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Hiring Tips

I’ve only hired a few times, but I just wanted to jot some notes about what worked for me in this process.

  • Use a bug tracker or issue tracker to keep track of resumes, emails and interactions
  • Respond to every person – there were some outsourcing firms that I didn’t respond to, but every other person got a response from me
  • Use Craigslist.
  • Use an email alias on your Craigslist post
  • Use other mailing lists (rmiug-jobs, cu cs jobs, even local neighborhood lists)
  • Ask your networks for candidates, but don’t expect too much of them
  • Pre-screen with a set of email questions if possible.  Don’t ask candidates to do too much, but asking them to do some work will allow some to self select out
  • When doing an interview, set the candidate up to succeed, by telling them what you are planning to ask them to do
  • Set deadlines for yourself, and share them with the candidates
  • Follow up with every candidate when you make a decision – I don’t think that it is fair to do otherwise
  • If you can point job seekers at another position, do so.  I recently did this with a QA position – in my search, I discovered another firm that was looking to hire, so I pointed all the candidates that didn’t work for us to that firms job posting
  • The web is full of sample job interview questions – use them!

 

Help A Reporter Out

This site, Help A Reporter Out/HARO, is a great resource for anyone with expertise in any field who wants to be better known. (It’s also a resource for journalists, but I don’t have any experience with that side of the site.)

To participate as a source, you sign up and then are sent three emails every work day. Every email consists of 35-50 reporter queries, grouped by area (‘Travel’, ‘Tech’, ‘Education’, etc). Included in each query is the deadline, name of the reporter (if provided), anonymized reporter email address, and media outlet. There’s also some advertising, but I tend to skip past that (although I did click once on an ad that led me to learn about Google Apps Scripting).

Once you get the email, you scan the queries and see if you can and want to respond to any. I recently responded to one, but before that I’d passed off a number of requests for information to other people. Such handoffs are a great way to help other people out, and it’s kinda fun–who doesn’t want to talk to a reporter? (Psst, if you’re looking for a job, sending over a reporter query related to a company’s business is a great way to build rapport with people there.)

As I said above, a few days ago I’d finally found a query I felt I could help with, and responded with an email answering the reporter’s questions. The reporter responded, and I ended up have a 10 minute phone call about the story. So even when you actually participate, it’s pretty low impact.

I will say the hardest part of participating in HARO for me is scanning the emails–scanning 150 queries a day wears me down. I’ve stopped scanning them all, but still check from time to time.

I just think this is the coolest example of something that the internet allows, but couldn’t happen (at scale) any other way. The costs, both in money and time, of sending out and responding to reporter’s queries would be just too high.

Why the reverse brain drain?

Via a retweet from Brad Feld, I saw this article.

This is confusing to me.  There is no hard data, but I’d like to explore why are people leaving the US to start companies back in the homeland.

Is it because of:

  1. visa issues
  2. the cost to build a company
  3. the economic opportunity in their home country

If it is the first one, I’m in favor of reform, though I think there are a number of ways to encourage founders to stay, and tying their visa to VC funding, like the startup visa does, doesn’t seem like an optimal strategy.

If it is the second, then we need a cost benefits analysis.  Making it easier to start companies is not an unalloyed good.  For example, I wouldn’t want it to be easier to start a company that made cancer causing products.  It’s harder to start a company in the US because we as a society have made choices that impose costs on companies.  Ask the Chinese how it is to have ineffective regulation.  On the other hand, as outlined in comments here, lowering risk for entrepeneurs (lack of health insurance!) could really lower costs for starting a company.

If it is the last, then, good luck to them.  Who can argue with the fact that Indian engineers are cheaper or that “there are no mature companies, like Google and Microsoft” in these countries?

Musings on php development as a career path

I was at a TedXBoulder preparty last night.  Ran into some really interesting folks–the usual tech folks, but also Charles, a high flying audio engineer (we’re talking Wembley stadium), Emily, a money manager bizdev lady ($30 million, minimum, please) and Donna, an engineer on leave from a big aerospace firm who is interested in entrepreneurialism.  Really looking forward to the talks on Saturday (tickets apparently still available).  I also ran into an old friend, roommate and colleague.

We chatted about a wide variety of topics, but one stuck out in my mind.  His brother is getting back into software development, and is starting out doing a lot of php.  Fair enough–it’s a great language, I’ve done a fair bit of it, and one can write good, maintainable, fase code with it.  But last night, we agreed that if you don’t want to be competing against, how do I say this politely, the lowest common denominator, it is wise to develop your software dev skills elsewhere, into one of three paths.  I thought it’d make a good blog post.  As I see it, the three options are

  • a compiled language–C#, Java, c, erlang: these tend to be used by large companies
  • a sexy dynamic language–Ruby, javascript (especially server side), groovy, python, clojure, lisp: my feeling is that these are more used by startups
  • particular packages in php–magento, drupal: these are often more configuration than coding, but can be customized to produce astonishingly powerful applications

The end goal, to be clear, is not to avoid php, but just to avoid competing against developers who are likely to undercut you.  For example, I knew of someone, in the US, who was doing contract php work for $18/hr a few years ago.  I just don’t think that’s someone with whom you want to be competing for business (I certainly don’t!).  Following one of the above career development paths will help you avoid that.  I personally have followed the first and third paths, with some dabbling in the second.

Boulder Startup Week

Come find a job in Boulder May 4 – 8, or at least enjoy the startup scene.

The startups in town are rolling out the red carpet (not really, I don’t think there is one in town) but figuratively, for you, talented developer, designer, UI, manager or startup enthusiast, to come for a visit.  There are a ton of jobs for developers, marketers, designers and managers (and we need more talent in town!).

Could be the best event highlighting the tech + fun sides of Boulder since BocoPositive press here.
[tags]startups, boulder, events[/tags]

Andrew Hyde: tips for your startup job hunt

Andrew Hyde, Boulder startup hub, gives some tips on the startup job process.  Having been a part of a few startups, I thought I’d review the high points of the list, but it’s worth a read regardless.

Lots of his tips are useful to people hunting for jobs at established companies as well–I’ve long been a believer in personal blogging (#12) as a ‘living resume’ (among its other benefits), and the research required to write a blog post about the company (#10) will be useful to you as well.  Here’s another post with good tips.

I especially enjoyed his riff on generalists: “In the history of startups, not a single ‘generalist’ has ever been hired.  They are called founders.” I’m not sure I entirely agree, but I do think that if you want to be hired for money at a startup, you should have a strong focus (whether that be development, marketing, sales, operations, etc, etc).  However, even if you are hired as, say, a developer, you’ll need to do other things (testing, customer service, perhaps even marketing)–that’s part of the fun.

He does give some contradictory advice: have a resume in PDF (#2) but at the same time “ditch a resume” (#8).  I think he means that while a resume is nice, startups are more interested in specific projects and achievements than a typical big company with an HR department.  Some argue one should approach all job interviews in the same manner.
The most important piece of advice that Andrew gives is #7, which is worth quoting in full:

Be clear.  You are looking for a job.  Cut the buzzswords, what is the best fit?  Steady?  Fast paced?  Live in Boulder?  Just say it.  Cut the shit.

In my job hunts, knowing what I actually wanted was the hardest task, but the most important.  Why is it hard?  When I’ve been looking for a job, I am anxious and concerned about the future, often thinking about my slowly draining savings.  Declaring what I actually want (beyond “a job, any job, please God, give me a job” which is sometimes how I feel 🙂 ) necessarily excludes opportunities.  However, that is the exact reason that it is the most important task.  By excluding opportunities that wouldn’t be a good fit, or would make me bitter, or wouldn’t serve the employer well, I freed myself up to focus on situations where I could help the employer succeed and be happy.

[tags]startup jobs[/tags]

Real life inspiration from laid off ad agency workers

“Lemonade” is a great 35 minute movie about people making lemonade from getting laid off.  The “lemonade” ranges from coffee roasting to yoga; artist to blogger (on ads, or on employment).

The content is entirely interviews with people were laid off from advertising agencies.  But the advice is good for anyone.  As always, good advice is easy to give or hear and hard to follow.

Here’s four ways to support the movie makers if you should be so inspired.

Via Seth Godin.

December 2009 BDNT writeup

I went to the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup last night, and as always, had a good time.  I ran into Brett Borders, and had a good discussion with him about why BDNT is worth going to.  I only go every couple of quarters, but I always learn something, and meet some interesting people (last night, including Marty Frary), and get jazzed about technology again.  This particular episode was packed–standing room only.  In addition, in the spirit of the season, there was a food drive, which was a nice touch, and a giveaway.  One additional change was that the twitter stream was off during presentations, though available during the q&a period (here’s a twitterstream horror story from the presenter’s point of view).

Brad Bernthal gave an overview of Silicon Flatirons (and asked for $ support).  This is a center focused on tech, law and entrepeneurship, which puts on a number of programs supporting the Boulder tech scene (I attended and reviewed one a while back: IP Crash Course for Entrepeneurs).  Which raises the question–where is the CU CS department?  Why is the Law school hosting BDNT and other users’ groups?  The CS department does host Colloquia (I attend about one a year), but I don’t think those compare to BDNT, et al.

After Brad, we moved on to jobs and events.  I was glad to see a number of jobs pop up.  Over the last year, at BDNT there were always some developer jobs available, but this time there was also a marketing job.  Hope it’s a sign that the Boulder tech job market is thawing (for folks other than developers).  There were 8 job announcements, though one of them was equity only.  About half of the presenting companies said they were looking to hire as well.  As far as events, KGNU is having a fundraiser called ‘Beers With Brad’Ignite Boulder 7 is only a week away (here’s an interesting post on how to organize Ignites).

On to presentations…

  • The Blog Frog presented on their platform to turn blogs into communities.  This is an interesting space–you can see competitors in Ning, MyBlogLog and Google Friend Connect, though they all approach the issue from a different angle.  The Blog Frog is aimed at automating community creation, and have focused on mommy bloggers (as a large, valuable group).  We did not get a demo from them, and I haven’t signed up for their service for any of my blogs, but they definitely have a cool value proposition–helping niche content providers build their communities and reach advertisers and interested people.  You can see a presentation from them 7 months ago; it sounds like their business model has evolved significantly.
  • The Unreasonable Institute presented next.  They bill themselves as ‘Techstars for social entrepeneurs’, but they have a few differences.  Instead of picking applicants and providing them money, they want applicants to fundraise to provide a fee and idea validation.  After applicants are selected, they do get funds throughout the 10 week program, as well as mentoring, chance to pitch, etc, etc. The presentor said that the applications already received were split equally between the for-profit, non-profit and hybrid models.  So, the funding pitches would include VCs/angels as well as foundations–an interesting twist and a great way to increase connections between those communities.  They are accepting applications for the 2010 summer until Dec 15th.
  • Letitia Pleis, from Metro State College of Denver, gave a great talk on the tax implications of equity as payment.  She covered three scenarios.  Unrestricted (‘here’s 10% of the company, please write software!’) which is taxed as income at the time of the grant and also implies a great deal of trust in the payee.  Restricted (‘here’s 10% of the company, it vests in 3 years’) which is taxed as income at the time the grant is vested, possibly leading to a massive increase in taxes due, unless you perform an section 83(b) election within 30 days of the grant (one person spoke up and said they’d be bitten by this).  Unrestricted profits interest gives the grantee claim on a percentage of future profits.  She was at the end of her time, so we didn’t hear as much about this option as I would have liked.
  • Next up was a gadget review.  I’m not a gadget head, so I didn’t take notes on this, but they did give away a Sonos system.  Well, the winner earned it by knowing what the original cost of a Apple I system was ($666.66).
  • Public Earth presented next.  They are a wiki of places; the presentor said just like Netflix lets you collect your favorite movies, Public Earth will let you collect your favorite places.  (And they hope to have scale like wikipedia–he said that they plan to move beyond the ‘where’s the nearest restaurant’ level.  I looked for ‘slot canyons’ in UT, for example, and they had some.  I think they need to work on their linking, because I couldn’t get a link for my query to post.  But, on the upside, they don’t support IE6!)  They have 5M points in their database already, and just went live.  The wiki aspect is very interesting to me; I wonder whether they’ll get a critical mass of users to do spam policing.  It’s an interesting contrast to Google My Maps–PE has a slicker interface and more sharing features.
  • Last was RTP, with their sick iphone app, Real Ski.  This is an augmented reality application that helps you locate points of interest (bathroom, particular runs) when you’re out skiing.  They obviously couldn’t demo it at BDNT, but they had a video demo, and it looked killer.  It should be on the App Store soon–5 area maps free, 99 cents for every other ski area map.  They also asked for advice from the community about selling a B2C app; RTP apparently is a B2B company.  Pricing, scale, and accuracy were mentioned, but nothing really profound.  This question might be a better asked on twitter, or in some forum that allows more interaction.  (I searched, and was interested to see that no one had posted advice for them on twitter.)

The only complaint I had with this BDNT was that there were no demos (apart from the gadgets).  Several pseudo-demos (aka powerpoint slides/videos), and interesting and relevant presentations, but I think that live demos really add a lot and are in the spirit of the meetup.

Samasource: Outsourcing as social enterprise

One of my clients (Twomile Heavy Industries) is building a large website.  He is involved in the non profit technology world (NTEN, CTNC, etc), and ran across Samasource, which is a social enterprise to bring outsourcing work into the developing world.  And not just Bangalore–they have work centers in refugee camps. They will be providing some testing services for this project.

Samasource offers a wide variety of services, all via screened partners.  I seem them as a cross between Odesk (which an interviewee touchs on here), Elance (which I joined, mostly to see what kind of jobs are available) and Kiva (which I learned about via Andrew Leonard).  See Samasource’s take on comparisons to Odesk and Elance in their FAQ.

What a great idea!  Very ‘the world is flat’.  This type of social enterprise overcomes my main objection to Kiva, because Samasource could provide a cost savings to their clients; compare that to Kiva, which provides no monetary return to lenders.

Anyhow, I’ll try to update when I’ve actually engaged with the folks that Samasource led us to, but it was such a cool business model I had to give them a shout out.

[tags]social enterprise, outsourcing, developing world[/tags]