Plays Well With Others – Hiring, Part 2

Interview Styles and Samples There are three basic interview styles you can use when interview technologists: biographical, technical, or behavioral.  Each has advantages and disadvantages.  Because of this mix of pros and cons, some organizations will mix two or more of the styles, or allow different people in the organization to serially interview the candidate using different styles.  We’ll cover each of these styles in a bit more detail and provide some examples of interview questions that you might use with them. BIOGRAPHICAL The biographical interview style offers the advantage of … [Read more...]

Plays Well With Others – Hiring, Part 1

Pre-Interview Preparation As I promised in the last post , I’ll be covering hiring in greater detail over the next three installments.  Today, I’m going to talk about what goes into effective hiring before the interview ever takes place.  Future installments will cover the various interview styles you can choose from in some detail, to be followed by another installment on what sort of team involvement and interview format you choose. The Ideal Candidate Hiring, training, and acclimating a new person to your organization is estimated to cost anywhere from 17-32% of the position’s … [Read more...]

Plays Well With Others – A Primer on Hiring

Good hiring practices are vital for any organization.  As you move up in ranks, you’ll be given more influence and authority in hiring situations.  Unfortunately, most organizations offer no training on how to effectively hire the best candidate nor do they have a formalized policy on how to conduct hiring.  The larger your organization, the more likely it is to have a formalized hiring process and well-defined roles for HR and for the hiring manager.  Even when the HR department (if it exists) is helpful and has good intentions, they often bring little to the hiring process except to weed out … [Read more...]