Ensuring to hire the right person

When you are in hyper-growth, and the goal is to hire more than 200 employees in 1 year, you have to hire fast. How to ensure that the candidate you have in front of you is the right person?

In today’s issue, I want to tell you about one of the main challenges that you, as Tech Lead and/or Engineer Manager, will have when you work in a company that is in hyper-growth mode: Ensure that you hire the right person.

In the issue linked below, which I wrote a few weeks ago, I provided some figures regarding the impact of losing an employee. We're discussing significant costs, not just in terms of money but also in terms of the time invested in both the hiring and onboarding processes

To provide a bit more context, you will encounter this situation after the candidate has already successfully completed both the Talent Acquisition call and the technical assessment. This means you are now in the face-to-face (or virtual face-to-face) technical interview. Some questions that will come to your mind during and after the interview are:

• Does this person have the “level” I’m looking for?

• Should I hire this person or wait for more candidates?

• Is it a FIT for my company?

As you can see, these are not simple questions to answer.

Based on my conversations with the Talent Acquisition perspective, I see that they encouraged our teams to hire for potential, not just for skills. In fact, because of the volume of positions you may have during the hyper-growth stage, you needed to be open-minded and give opportunities to not only senior Software Engineers but also mid and Junior-level Engineers.

Keep this in mind: Evaluate people for potential, attitude, and motivation, not just for skills.

You see; I’ve wrote 2 times the word POTENTIAL in the last 2 paragraphs. Potential is the first keyword when you want to ensure you hire the right people for your teams.

To find the potential, you have to prepare and ask the right questions (including in the technical assessment) during the hiring to see this potential.

For instance, when seeking a Software Engineer familiar with the Kubernetes API, if a candidate admits unfamiliarity with it but highlights a history of independently learning and implementing various APIs from the ground up, resulting in successful projects, it signifies not only adaptability but also a strong capacity for rapid learning. This capability suggests the candidate possesses the potential to grasp and proficiently apply knowledge swiftly. Such a candidate demonstrates the ability to learn a new API, including the specific one required for the position.

The Matterhorn - Switzerland

The second keyword is what I call the “mirror technique”. When I say this I mean that:

1. You have to be sure that the person in front of you fits with the company culture; whatever it is, either you consider is good or bad (hope you consider it good).

2. You have to be sure that the person is aligned with the vision, at the engineering level, of the company roadmap.

To find this, if the candidate is a cultural fit, once again starts with a good preparation of the questions.

For instance, consider a scenario in your team where projects frequently shift, involving tasks such as designing, implementing, and deploying new integrations for your product. This dynamic environment demands individuals who can readily adapt to change. However, during the interview, if a candidate expresses a preference for staying within their comfort zone, it indicates a potential misalignment with the dynamic culture of your team and, consequently, with your company as a whole.

We can summarize the 2 aspects you have to tackle to ensure that you hire the right person.

• Look for potential. The technical skills are good, and needed, as well as the human skills, but potential is more important, even more so when you face a hyper-growth phase.

• Company alignment. You should extract from the candidate if she/he is aligned with the company's vision and mission.

So, I’m talking about individuals with potential who fit into the company culture

I’ve shared with you a problem I’ve faced in my career when I had to hire Software Engineers in a company in the hyper-growth stage and also a set of clear ways to sort it out and action items.

Hope you like this issue and I would love to hear from you. Please, reply this email, or leave a comment!

Today’s issue has been a deep dive into one of the topics addressed in my latest talk, in tandem with my fellow Inma, during DevOpsDays Madrid 2023.

Best,
Marcos