Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lionhearted | Hacker News Reader

Track record, track record, track record, track record. Look at the track record. Track records don't lie. Track record, track record, track record.

Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion.

Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.

Strong starters/non-finishers are going to start strong but likely won't be able to close it out without extra help later... which you might be oblivious to, because they'd started so strongly.

Track records don't lie. Unless you're really good at spotting diamonds in the rough, don't grab someone with a bad track record for an important role in your business and life. I've learned this one the hard way too many times. I still get tempted with, "Wow, this guy/girl is so amazing, the problem must've been the other people..."

I'm trying to not do that any more. Once? Quite possibly a fluke. Twice? Maybe... Three times? That's a track record. Also, people will always say they've changed. It's probably a bad idea to be the first person to test out whether it's real or not.

Great advice. This is why it's VERY IMPORTANT to actually call references if you're considering hiring someone (or co-founding with someone, I suppose.)

<sidetracking into hiring lessons-learned...>

If you're nervous about calling, just remember that IF the person is great, their references will be falling all over themselves to tell you so. They'll be happy to talk to you. (In small companies, big companies may be HR stonewalling...) You're not bothering them, you're giving them an opportunity to tell you about this GREAT person and why you'd be insane not to hire them.

The clues are often found in the pauses, and what's unsaid. People don't like saying bad things about other people, so don't listen for that so much as cautious answers...

Eg.

"Would you hire them again?"

a) pause Uh, yeah, I'm sure we would.

versus

b) In a heartbeat. We would absolutely hire them again. I'm hoping we can someday when our department gets more funding.

Lastly, a trick when you don't reach someone on a reference call. Say who you are, and ask that they call you back if the person was incredible

That way they can send you a message without saying anything bad directly (and this happens...)

</random hiring lessons-learned>

It can be difficult to evaluate track records sometimes, and humans are particularly bad at doing so.

If you do something once or twice, it's just something that you've done. If you do something three times or more, especially in a short time frame, it becomes "that thing you always do", even if it's something that's very uncommon for you to do. Human perception is very quirky and prejudicial, keep that in mind.

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