by pressure in the family. For some, the reason is the desire to do something great. And others want to be head and shoulders above all. Anything. It does not depend on the level of education, average scores and socio-economic situation.

(But Mark, isn't the GPA 4.0 a valid sign of a drive? Yes, it’s a sign. A sign that a person is making progress in certain tests with clear criteria and a system is in an environment where the student’s parents often pay a lot of money to ensure privileges for their child when testing. This may or may not help a person succeed in the real world).
Drive even independent of previous success in business and career.
Such people do not like to stay in places where they cannot achieve success. And if they have not achieved success in unsuccessfully managed companies, then they can become successful in yours - if they really possess that “drive”.
I think that you can see the “drive” in the eyes of the candidate and in his biography.

Speaking about the biography, I pay attention to what the person was doing. Fully, or partially, or present. I look at a person’s achievements — both in terms of work and (even more preferably) in terms of non-working life. A business that a person created while studying at a university. A nonprofit organization that he supported while attending college. If he is a programmer, then open source code in which he made the main investments. In general, anything. If you can’t find anything like this in the candidate’s biography, if a candidate has simply followed the rules all his life, studying the right things, passing exams perfectly, striving for standard career development and not achieving something outstanding compared to the starting point - then maybe there is no drive in his character.
And you are not going to change someone's character.
Hard work - to motivate people who have no inner self-motivation. But the motivation of people who have their own motivation is a fair wind in your sails.
I definitely like to look for someone for whom this job provides a chance to really succeed. Therefore, I like to hire people who have not done this work before, but, nevertheless, are set up to cope with it successfully. I also like to specifically look for such people who went through very difficult life circumstances — for example, family problems, or forced combination of work with school — and who are not inferior in position to society to their more successful peers in skills and knowledge. Finally, beware of those people who have worked in very successful companies.
People used to say when IBM had a leading position in the market: never hire employees who came directly from IBM. First, let them go elsewhere and fail there. Then, as soon as they realize that the real world is not like IBM, hire them and they will bring you benefits.
And remember that a lot of people who worked in successful companies, just rolled on the backs of these companies.

Career success is an important indicator - but it is also important to check that the candidates who came from successful companies actually correspond to their previous post and that they performed everything that they demanded from their position in those companies. And it’s important to take into account that today's real world is much tougher than IBM in the 80s, Microsoft in the 90s or Google today.
The second criterion: curiosity.
Curiosity is the answer to the question - do you love what you do? Everyone who loves his work is always actively and sincerely interested in this field of activity, profession or craft. They read news about their work, study materials, talk to other people about it ... that is, they are constantly immersed in this topic. Because work for them turns into hell if there is no promotion in it. And the point is not that they are forced to move. And the fact that they want to do it. People who do not have curiosity do not like their work. And you should hire those who love what he does. As, for example, programmers. Ask a programmer candidate for an Internet company what the 10 most interesting things are happening at this time in the field of Internet software. REST or SOAP, the new Facebook API, whether Ruby on Rails is scalable, what it thinks about Sun’s Java-based programming language, Google API, Amazon S3, etc ... If a candidate loves his job, he will will be aware of many such things.
That's what you need. Now you can say: “Mark, of course, is good when a young man has a lot of free time to study new products in his field, but what can you say about a man who already has a family and he has enough time only to be at work during the day and can't spend nights and weekends reading blogs and learning new trends? ”But when you come across a person who doesn’t develop, maybe the reason is that their current work doesn’t give them the opportunity to improve? If you have encountered similar work yourself, ask yourself, are you really looking for such an employee who will use the same knowledge and methods day after day when everything in the world develops and changes so quickly? Is not it? Then I will tell you such a thing - thanks to the Internet, in order to keep abreast of developments in any field of activity, you no longer have to pay money.

As I understand it, “drive” and curiosity often go hand in hand.
The easiest way to get a “drive” is to work at your favorite job, which automatically means that you will automatically be interested in what you are doing.

The third and final criterion: ethics.
Tests for ethics is difficult to pass. Carefully address this issue, talking with the candidate, studying his resume and making calls to the referees. And be alert. Unethical people are unethical in nature, and exceptions are rare. Priests, rabbis, and ministers should give people a second chance, but human resources managers do not have to do this. That's what I wanted to say.
One way to test ethics as honesty is to check how a person reacts to something he does not know.
Choose a topic that you know thoroughly, and ask the candidate more and more difficult questions until he reaches a dead end. Then the person either confesses his ignorance on the question asked, or will try to get out. Here it becomes clear: if a person is trying to fool you already at the interview, then what will be in the working process?
A candidate who is confident in their own abilities and ethical - the one that you need - will say, “I don't know”, because they know that the rest of the interview will demonstrate their awareness, and they know that you will not be tolerated. nonsense - because they, in your place, would not have tolerated it either.
The second topic: the process - how to manage the process of hiring.

First, introduce the hiring process in writing. Regardless of what your hiring process is, write it down and make sure everyone has a copy.
I continue to be shocked by the number of start-ups that do not have a clearly defined system of hiring people. As a result, hiring is carried out completely randomly.
Secondly, check the basic skills. It is amazing how many people come to work with a brilliantly written resume that assures everyone of their qualifications. But it is worth asking a few basic questions in this area - and many cannot state elementary things. For example, check the programmers for knowledge of the basic algorithms - linked lists, binary search. Just in pseudo-code. It doesn't matter if they know the names of the corresponding Java libraries. It does not matter either if they suddenly cannot write on the board some fragments of the algorithm that they studied in the first year.
Arranged by programmers, for example, comes a lot of people who, in fact, do not know how to program. And it feels like a whiff of fresh wind when you meet someone who says, “Oh, yes! Related lists, of course - let me show you! ”
The same principle applies in other industries. For a sales representative - make sure they sell you your product - from the first contact to the completion of the transaction.
For a marketer, offer to outline a launch scheme for your new product.

Third - plan and record in advance all the questions of the interview.
I assume that you know what questions it is important to ask at the interview. Honestly, if you do not know them, then you should not be on the post of personnel manager in this case.
The problem I am trying to explain is that many people do not know how to have an interview. And even if they do not know how to do it, then nevertheless, it is not necessary to invent questions on the fly. Just make sure that you have a list of scheduled questions prepared in advance of each interview. I do it myself - I always go to the negotiation room with a list of pre-arranged questions - because I can’t rely on everything to be remembered and organized by itself. The advantage of this is that you can work with your team on the list of questions - because the arrival of a new employee and work with him concerns all of your existing team directly.
This is one of the best development ways for an organization to become a really good hiring expert: by repeating questions, you gradually develop and improve your system of people’s assessment.

Fourth: pay attention to the behavior of the person during the interview.
You can see little hints of things that grow to the scale of a disaster when this person is on the staff.
Man never laughs? It is probably very difficult to work with him.
Does the person constantly interrupt you? A sign of a staunch egoist.
The man claims that he is a good friend of someone you also know, but nevertheless, he has no idea what his friend is doing now? This person is trying to cheat you.
Does the person give complex answers to simple questions? It means that he is unorganized and undisciplined in his work.
Does a man stop mumbling something? Get ready for the worst.

Fifth, pay attention to the information you get from the referees.
(You call those who can recommend a candidate, right?)
Most people will not tell you directly about the shortcomings of those with whom they worked.
“He works great, he is smart, good, blah blah blah, but ...”
“Sometimes there were problems with motivation” - it means that the person is lazy, and you have to kick him every morning to get at least something done.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to communicate with him” is a highly unpleasant person.
“It’s easier for him to work with men than with women” - a staunch sexist.
“Sometimes I was in a bad mood” - a person suffers from clinical depression and needs treatment.
Here is the complete picture.

Sixth: correct your mistakes quickly ... but not too quickly.
If you are too scrupulous in your hiring process, you have a 70% chance that you will not go wrong in a person by hiring him - if you are lucky.

And this is on the issue of individual employees. If you hire executives, then you have only a 50% chance of success. That's life. Anyone who tells you otherwise cannot hire people and does it badly.
Many start-up companies in my memory often do not correct hiring mistakes - that is, they do not dismiss people who do not work.

First of all , be aware that when you experience negative emotions at the thought that someone will have to be fired, you will feel much better after doing this.

Secondly, really standing people from your team will be happy when you do this. They want to work with the same responsible and talented people like themselves, and therefore they will be happy when you make the right move, making sure that only worthy people are on the staff.

(Why did I say “don't do this too fast?” Because people from your team are watching how you dismiss an employee, and if this happens too quickly, you will look arbitrary and unpredictable. But trust me, this is a rare disadvantage of novice managers. . Most suffer from opposite things.)

Third: remember that by dismissing a person, you do him a favor. You exempt him from an occupation in which he clearly does not succeed, will not rise and will not be appreciated. And thus, you give him a chance to find the best occupation for yourself in another company, where he can find his place.

(Or if he can't, was he really the person you wanted to hire from the beginning?)

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