How do you hire people?

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I’ve ended up hiring quite a few people in my time. Here’s a dump of my thoughts on it and how I do it. Your mileage may vary, so I’d love to hear how other people scan and find new talent, and then the filters you use before bringing them on.

I last looked at a CV/resume to hire someone in 2009, I swore them off after that. Why? I brought on a guy that looked amazing on paper, but just didn’t work at all. On anything. He didn’t write one meaningful line of code, it was crazy. In fact, it was so disappointing that I figured that I needed to come up with a new way to filter and find good people. This caused me to start looking at what people had done instead of what they said that they did, seeing a portfolio of experience rather than reading a “tissue of lies” as my friend Roomthinker calls them.

What worked great for me at Ushahidi for the next 5 years, and which was what I would come to call “Erik’s Theory of Hiring” in a handbook that I put together for our team, was this:

Smart, gets things done
If you’re smart you can learn new things easily. If you have a history of getting things done, then you’ll get things done here too.

Star Wars Theory
Just like the original Star Wars cast wasn’t famous before they did the film, we want people who exhibit all the traits of greatness but aren’t widely known yet. We want people who will use the Ushahidi platform to become stars.

These are still my first filters when I talk to potential people that join my teams. Most of the time I’m always scanning for people who exhibit these traits even when I’m not hiring. If I find someone that seems like they would fit, I file them away in my mind and wait for the right opportunity to bring them in.

How do you find great talent and hire them?

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was hoping for something more detailed, but i guess simple works.

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@Ajibz I should have been more clear that this is about how I do the initial finding of people, there’s a longer process to gauge whether or not they can do the job that’s going to be given to them. A few things off the top of my head:

  1. Multiple interviews with other team members, even ones who won’t be
    on the same team internally.
  2. I almost always have people on an initial 3-month contract to make
    sure we both didn’t make a mistake (them feeling locked in is as bad
    as the company feeling we’re locked in to them).
  3. For technical jobs, giving them something to do to prove that they
    can do it as part of the interview process. This can be technical
    writing, coding or even soldering.
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thanks for the details. Technical writing seems interesting, what exactly does it entail?

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