So you want to hire a developer? Or maybe you just want to know what is going through the heads of employers like myself. Either way, let’s dive right into what I think are best practices for hiring programmers. I’ve found my opinions to be quite controversial, but I do put them into practice in my own career and at Qvault. When you inevitably disagree with some of my points, feel free to @ me.
The following process assumes essentially no HR to help (which I think is probably a good thing), and definitely no recruiters. I only have experience hiring direct to small(ish) companies.
#1 – Throw Away Resumes With >2 Pages
Like really. When I post a job I get so many candidates. I need a way to quickly filter out some bad apples. I don’t have time to read about your high-school lifeguarding job.
Ideally, all resumes would be exactly 1 page. If you have hundreds of applicants perhaps try filtering down to the single pagers.
Inb4, “but I have so much relevant experience, it doesn’t fit on one page”. Yes it does. No one gives a flying fart about the project you worked on 10 years ago and 6 companies ago. Boil it down to your MOST INTERESTING projects and MOST RELEVANT experience. It can fit on one page.
#2 – Simplify the Process
There is nothing worse as a candidate than sitting through 3 different 2 hour-long interviews only to find they didn’t get the job. Conversely, it also sucks as an employer to sit through several long interviews and have the candidate take another opportunity.
My process is fairly simple:
- Does the application look good? Great, go to step 2.
- ~20-minute zoom phone screen. This is not an interview. Just answering questions about the company and learning about the candidate’s situation. If there are no red flags, go to step 3.
- ~90-minute (preferably in-person) interview. This is it. Learn everything you need to know in less than 90 minutes. If you can’t do that, you are a bad interviewer and need more practice.
#3 – Take One of the First Good Candidates
If you are a manager like me, then you spend ~80% of your time “coding” (doing technical work) and ~20% of your time “managing” (whatever the hell that means). Algorithmically, we all know that to find the greatest number in a list we need to check all the numbers. That’s O(n).
In reality, I don’t have time to “check” (interview) all the candidates to find the best one. I usually try to at least interview 3 or 4 candidates before making an offer, and sometimes many more if I don’t find anyone quickly.
I’ve found there are diminishing returns on your time spent trying to find a candidate after the first few good interviews.
#engineering practices #languages #careers #hire #hiring #webdev
