Hire - Only if you find the fire

Hiring is always a challenge, You never are sure if you have found the right guy or not. This quest of convincing yourself that you did not make a mistake in hiring someone, never ends. never ever ends. Its not just about the technical skills or the ability to deliver in a person that determine whether you have found your right guy... its the attitude...A few weeks ago we have been doing rounds of interview to fill in positions in our teams for some products , believe me this is the toughest part of the life cycle, finding and hiring.

All through these weeks you would see
1. Those glossy resumes - That lack lustre of talent
2. The tremendous talent on paper - That crumbles like dust, the moment you ask a question
3. The terrific blabbering that gets one shortlisted through the HR cycles but the answer you are looking for is lost in those rounds and rounds of talks without meaning

ufffff... so much really. Yes its hard to find the right people... specially when you have to think of building a future with and for them... so then what should we look for in those 2 - 4 hrs of discussions we have with someone who we don't even know? while we know that we are thinking of building foundations of great future with them...

When we go hiring... we look for the following:

Will vs Want
Is the person willing to work on what you work or wanting to work on what you work... makes a tremendous difference... if somebody is just going to take working with you as a job, he may be looking out for a change in next 2 yrs. So then how would one WANT to work with you if he doesn't even know what you do? Leave it to the person, let him find about you, let him explore you... I like those interview's very much where after we are done with our part of discussions the candidate grills us about the product, company, role , challenges , what's and how's...

How much you know v/s How well you know
We had a chat a day before about a candidate not knowing certain frameworks that we use, question arised because one of our team members asked a question "He doesnt know X, Y and Z, so what is he going to do then?" . My belief is that it doesn't matter on how many frameworks or technologies you know... if you know the ones you have been working on very well then you are fit to do a task as long as you can begin with those skills. Eventually I remembered that even our architect's were not aware of certain frameworks that we use, when they joined us...

Want v/s need
Again... a lot of guys want to work on new technologies... it doesn't matter what you want... because every one wants everything...it matters on what you have done so far to fulfill that want... that passion determines the fire within you. I hate people who claim that they are switching jobs because there current products / companies do not let them work on new technologies... "If your passion is your own liability, how are you going to be an asset for the team you work?"

Cool v/s Calm , Fire v/s Heat
How cool you are with the attitude, yet how calm you are when it comes to patience? How much fire you have to make something happen is important than how early you start cribbing.

A few of the things that form critical element on our evaluation when we hire... a few more things that we look at are listed here..... HOW TO FIND A RIGHT GUY just in case you want to read through....

But just before you release your offer... take 5 mins, think over , rewind the interview process.... and find if this person has the fire that can help your Team shine... I also think that it makes sense to video record the meeting so you can go back and view the video again and again and find out if the guy you are going to hire is the one with most and best FIRE within.