How do I avoid hiring assholes at my company?

To me the evidence to how misguided this advice is, is that the author first assumes people are assholes (so it's a quality of the person), but in the last section they assume that it is useful to give "stern feedback" so people can correct their behavior... so people behave as assholes and are free to change if they choose.

Which brings me to the other point. What if these people were the most important contributors in the past jobs? What if theirs skills are more important than the rest? Should they describe themselves as simply "part of a team"? That would be completely hypocritical.

Equally, all the markers they give are completely unqualified by ifs and caveats, and as such are very misguided.

Here's how you don't hire an asshole. imo:

* You use your own empathy to understand if you can work with this person, if they fit culturally

* You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually

(I would not hire someone with a similar blog post)

Everyone knows that there are difficult personalities out there. You have to look at what every candidate brings to the table: skills, experience, creativity, communication, etc. It's usually a mixed bag.

Some people are brilliantly creative but very difficult to get along with in an office environment, and others are extremely smooth and diplomatic but unproductive. I've run into both kinds, though most people tend to be somewhere in between.

For a start-up situation, it seems to me you want to hire more from networking than from cold-call applications. When a new hire is 25% of the work force, he or she is going to have a huge impact on the culture and productivity of the team and it's very helpful to have met and interacted with them already.

When a new hire is 1/1000 of the work force, they're going to have less of an impact unless they're C-level, so you can afford to cold-hire based on established procedures.

I don't see much value in statements like "A-holes usually are not very introspective". It seems this person has a very specific image of what an undesirable team member would be like, probably based on his own brief experience in the working world.

After a couple of decades of working experience, I find it hard to generalize what an "a-hole" would be. It's all over the spectrum, from good hard working team players to borderline or sociopathic personalities whom you feel like strangling.

I guess the bottom line is, leave your ego at the door while interviewing, try to see the value in each person, figure out what they bring to the table, and maybe get them in for a day or two to interact with the team and see if the chemistry is OK.

Eventually I wised up and quit, but in an interview, how do you explain such a situation where you did most of the work for 4 years without looking like a braggart or an idiot? Things have changed so much in the past 5 years and I'm afraid I'm obsolete already because this client was clueless and ignored every suggestion on how to use the latest tech or do things the right way.

The best way to detect the a-holes is to try to gauge their integrity from the start. We did hire someone at the beginning to build the front end while I built the back, but after 6 months of constant yammering about marketing related issues and constant "I'm almost dones", the kid bailed and said he couldn't do any more because his full time job was too busy. He then handed me a pile of half finished ^$&^^&!!. Then I figured out he had been giving access to the codebase to some Russian he'd hired to do his work for him...

So if someone is sort of arrogant... you have to expect that of 20-something young men overly enamored of their intelligence. But if they at least care primarily about the project, and not themselves, then they have a work ethic and that's what you want for your team. A-holes, liars, fools - none of them have a work ethic.

First, "asshole" and "people who don't collaborate well" are not the same. "Assholes" are people who piss other people off. "People who don't collaborate well" can be any number of things. Mostly shy folks, in my experience.

Second, pissing people off isn't that bad of a trait -- as long as you are a friendly person and mean well. People will forgive a plethora of communication faults if you put their interests first and genuinely care about them. So what you're really wanting to avoid is "selfish assholes"

Finally, there's a tremendous danger in avoiding conflict in companies. Healthy conflict is a good thing, and over time we tend to want to hire people that mostly agree with us and are always on our side. This is a terrible thing to have, because it limits your creative potential. Give me a mixed team of radically different personality types and political leanings, all willing to push and be gruff with each other, yet all in good sport. We call this "passionate opinions, lightly held"

So no, the goal here isn't just to identify douchebags and keep them from the room. The goal is to maximize the mental diversity while maintaining civility and a family-like atmosphere. Much tougher.

I hate when amateurs try to psychoanalyze other people, or put any sort of faith in their theories. Reading people is hard.

Oh GOD that's a huge red flag for me. Because that clique will always have priority over your needs and career track. Not all of those people are brought with because they were super-competent and worked in complete psychic harmony with their peers. Sometimes people just need a parachute out of whatever company they were struggling in.

* Listen carefully for badmouthing of previous jobs and co-workers. With a–holes, you will hear a lot of answers that amount to “everyone was stupid but me,” “no one wanted to hear the truth,” etc.

* And, if you do happen to hire an a–hole, act immediately.

It can be that simple: trust your instincts when hiring, and ask people to leave if they turn out not to be a good fit. Keeping them on board is a waste of their time too.

So, maybe I am an asshole, but I find it hard to use the term "we developed this", or "we wrote this" when he's effectively written none of the code. So in order to conform to the criteria set out here, I would be lying, and I also wouldn't be a passionate developer who cares about my contribution. So sure, you don't get assholes. But I'd rather have an asshole than an liar.

I feel bad now. Even though I would never talk like this I can't help but feel this way sometimes at my current job. I feel like I am genuinely asked to do retarded shit sometimes, and no one else seems to mind.

Closing note is most important: act immediately and give feedback. Employers usually don't do that, because it would hurt their image of successful interviewer.

Jobs was an a–hole.

don't be a fucking asshole boss in the first place.

What is an asshole any way? Difficult to get on with? Racist? Right wing nut job? Religious myth believer? Loner? What?

All I know is that some of the best skilled and most productive people I have worked with have between called some thing similar by others. Well, screw them. If they have time to be slagging off skilled and productive workers for not coming up to their social standards, they sure as hell aren't being of any use to me.

I think all you can do is test the skill set and take some decent amount of time to try to get to know the candidate. Then simply go with your guts. Plus, be prepared to fire the person if it turns out you are wrong. I trial period is always a good safety net, for both.

BTW, how do you avoid working for an asshole? Much harder.

Often one is a-hole because he insist on basic principles, such as unit tests.

I have also discovered that the downside of writing about assholes in the workplace is that criticisms of the piece usually end with the commenter calling you an asshole.

I would prefer to have a person say to my face that he thinks I'm an idiot than to have one being nice to me and stab me in the back.

How social a person is one thing, how good a person is is totally different.

Relevant video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elrnAl6ygeM

#winning

1. Hire based on ability, experience, and if the candidate has a good attitude and approach. 2. Hire based on company and team fit - this does not mean six of the exact same profile (i.e 3.25 years J2SE developer from a tech background), but instead look to build a well-rounded team with a variety of backgrounds and approaches to tackling the project. But they should all be able to sing the same song, even if in different keys, it is no good where each sings a good but unique and competing song. 3. Do not discriminate, especially in a so-called "positive" way. It is just bad policy. 4. If you say your company will provide training, make sure you do. 5. Avoid bell-curve based staff evaluation schemes. 6. No point number six, the first five should be enough!