Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
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Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#2Breaking news: Don't hire people based on only one criterion, e.g. intelligence! Details as they emerge.
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#3Breaking news: Don't hire people based on only one criterion, e.g. intelligence! Details as they emerge.
The qualities of the ideal candidate differ for different situations.
If someone is a very early employee, they need to have more involvement in shaping product development and corporate culture. They need some kind of vision or something and that's possibly more important than knowing how to move Mount Fuji with a toothpick or something.
Nothing earthshaking, no.
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#4Breaking news: Don't hire people based on only one criterion, e.g. intelligence! Details as they emerge.
The qualities of the ideal candidate differ for different situations. If someone is a very early employee, they need to have more involvement in shaping product development and corporate culture. They need some kind of vision or something and that's possibly more important than knowing how to move Mount Fuji with a toothpick or something. Nothing earthshaking, no.
I guess my take would be that it isn't earthshaking but it's "useful" there are tons of companies that are too resume-bound and end up with smart, completely useless people. Two cents.
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#5Hence Joel's (much more concise) hiring criteria:
Smart, Gets Things Done.
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#6I suspect this essay is obliquely complaining about folks who THINK they're the smartest guys in the room.
"What you get if you believe this myth is a room full of highly qualified people who waste their time explaining to each other how much more qualified they are."
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#7Diggy title with common sense advice.
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#8I think the title is slightly misleading but whats actually said in the article is very much true. In any early stage company, how well they fit together with not only you but the rest of the team members is just as important as what they know.
More surprising is how many investors I've talked to end up telling me that if I'm looking for people to help accomplish some of these more complex tasks that I should just outsource to India or just find a person who does know how and pay them for it. In reality, that's likely not going to solve anything and has a high potential to create more problems on down the road (not to mention if that person doesn't stay forever).
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#9Like most of the little essays I put together (author here, thanks everyone for reading) it was a reaction to an observation. That observation was that lots of small going on medium sized companies tend to inherit something from the Microsofts of the world, and that is resume myopia.
For everyone who said it's commonsense, I agree completely. Unfortunately, commonsense is not quite as common as you might believe. Around here, this seems obvious but I can say there are plenty of people struggling with the balance.
tptacek summed up my point really well. Thanks again for the feedback!
Re: Don’t Hire The Smartest Guy
#10I suspect this essay is obliquely complaining about folks who THINK they're the smartest guys in the room. "What you get if you believe this myth is a room full of highly qualified people who waste their time explaining to each other how much more qualified they are."
Excellent observation. There is also a bit of that in there. A part of working on a small team is learning to learn. It doesn't matter that you can lift mountains with your pinky if you can't deal with anyone else as a peer.