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Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

voss.world

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Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#11

Post by cbd1984 »

heisnotanalien wrote: post #3

I sort of like the sentiment but this sort of interview, at least for me, would feel a bit too personal. Look I'm not your friend so let's not pretend that's what this or you just really want to get to know me. No. You just want to know if I can do the job so just get me to do a task which meaningfully reflects what I'd be doing day-to-day then ask me questions about it.

> You just want to know if I can do the job

This holds two things constant: You and the job.

On-the-job training is inevitable. The question is what you'll primarily be trained in: Office politics, or some other skillset which will actually go on your resume.

Similarly, the job will inevitably change if you're around long enough, and that's the nub of the meat of this: It's an old adage that you should never marry someone to try and change them, because people don't change, they just become like they are, only moreso. Both ends of the equation change, but they change around a solid core which was formed decades ago and will not be modified except through some serious event.

So personality matters quite a bit if you're looking for a marriage. If you're looking for a hookup, it only matters on the extreme ends of the bell curve.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#12

Post by dguaraglia »

soft_dev_person wrote: post #10
quanticle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that strategy is that all too often, "smart people you'd like to work with" equates to male, white, upper-middle-class, with a fondness for beer.

So all interviewers are male, white upper-middle-class with a fondness for beer? Good to know.

Not all, but the vast majority fit exactly that profile. It's not difficult to find evidence of that, just Google for .

So yes, they point about "hiring for character might bias the outcome" is still valid.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#13

Post by ewar-woowar »

quanticle wrote: post #5
aegisxlii wrote: post #2

Agree 100%. Too much focus on happening to have encountered the particular skills you ask about in the technical grilling. Rather, hire smart people you'd like to work with (and who have demonstrated a capacity for learning).

The problem with that strategy is that all too often, "smart people you'd like to work with" equates to male, white, upper-middle-class, with a fondness for beer.

Or "plays golf/football, comes from a similar background to us", where gender doesn't play a role, not even in the much-reported IT industry where there is a paucity of women .

As a Brit in central Europe I have come up against this, not to the same extent as someone who isn't white, or comes from a markedly different culture, but the differences in culture even between some European nations can be enough that employers do not perceive me as "one of them".

What happened to hiring people who are not like us, because that's where the challenge lies and life is better when we are forced to evaluate our own misgivings?

A lot of IT people are so similar in personality, skills, hobbies etc that they all fail in the same areas, not just succeed in those areas. My own work place could be better, and produce a better product, if everyone wasn't so like-minded, imo.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#14

Post by retox »

quanticle wrote: post #5
aegisxlii wrote: post #2

Agree 100%. Too much focus on happening to have encountered the particular skills you ask about in the technical grilling. Rather, hire smart people you'd like to work with (and who have demonstrated a capacity for learning).

The problem with that strategy is that all too often, "smart people you'd like to work with" equates to male, white, upper-middle-class, with a fondness for beer.

Why is that a problem?

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#15

Post by hvidgaard »

reflexorozy wrote: post #4

This sounds like a cool idea, but I've seen where hiring for personality often leads towards hiring discrimination. I think it's more likely to reinforce the lack of diversity in tech than to combat it as people unlike the interviewer tend to be viewed less favorably and would be less likely to be viewed as a person who could pick up the specific knowledge he/she doesn't already know.

Maybe, but my mantra is a mix. I use standard technical questions ect. to weed out candidates that cannot do the job - I try to stay general such that I see problem solving, rather than certification. Then I'm left with a pool of people that are real potential hires. After that I'm looking for a learner with the right mindset, and THEN I'm looking for a fit - preferably someone who will complement the team, rather than reinforce what is already working.

Hiring is not an exact science, and what works for me, is probably not working for others.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#16

Post by wimagguc »

There is always a good debate on HN about hiring, but it feels like we really are comparing apples to oranges here.

Hiring tactics depend heavily on the size of the organisation. They have to: for a 3-people startup you want someone who will break walls and get stuff done, for a thousand-people-heavy dev team you need people who can do one job very precisely. Those tasks require very different personalities, so naturally, very different hiring questions.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#17

Post by hvidgaard »

soft_dev_person wrote: post #9
lexicality wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not try to be friends with your colleagues? You spend about a third of your life at work, it seems to me that you should try to make it as enjoyable as possible.

Being friends with colleagues can lead to less enjoyable work situations, not to mention less focused work. Being friendly should suffice, not all of us want to get too personal with the same people we might need to have professional arguments with. We're all different.

I'll share a bit of wisdom my son shared when he was 4 or 5. In kindergarden they talked about what a friend is, and he said after some thinking: "A friend is a person you can disagree and fight with, and still play with later".

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#18

Post by slgeorge »

reflexorozy wrote: post #4

This sounds like a cool idea, but I've seen where hiring for personality often leads towards hiring discrimination. I think it's more likely to reinforce the lack of diversity in tech than to combat it as people unlike the interviewer tend to be viewed less favorably and would be less likely to be viewed as a person who could pick up the specific knowledge he/she doesn't already know.

Having read through it, I think he's trying to hire for fit with himself and his team. An inbuilt assumption is that the candidates are capable of doing the role - he mentions going through their CV, or perhaps he's already covered off skills. I don't think he's saying that skills to do the role aren't required: so he's not hiring graduates and then giving them the skills for the job, for example.

It's a tough one, if you don't look at whether a candidate could fit within the team (in this case they care about 'passion') then you're storing up problems on the team dynamic front. On the other hand, as you point out, it's difficult to hire on personality without subconsciously hiring people you like which is often people like you: which means less diversity.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#19

Post by ajuc »

> It surprised me that people define theirselves via their CV: “Who are you?” -> “Here is what I have done in my professional life!”. Anything weird about that?

I wouldn't expect my potential employer to be interested in my family, hobbies or beliefs. So I would respond with job-related stuff as well.

Re: Hire characters, not skill sets. My most important questions in interviews

#20

Post by slgeorge »

ewar-woowar wrote: post #13
quanticle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that strategy is that all too often, "smart people you'd like to work with" equates to male, white, upper-middle-class, with a fondness for beer.

Or "plays golf/football, comes from a similar background to us", where gender doesn't play a role, not even in the much-reported IT industry where there is a paucity of women . As a Brit in central Europe I have come up against this, not to the same extent as someone who isn't white, or comes from a markedly different culture, but the differences in culture even between some European nations can be enough that employ…

> What happened to hiring people who are not like us, because that's where the challenge lies and life is better when we are forced to evaluate our own misgivings?

I think for many situations that comes down to three things:

a. People who don't agree that hiring for diversity is good.

While every manager knows that diversity is important (as demonstrated by their responses to HR and while on a training course) I don't believe it's as internalised as people say. Most people subconsciously have strong beliefs of how "people like us" will work together.

b. Risk aversion amongst hiring managers

Commonly teams have more work to be done than people available: ever known a hiring manager not in a hurry to get a new person in? Taking a perceived risk to hire someone different - whatever that difference is from skillset, gender or background - may not be rewarded when higher management want specific objectives achieved. While in principle it might be nice, pragmatism often dictates that managers go with what they know.

c. Inability to measure hiring outcomes

How do you measure whether more diverse teams, or occasions when you took a risk worked out? If an individual is successful is that down to good hiring, or is it just random as that particular team happens to be doing well at that moment. It's very difficult to be evidence based in hiring. Consequently, everyone has heuristics for what they think is useful, but there's not much backing it up except gut feel. For example, what evidence is there that people having a "passion" outside work and doing side-projects is inherently better ... none that I know of ... but something that lots of developers and technical managers ask about and a key reason candidates build-up profiles on Github.

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