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Best Hiring Practices

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Re: Best Hiring Practices

#21

Post by jaylevitt »

beagle3 wrote: post #13
dgant wrote: post #4

Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That can be a major breach of privacy. When people are looking for jobs -- particularly while employed elsewhere -- they are entitled to do so discreetly. If employer-directed reference checks are a requirement, candidates should be made completely aware of that and be given an opportunity to opt out. If that halts the hiring process, that's fine. A…

> Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That can be a major breach of privacy. He mentions it casually, so I don't know what exactly he meant. I know that I did as he recommended -- but before I contacted a reference not provided by the candidate, I asked them if it was ok to make that contact. In most cases, the answer is "sure, go ahead", or "that's ok, I guess". When the answer is "I…

Conversely... I know a guy who worked with a well-known startup founder, but he didn't list that founder as a reference, because he was sure he'd burned his bridges. Just so happened that the hiring manager had the founder on speed-dial. Later that night, the manager calls the founder, who says: "If I were to start a new company right now, that's the guy I'd want with me."

You never know.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#22

Post by rdl »

cletus wrote: post #9

> A HR professional can identify the candidates who don't come close to meeting the requirements of the job and filter them out. In my experience this is mostly not true. Most HR people don't know tech so what the HR screen devolves into is cramming your CV with acronyms so you make it pass the HR grep filter. > You will want to interview a decent number of folks for every position. If you're bringing in more than fi…

1) I could tolerate HR screening for completely random people, who apply via a web form or cold email. Of course, I don't think I have ever hired or seen someone hired that way.

Anyone who comes in as a referral (from investors, employees, friends, etc.) shouldn't be speaking to anyone in HR until after an offer letter is signed. The only possible exception would be having HR handle travel arrangements for on-site interview, but even that should probably be handled by whoever does travel for the team in general (or the hiring manager if everyone normally does it themselves).

HR involvement will basically add zero value AND screen against your most competent 10% of candidates.

I'd probably walk out if an HR person talked to me, or someone tried to put HR in as a gatekeeper. I have met a couple of minimally competent HR people ever, and many more who were criminally incompetent.

2) 2-3 interviews with multiple people in each can work. It really depends on the role. What I'd probably prefer is 2 real interviews with 1-3 people in each, and then lunch where you get to meet a bunch more people casually (and basically be sold on the company), and then after lunch, an interview with founders (if they weren't in already). You can short circuit and send people home after the morning meetings if they're horrible, and after lunch if they're not-hire-now-but-maybe-in-the-future-or-may-have-competent-friends.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#23

Post by cldrope »

How often is this guy going to keep posting his own articles on here? It seems that almost as often as he WRITES articles they are posted here.

Protip: None are really very good.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#24

Post by fredwilson »

cletus wrote: post #9

> A HR professional can identify the candidates who don't come close to meeting the requirements of the job and filter them out. In my experience this is mostly not true. Most HR people don't know tech so what the HR screen devolves into is cramming your CV with acronyms so you make it pass the HR grep filter. > You will want to interview a decent number of folks for every position. If you're bringing in more than fi…

great comment. this is part of a series of MBA Mondays posts i called "People". earlier in the series I wrote about cultural fit. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/mba-mondays-culture-and-fit....

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#25

Post by fredwilson »

adrianhoward wrote: post #3

Many employees don't know how to interview and you should teach them the basics as well as educate them on what you are looking to learn from their interview If you're in the position of doing interviews for the first time, and don't have anybody around to teach you the basics, I would thoroughly recommend getting a copy of Lou Adler's book "Hire With Your Head". It has some really excellent advice on how to approach…

that is great advice. thanks!

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#26

Post by fredwilson »

dgant wrote: post #4

Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That can be a major breach of privacy. When people are looking for jobs -- particularly while employed elsewhere -- they are entitled to do so discreetly. If employer-directed reference checks are a requirement, candidates should be made completely aware of that and be given an opportunity to opt out. If that halts the hiring process, that's fine. A…

i don't care. i am not going to hire anyone (or invest in anyone) without making phone calls. i don't think anyone should. but the quid pro quo, as you suggest, is don't call the current employer. great point on that.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#27

Post by fredwilson »

beagle3 wrote: post #13
dgant wrote: post #4

Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That can be a major breach of privacy. When people are looking for jobs -- particularly while employed elsewhere -- they are entitled to do so discreetly. If employer-directed reference checks are a requirement, candidates should be made completely aware of that and be given an opportunity to opt out. If that halts the hiring process, that's fine. A…

> Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That can be a major breach of privacy. He mentions it casually, so I don't know what exactly he meant. I know that I did as he recommended -- but before I contacted a reference not provided by the candidate, I asked them if it was ok to make that contact. In most cases, the answer is "sure, go ahead", or "that's ok, I guess". When the answer is "I…

yup.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#28

Post by fredwilson »

Peroni wrote: post #5

A lot of this post is eerily similar to one of my old blog posts: http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/why-should-i-join-yo... I'm not claiming the author lifted any of the content but I am curious as to whether or not he/she had read my post in the past?

i hadn't read your post until now. but it is very good and covers a lot of the same ground. thanks for pointing it out.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#29

Post by Peroni »

fredwilson wrote: post #28
Peroni wrote: post #5

A lot of this post is eerily similar to one of my old blog posts: http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/why-should-i-join-yo... I'm not claiming the author lifted any of the content but I am curious as to whether or not he/she had read my post in the past?

i hadn't read your post until now. but it is very good and covers a lot of the same ground. thanks for pointing it out.

Not to worry Fred. I partly guessed it was co-incidence as the topic is relatively linear if you know how to do it right which you obviously do.

Re: Best Hiring Practices

#30

Post by Peroni »

krschultz wrote: post #6
Peroni wrote: post #5

A lot of this post is eerily similar to one of my old blog posts: http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/why-should-i-join-yo... I'm not claiming the author lifted any of the content but I am curious as to whether or not he/she had read my post in the past?

Wait, you don't know who the author is and you call yourself a tech recruiter? Fred Wilson has invested in what, 100 tech companies? He has been writing MBA Monday's posts for years. This post has multiple hundreds of comments on it. There are probably hundreds of retweets and comments on Twitter about it (you know, another company he invested in). I'm pretty sure he didn't need your blog post to give advice on hirin…

...and you call yourself a tech recruiter?

Actually I don't call myself a tech recruiter. Haven't done so in a while. That's a very old blog post and I am well aware of who the author is. A highly public personality doesn't preclude you to taking inspiration from other sources.

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