July 02, 2008
In the past if I found myself on the fence about a job candidate, I’d ask myself, “If I saw this person on the street would I go out of my way to stop and talk to them or would I try to avoid them?” I’ve had decent success with that technique but came across a great blog post this morning and am revising that question to, “Would I be willing to go on an extended road trip with this person?” There isn’t a single one of the solid developers that I’ve interviewed and later worked with that I wouldn’t have been willing to road trip with immediately after interviewing them and a couple of duds that snuck in that I wouldn’t have been willing to road trip with after initially meeting them.
I’m also going to make this the first question that I ask myself about a candidate rather than the last and not just for when I’m interviewing, but also for when I’m being interviewed.
Raise your standards. Life’s too short. And hiring pushes by management suck.