Ask HN: How to tell quickly if someone is professional?
Professional = takes ownership and gets things done. No hand-waving, accountable, etc. I would suggest punctuality is a strong indicator, but I was wondering if HN can come up with better ones.
1. Discretion.
2. The quiet soft-spoken voice of reason (and incentive).
3. The weight of wisdom.
4. A higher sense of purpose other than being liked.
5. A way of saying much with few words (the "genius of compression").
6. The ability to discern between "the idea" and "the packaging".
7. A great fear of ever saying in private what they would never say in public.
8. An aversion to announcing things in advance.
Rather than being "on time", a professional seeks to be "before time". Rather than trying to "get to the point", the professional "starts with the point". A professional is more concerned with examining and testing and adjusting motives, than learning methods.
Above all, a professional gives value to "voice". The idea that playing a violin well will eventually result in greater resonance, that every note contributes to the tone of the instrument. The professional chooses to produce true notes as much as possible, knowing that false notes played in practice will eventually come to light in the character of the instrument. A professional understands why orchestra conductors insist on punctuality, the first and second and third order effects thereof. How "bottomless wonders spring from simple rules... repeated without end." - Benoit Mandelbrot.
Ask a professional why they chose to take a particular course of action, and they will be able to tell you "why". Professionals are rational, and their rationality is proactively forthcoming. Professionals phrase things in the positive.
Most of these characteristics seem to come down to "words" and "voice" and "reasons".
That's not to say I haven't improved in that department over the years, but I still start conversations with the meat instead of 'How was your vacation?' (Yeah, I got scolded for that once.) It's not even that I didn't care about their vacation, it's that I had very important work matters to deal with (I was at work!) and they come first.
That is, if a manager is more concerned with "Hi, how are you"'s then "The server is literally on fire, I need to get into the server room to put it out", they are much more likely to be incompetant then the average manager, and know it, which is why they're trying to buff their 'soft' skills.
This only applies to superficial reactions, not stuff like "When you attack people as your opening sentence, it makes them defensive" style stuff. If it actually matters, it's not what I'm talking about.
If you value others time, you can use that regularity and be punctual in spite of unreliable, traffic, public trsnaport etc.
1. I carry a Kindle with me. I read a lot and I can do it as well waiting in a office/lounge/Airport as at my bed.
2. I don't value my time more than collective time of four people waiting for me to start a meeting/meetup/lunch.
I'd love to try your calendar version!
Suppose you rely on Public Transit to get around.
You get a job, you check the bus schedule...there's a bus that drops you off right outside of work at 8:50.
That's pretty reasonable imho.
However, fairly regularly the bus is going to be 5 minutes late...this may cause you to be exactly on time..maybe a minute late.
Also fairly regularly the bus will be 20 minutes late...causing you to be about 10 minutes late.
Rarely it will be even more late, but not very often...probably about as often as a commuter gets stuck due to an accident or something.
Is it really a big deal to be 10 minutes late sometimes for an unavoidable reason?
I could see if you had to relieve someone, but again..let's get real. Most HN readers probably don't HAVE to be at their work exactly on time.
Buses generally run about once every 1.25 hours...even upt to every 2 hours.
Is it really fair to ask someone to be at work 1.5+ hours early every day just so they are not occasionally 10 minutes late?
The problem is with PT, you have basically 0 control over things. If you are driving a car, you can listen to traffic reports, avoid congestion, drive faster, take shortcuts. With PT you are completely stuck.
This is not a contrived example, this is based on what I have seen with Public Transportation and people using it to get to work. Unless you live downtown or in a city with excellent PT, you can find yourself in this dilemma.
It's easy to write it off as avoidable, but it seems silly in my book to advocate going through a huge hassle just to avoid being a few minutes late.
Obviously if it is critical that you are there at a certain time, that's a different story. If I'm a surgeon who needs to be on call 24/7...taking the bus is not going to cut it.
I'm also not saying we should give carte blanc to people to show up whenever they want...
However it's something that really depends on a lot of things.
There are a lot of things that can cause a person to be late, are most of them preventable and avoidable? Yes, but the effort may not be proportional to the benefit,
I honestly think these days showing up exactly on time is disproportionately valued.
It's definitely a factor, but it's one of many and if someone is a little late but good elsewhere I don't think it's a big deal.
This as someone who as walked 2 miles in drizzling day-after-Thanksgiving rain to a job interview 25 miles south of Boston by train (they hired me, job did not last, couldn't pay me enough).
EDIT: For tone and and clarity.
Are they on time for work? Good. Are they late? Did they prevent or ameliorate that having an impact?
Will they execute what they say they will, when they say they will? We may have to wait on that.
They only really need to be on time for meetings, where their lateness wastes N peoples times
I would expect anyone I worked with to take reasonable precautions to be on time for meetings(not for everyday work)
In a certain public trans system that should afford them a certain amount of lateness.
beyond that, it starts to reflect on their flakiness
Now, when is punctuality important? I don't care about 9 vs. 9:30 when getting into the office. I do care care about perpetually running 5 minutes late to a 15 minute team status meeting. There's an unspoken agreement at play; Meetings are short when people show up on time, ready to listen or speak.
They still gave me the job. I was uneasy about this at the time, but accepted. It was a bad choice, and I was a bad fit. The fact that they brushed off this bad mistake without mentioning it should have been an indicator to me that any amount of sloppy mistakes would be tolerated by their staff. And thus it was proved so.
pppppp
No matter how professional someone appears there's always a chance they're a complete flake in reality.
The best you can do is determine quickly that someone is not a professional, and the basis for that is going to have to be a variety of factors.
There's no one thing that will serve as an accurate litmus test all around.
Punctuality is a good start, but I wouldn't put too much stock in it. Personally, I think it's way over-rated.
For something like an interview, punctuality is important as a sign of respect and for practical reasons...
If you interview someone, you should consider punctuality but also bear in mind that crap happens. I once had an interview and I got stuck in the subway, where there are no phone signals.
Who's to say if you are writing off a brilliant worker due to bad luck.
In terms of normal punctuality for work, I think it's vastly over-rated.
Places generally expect you to be slightly early for work, so I don't see anything wrong with the assumption that you will sometimes be a little late. As long as everyone gets to work around the same time, everyone does their work,everyone works their hours, and people are on time for the truly important stuff....I don't see the problem with even regular "lateness".
Anyway. I digress...
If anything I think how they are dressed is a better indication than punctuality, but that also has problems.
You have to look at a lot of things...I would worry less about whether they are a fit for some hypothetical objective mold of "professional" and worry more about how they fit with what you think is important, and how they fit with your culture.
All that matters to me is competence, work ethic, and how they fit in with the group....I'll take that over some nebulous concept of "professionalism" any day.
I would never have agony in my face about it, perhaps because the event wasn't "irreparable." The database was just reloaded from production. My first answer to your question would be "never" because the event really wasn't consequential. In fact, I'd question just how "professionally" run an organization is if a data deletion event is of dire consequence. Anything important should be backed up and easily restorable.
Some decades back, someone did a study of companies that had some disaster happen. (Fire, flood, etc...) Of the ones that lost their data, only something like 3% of them survived the next year. Digital data is the most easily backed up corporate asset and probably the most important.
(To keep it from happening again, I'd use a different tool entirely, if given a choice. In that case, I wasn't!)
Why do you care if someone is in through the door of the office at 9am or at 12pm as long as their work doesn't suffer from it? In the case of meetings and the such I do understand the need to have everyone be punctual though, and that should be stated before hand. If you have a meeting, be there on time, if nothing time sensitive is on the calendar, then let people do what they find more productive, within reason off course.
However, if one is late to a meeting (internal or client side... or even the job interview), then I think that is a red flag, specifically if there is no good reason to do so or if they don't give a heads up.
In fact, it doesn't matter what the discipline is whether it be punctuality or something else, but the fact that discipline is valued. You might see these things in and of themselves as pointless (and you'd be right), but you'd be ignoring the 2nd and 3rd order effects.
Being late to a scheduled meeting is unprofessional. Turning up at 9 instead of 8 because there's really no impact if you do so? Not unprofessional. Expecting someone to turn up at 8 because "I said so"? TOTALLY unprofessional, and a jerky thing to do.
For examples see: the military, professional orchestras, rowing eights, ivy league traditions, and even children keeping piggy banks.
Punctuality, on agreed conventions, is a sign of respect and a measure of professionalism.
Some would say, improperly editing a post or a comment is a sign of carelessness and therefore would indicate a tendency toward sloppiness in one's work. It all depends on the agreed upon conventions.
All else being equal, and it rarely is, if someone was late-as understood by societal norms- and someone else was on time, who would give you the warmer fuzzy?
Punctuality is a sign of professionalism.
The original poster is asking if punctuality is in general a measure of professionalism. I say generally no, but it can be in cases when punctuality is important. I said its a non issue on perhaps a greater percentage of the cases.
If I hire two developers and one has a knack on getting to the office an hour late every day while the other has a knack of being half an hour early; however the first is always on time with his work, while the second one is pushing deadlines all the time. My fuzzy feeling goes to the one that comes late every day.
In contrast if I hire a support line agent, and he's always late and because of it I have customers not being attended to I mark him as unprofessional and a liability.
If they want to meet for coffee and offer to buy you that coffee in exchange for your time, do they do this without you prompting them? If you end up buying your own coffee, and they simply forgot, do they acknowledge it?
If they say they will email/phone you by a certain time, do they do this? If not, and they eventually do get to you, do they acknowledge/apologize for not keeping their word?
For me, to quickly find out, it always come down to these little things. Sure, people forget to call/email/buy coffee all the time, that's acceptable. But, do they take accountability for that slip? Do they take responsibility for it without you prompting them?
If the little things are handled professionally, I've never had an experience (yet) where the big things aren't...
Also wanted to say: talking about meeting for coffee went delightfully meta there, considering your username.
(the only indicator that really matters)
Have you ever given a bad reference? I've given lots of references, and I've checked lots of references. I've never given a negative reference, and I've never gotten a negative reference when I checked someone else.
This is for two reasons. 1. when the applicant lists references, s/he is going to list people who think positively of him or her, and 2. if some random guy calls up and asks for a reference for someone who used to work for you, you have a relationship with your ex-employee. You have no relationship with this new company. You have nothing to gain (and possibly significant liabilities) from handing out a negative reference.
I don't see any case where it's in the best interest of anyone to say negative things about a past employee. And I don't think you can count all "company policy is that we simply confirm they worked here" messages as negative, because sometimes that really is company policy.
When asked for a reference, have you ever said anything negative about a past employee or co-worker? Have you ever heard anything negative about someone you were considering hiring after cold calling a previous employer?
Do you?
My own unit is "Yes's/min". I find that when I'm explaining something to an individual who responds with too many "Yes's/min", that individual is usually (of course not always) not appreciating the nuances of the topic being discussed. Having an alarmingly high amount of certainty around a new or just introduced topic, I find, usually implies a lack of professionalism.
These days more often than not this is not what you're looking for. You're looking for the fresh angle, the different point of view, the purple cow.
You're looking for passion. For love. These are two words you seldom see together with professionalism.
EDIT: the word "amateur" has the same roots as "amore" and literally means "love what you do".
A joke among architects is to call plumbers|electricians|framers "creative". You don't want purple cow plumbing, and that goes for a lot of professions. ;)
Not a complete list, but fishing for suggestions:
Context--they sent you a business related email, and appear roughly 'professional' to you, but you want to make sure.
Their message/website/page/example project. You be the judge.
Do they reply to their contact form?
Is their contact information available and current?
LinkedIn, github, any other free, populous site membership--what is their public face?
Where do they hang their shingle? What do they associate with?
Not at all?
I'm not saying you need to be tweeting what you had for lunch or anything but having some presence on the social web is probably a good indicator in a broad swathe of fields. For example if I'm after a graphic designer and they're on LinkedIn|Facebook|Twitter or somesuch then it's an indicator that they're clued in with modern advertising, likely to have their finger more on the pulse, likely to be happy corresponding via the 'net, etc..
One thing you could try is to see how the person handles constructive criticism. Try to get them engaged in a discussion about what they did wrong and how they could do better in the future. Pick something you have actual knowledge of so you can better tell if they are BSing you.
This can be difficult to do in an interview because you often don't know anything about the person. However, even if you have them pick an example of a screw-up from their past, you should be able to get a general sense of whether or not they try to be accountable for their actions. A bad sign would be if they pick an example where they didn't actually screw up or explain their failure as completely out of their control.
So generally, professionals are people who help you achieve whatever goal you have, instead of arguing what tools to use.
Be careful of those who talks a lot trying to prove you that they are professionals. Professionals are generally in demand, they should be busy doing work, they don't try to higher their status because they are already rewarded. Those who sucks try to trap you with words.
Not an indicator for professionals but should be helpful to filter some.
For instance, I'm very good about taking ownership and being accountable. I'm, uh, somewhat less good at actually getting things done on time. I mean, I won't make stupid excuses or try to shift blame, but I am quite often late on actually getting the damn thing done because of my own personal failings, so if you just measured a willingness to accept responsibly when accepting responsibility is unpleasant, you'd think higher of me than you ought.
"what is the most costly (to your employer) mistake of your career?" is a good interview question to probe the willingness to take responsibility. I know I've made some expensive mistakes, some of my worst were simply because I typed the wrong thing out of fatigue or inattention. (as I have grown older, I think one of the most important things I've learned is how to tell when I am likely to make a mistake, and when to log out.)
I'd argue that a person who claims not to have made expensive mistakes is likely the type to dodge responsibility. (this is eminently true in the ops world. I imagine it's true elsewhere, but I've got a lot less room to speak.)
You could also give them a hypothetical where, say, they could have prevented a mistake but it wasn't something they actively caused. Then ask them if it was their responsibility. "If you hired a guy who did something stupid that cost us a lot of money, is it your fault or his fault?" I'd never hire anyone for management who thought it was the hiree's fault.
showing up on time, in my experience has nothing to do with a willingness to take responsibility when something goes wrong.
As for "gets things done" eh, I'm not the right man to ask about that. When you figure out a better answer than "hire them as a contractor and see" let me know.
The only things that are important to me are that the person is honest, a hard-worker, intelligent, a clear communicator and has common sense.
Don't be fooled with "quiet soft-spoken voice of reason" and other outside behavioral decoration. These things can be learned.
School where I learned this: odesk.com.
anyone who does things with the wisdom of an 80-year-old sailor, the efficiency of a 45-year old BMW factory worker, and the enthusiasm of a 3-year-old with finger paint
Cheers
More value is created by the first sense of the word, IMO.
BTW. I have to ask, is "BLINK tags and Comic Sans" wrong on every occasion, on every target group, on every situation, on every web page, absolutely no matter what? Because if you agree that there can be one in a billion situation where "BLINK tags and Comic Sans" are acceptable or even good thing to do, then ... you are not professional :-)
No, the world only _looks_ grey. In a given situation there really is a right thing to do, and wrong thing. The details matter immensely, however, causing white and black to be right next to each other, and intermixed thoroughly. This leaves it very hard to tell what is the right thing to do, leading to moral dithering and apparently grey morality.
(I'm not really being serious. But I'm also not really being entirely unserious.)
It really is my experience that small details about a situation can turn my opinion of an action from totally justified to totally unjustified, or vice-versa. I wouldn't have expected it to be controversial that details can matter greatly, making judging many situations quite difficult either looking from the supposedly objective outside, or from the definitely subjective people on one side or another.