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Be an Informal Recruiter

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As I kick start my consulting business, I’m talking to many people–everyone in my network, anyone that I am referred to, and random people from Hacker News.  Employment is far less fungible than other purchases (even housing), so it behooves anyone selling labor to cast a wide net.

These introductions and conversations have not just given me the chance to talk about my skills and knowledge, but also to learn about other needs of the company.  Even if they don’t have need for a senior developer who can talk business and learn new languages, they may have a need for someone else in my network.

I’ve been about to do a few such intros since early August.  It actually is quite fun to do this, and it is good for karma.  It’s also a great way to stand out from the pack–if I an helpful to the organization before I take a job/contract with it, imagine how helpful I will be when I am engaged day to day.

During initial contact with the interesting organization, I talk about my skills and how that might fill the organization’s needs–after all, they are interested in meeting and learning about me.  But I also note any other needs, either via postings on their websites, needs they imply or mention in the conversation, or by simply asking them: “do you have any other needs at this time?  I like to help and would be happy to ping my network”.  I take notes.

Once I know some needs, I consider who in my network might help fulfill them.  Then I reach out to the members of my network and see if they can help. Typically, I send an email with the details of the need, and ask if they know anyone who might be a fit for the company.  Network members don’t have to be looking to make a move.  They will probably know of folks who can be a good fit.  For example, a marketing will typically know far more marketers than I will.  Therefore, if an organization I am interested in helping needs a marketing assistant, reaching out to marketers in my network and asking if they know anyone looking will be helpful. This interaction is useful to my network contacts–it lets them reach out to their network, opens a conversation with me, informs them of labor market conditions with minimal work on their part, and could end up in a new job if the fit is right.

This technique also lets me have a soft touch point with the prospect in a week or so.  I say something like “I reached out to my network about the position X you posted, and haven’t heard back from anyone, just wanted to let you know.”

If I don’t have a specific person who could help fill this role (either themselves or via their contacts), there are other ways to add value.  I’ve passed on recruiting tips (or interested tech articles), helpful employment sites, or general labor market advice such as “based on what I’ve seen, you might to have a hard time finding someone expert in tech X for pay Y”, or “in my experience, rates for tech X are $Y/hour”.  All of these add value to the interaction at very little cost to me.

Connecting people with openings is great for hiring managers on the other side of the hiring/contracting process.  If I am casting a wide net looking for contracts, I have recent data as well as a network and perspective worth sharing.  Since this is low cost to me and has benefits for me, the organization I am interacting with and members of my network, it is worth the extra effort to be mindful of needs and to send that intro email.

Consulting Jobs | moore |

Build your capital

I was working on a post about how important it is to have a side project, but then read this post by patio11: “Don’t End the Week with Nothing”, which could be more accurately titled “Don’t End the Week with Nothing except your Paycheck”. Not that there is anything wrong with just having a paycheck, but Patrick’s point is that when you work on something you own, rather than something you are paid for, you can (in the right circumstances, with hard work and luck) get accumulating returns.

He did such a good job explaining how to move your career forward as a software developer (a superset of the topic I was covering with my “have a side project” post), that I wanted to call your attention to it. The whole article is worth reading, but here’s my favorite part:

Telling people you can do great work is easy: any idiot can do it, and many idiots do. Having people tell people you do great work is an improvement. It suffers because measuring individual productivity on a team effort is famously difficult, and people often have no particular reason to trust the representations of the people doing the endorsements.

This is one of the reasons I blog, it’s why I have spoken at several user’s groups, it is why I wrote a book, and it is why I have a side project.

Consulting Jobs | moore |

A respectful hiring process

I have been on both sides of the hiring equation.  I’ve been the one dressing up slightly nicer than usual, google mapping directions to a strange place, and nervously arriving ten minutes early. I’ve also been the one doing phone screens, trying to fit interviewing into a packed schedule, providing resumes to other team members for review, and making the call on which of two candidates would serve my organization better. (Thankfully, I haven’t had to fire anyone yet.)

Hiring is not easy, for either party. That’s why I think a respectful hiring process is so important. What are key components of such a process?

From the employers perspective:

  • Be honest. Be as clear as you can about the job and the expectations around the job. Comp is hard to be totally clear about because there’s always a dance around this, but levels of comp can be pretty clearly stated in the job req (entry/junior/mid/senior)–which means you have to do the research for appropriate comp levels to fit your budget.
  • Have compassion. Remember what it is like to be on the other side of that call or table.
  • Keep track of all your applicants in a database (even just a issue tracker). This will allow you to make sure you don’t lose track of anyone (or their documents) and know where everyone is in the process. As a plus, I’ve also mined this database when other openings come up.
  • Set deadlines for yourself, and tell applicants about them. Far too often, once the process starts, communication comes it fits and starts. Setting deadlines forces you to communicate at expected times (even if the communication is just ‘we have to move the previously stated deadlines’, it is still welcome).
  • When an applicant isn’t a good fit (for whatever reason), or the position goes away, tell the applicant as soon as possible.

From the applicant’s perspective:

  • Only apply for jobs that you fit the requirements for, or at least most of them. Applications that clearly meet only one or none of the requirements are a waste of everyone’s time.
  • Be honest.
  • In an interview, when you don’t know, say you don’t know, but also say how you’d try to figure it out.
  • Realize that this isn’t just an interview, it’s a chance to make a connection. I’ve connected people who didn’t quite fit my requirements with other employers, and asked people I’ve interviewed with for technical advice. Treat the interview process as one stroke in a broader picture, rather than a test to be passed.

I’m sure I missed something–any other suggestions to make the hiring process more humane?

Jobs | moore |

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!

 

Business Jobs | moore |

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.

Business Jobs Technology and Society Useful Tools | moore |

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?

Business Jobs | moore |

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.

Jobs PHP Programming | moore | |   career development php tedxboulder

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 Boco.  Positive press here.
[tags]startups, boulder, events[/tags]

Jobs | moore |

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]

Jobs | moore |

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.

Jobs | moore |