Building Teams: Hire People, Not Skills | Hacker News Reader

Building Teams: Hire People, Not Skills

bostinnovation.com

67 pointschezral23 comments

I definitely think this is the best long term solution. I think culture is incredibly important to an organization. And, I liked the article overall.

But- there is some glossing over of technical ability. I am one to believe that the best software engineers and programmers are 10-100x better than the average. I think that is a belief shared on this site. Would I rather have a programmer who is 100x better who doesn't match the culture I want exactly, or the average programmer who does? Within reason, I think the 100x better guy.

It's easy to say I want the 100x programmer who matches the startup culture and also doesn't want to get paid a lot or take a ton of equity. But, hiring isn't that easy.

What typically differentiates the people I get excited about versus the people I'm indifferent about is their answer to: "So what books are you reading now or what's the last book you've read?" Everyone who I have worked with has had pretty good answers for this question and has gone on to be pretty impressive. It's sort of sad but most people don't bother to read anything at all.

This is real 'back to basics' stuff but the issue is how do you figure out who will be a good cultural fit in an hour long interview where nine times out of ten the person is going out of their way to impress you anyway.

The final paragraph really nails it. A candidate will fulfil the stereotype of an interviewee when in an interview scenario, meet them at a hacker meet-up or even for an informal coffee chat and the candidate will feel less obliged to act like your potential employee and more inclined to be themselves.

It's just as important for your potential employee to like you as it is for you to like them so you have a reciprocal duty to try and be yourself when meeting a candidate. Formal, stuffy interviews tend to generate formal, stuffy conversations.

I agree with the article. Hiring based on skill alone doesn't work. I usually look for the most agile person. Someone comfortable wearing many hats. Unfortunately, there's no quick way of figuring this out. After many painful lessons, I've changed how I hire. I used to put candidates thru grueling interviews. I now instead, show the candidates the what I do, hire based on a quick interview on a contract to perm basis. In the ensuing probation/contract period, I get to see actual work, and if the whole team likes working with the new hire, they go perm with a pay bump & some benefits. Working out well so far.

Do you operate in a demanding market? As a candidate, I'd be very skeptical of such an arrangement, assuming another company I liked equally was standing by with an offer for a real position right off the bat.

Yeah seriously, how do you justify contract-to-perm basis to the employee?

Yes, I do operate in a demanding market. As such I've had to really figure out how to make this work. I started out by offerring "rockstars" loads of money & potential equity. This was unsustainable. I mean, they were rockstars and the quality of their work was awesome, but there was no way I could compete with well established companies. (Yes, I run a very humble, mostly self funded startup). My proposition is simple. It's like "dating", we both have some risk. But the benefits I offer, is a place where you'll love to work, (we have lots of "unconventional" benefits). Also, once you're perm, you'll make above market salary+bonus+equity+... It's not everyone's cup of tea. If money and security are your thing, you wouldn't be happy with my company anyways. We're a startup, we take risks and love the thrill. That's why when one of your ideas make the company money, the bonus you'll see on the next paycheck will make veterans' paychecks look like chump change & if it's something that'll help us long term, you'll get the bonus in terms of equity. So far, our team is like family. We love what we do & look forward to Monday...

Would you care to expand on your experiences with this? I keep hearing of people who take this approach, but I've always been skeptical on how well it really works out.

Assume that I have a job. What you would be offering me would be an opportunity to quit my job in return for a temporary job that might or might not convert to full time. During the transition, I will lose my benefits. Your assumption of a pay bump when going permanent also seems to indicate that I wouldn't be compensated for the risk of a permanent position not being offered.

What do you see as the value proposition for an already-employed person in this arrangement?

Contract to Perm roles are growing in popularity but the point you mention about risking a secure job with no assurance of getting a full time role with your new company is the biggest issue.

The fact is, candidates don't take the risk and rightfully so.

This process, however, works brilliantly with graduates or candidates that are currently unemployed.

Amen, a good portion of my team are recent college grads/unemployed/self taught etc. I realized early on that I'm not Google & I wouldn't be able to realize the value of "top of the line" engineers who everyone else if competing for. So, I try to get the best of whatever's left & try to get best out of them. I'm not worried my "rockstars" are going to jump ship at the next best offer. Like I said in my earlier post, it's like a "dating" realitionship initially. I've found people often are looking for work that they enjoy (including the feeling of community, comfort & being valuable) while covering their basic needs more than a very high paying job that makes them feel like crap. I've even had a couple of defectors from larger companies, just because I'd let them do what they liked and not just what they went to school for. Bottom line, I end up getting way more value from my team vs. my previous hiring model, which was more traditional & in line larger corporations.

This stuff is a great demonstration of the type of advantages that a small organization has over a larger one.

The problem with weighting more subjective assessments of people like "cultural fit" higher than more objective assessments like "experience" is that the assessor's bias will become a problem. By problem, I mean that you're going to get successfully sued for some form of discrimination.

The key here is "You need a mix of people with differing perspectives but shared values." to which I would also add differing demographic backgrounds. As the article says, you need at team that is cohesive because of its differences.

Absolutely. That's where the small organization shines. Once you get big, where big == more than a couple of hundred people, subcultures start to develop that may not share positive values. A few key negative people can poison an organization.

Also, "experience" is (a) inherently age-biased and (b) often somewhat subjective, so prone to assessor's bias. An example where experience is subjective is how to count something in an adjacent field -- businesspeople going into politics or vice versa, or a PR person being considered for a marketing role. So it's not a panacea.

Love the breakdown - "scrappiness and drive" at 35%. To me resourcefulness is #1 - I don't care if someone has the experience, I care that they can go out and figure it out on their own.

You don't think experience helps with that?

It frustrates me that our profession seems to have no real career path. It's great that you can hit the ground running, but we do seem to systematically devalue experience. And it DOES matter, though it's obviously not just about years. (I've certainly known plenty of folks who had been doing bad work for decades.) But we don't have any kind of formal mentoring system like you'd see in other professions, and I think we're worse off for it.

but we do seem to systematically devalue experience

Yes, it does seem like the only mainstream profession where having 20 years of real experience means virtually nothing.

IOW, our profession is so shallow that virtually anyone can do your job if they want to.

Wouldn't it be easier to "figure it out on their own" if they had, say, 20 years of solving similar problems?

I'd really enjoy seeing a follow up post on this with more detail on the process. This article describes the general feeling I've had, even outside of start ups. I do feel like the "actually coming through" part of scrappiness is the most important, especially when it comes down to coming up with solutions that are elegant and not just hack work. There has to be some middle ground that mixes this approach with a set of skill/intelligence factors in the interview.

Mark Suster has a more in depth post about hiring based on attitude not aptitude. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/03/17/whom-should-yo...

I don't think these guidelines would apply the same way at a larger established company instead of a startup. Skillset would have comparably more interest to a company already invested in legacy systems which wouldn't be the case with a start-up.

There needs to be a certain level of skill but frankly, looking at the long term and with the right individual, I'd take a carpenter over a rockstar any day.

I like the focus on people.

I'm wondering if salary is also selected according to this breakdown and not on skills (as it is usually done).

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