I’ve written about the interview process before. It should be more of a conversation. I like to joke with people and compare it to a first date scenario; you want to get to know the person better before you decide to spend more time with them.
Every interview I have ever known has had the goal of getting the same three questions answered:
- Can you do the job?
- Will you love the job?
- Can we tolerate working with you?
Keeping those questions in mind I found this post interesting this past weekend: http://www.inc.com/paul-schoemaker/to-hire-well-throw-away-the-job-description.html
I can’t say that I agree with the idea of taking a chance on just anyone, but I do like the idea of throwing away the job description. Well, most of the job description, anyway. I’ve seen so many poorly written job descriptions that it is easy to understand why I think they should be thrown away.
I believe job descriptions are packed with buzzwords for one of two reasons. The first reason is to draw in as many applicants as possible, because the position is truly open and they have no idea what the job details are truly like. The second reason is to keep out as many applicants as possible because there is already an inside candidate who also happens to meet each and every last bullet point, no matter how obscure.
Either one leads to a less than desirable candidate pool. Either nobody applies or everyone applies. If everyone applies then the hiring manager needs to use supplemental materials (i.e. resumes) in order to decide who should come in for an interview. The problem with this process is that the job description was so complex that the right people weren’t applying. That means the hiring manager isn’t going through the right stack of resumes to begin with.
I believe the hiring process should be much simpler: simpler job descriptions, simpler conversations, simpler focus on those three core questions. It works out to be the best thing for everyone.
I thought that the tone of this article sounded familiar. I remembered your prior post on this with the insane amount of “Should/Must Have” skills. Sadly, that is all too common in the DBA world, especially if they want a DBA who can do a little bit of the sysadmin side, but won’t be dedicated to it. Of course, the tech screening should be a pretty decent portion of the hiring process. We ask coders to write a simple web app and submit the code. For the DB side, we haven’t done as much, but could and probably should – something that shows they can do the work without a lot of hand-holding. That sort of dedication and how they approach the testing side really says a lot about whether they’ll love the job or not. The last is always a judgment call on both sides.
This is so true. I think I do a decent job as a DBA, and I also feel sure I would fail one of these “what’s the syntax for x, y, z” interviews. Within reason, it’s much more important to be able to find answers than regurgitate trivia.