Hiring Talent - Strategies for Building Strong Teams

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Noir podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing this incredible podcast known as Building Better Developers, also Developer Noir. If you don't think it's incredible, you haven't listened to enough episodes yet. I am Rob Brodhead, one of the founders of Building Better Developers, also a founder of RB Consulting, where we help you leverage technology and make it do what it needs to do. You pay all this money, you spend all this time, you have technology sprawl and all of the pain involved with the thing that should just work. Well, we help you find the things that help your company just work. We will through integration, simplification, automation, even innovation. We help you, basically we sit down with you, we understand what makes you you, what makes your company your company. And then we take our knowledge and experience with technology and all the stuff that's out there and we craft a specific recipe for you for success for today to make sure that we can make the best use of your dollars and your technology investment and also in the sure you've got a roadmap for how do you grow and grow the needed technology to continue your company moving forward. Good things, bad things. Let's see, what would be a good thing and a bad thing? Because I'm just making this up as I'm going right now. I should have thought about this more before I got into this. However, a good thing is I have been looking forward to a really good masquerade ball kind of party for several years. We did one many years ago, we got some stuff with like we had a couple of nice like masks and some other stuff that we haven't been able to do it since. And even that one was not really what we wanted. So the good thing is, is that I have one coming up is that we're actually going to be able to go to one we're going to and we've like upped our game a little bit. The bad thing is, is I don't have enough warning and I haven't really been thinking about enough that I'm not going to be able to up my game enough. So there's that. The other good thing is I'll probably have a story afterwards of this in some way, form or fashion. I need an Instagram or one of those kinds of things just so I can have pictures of this stuff. But hey, if you shoot me an email, I will send you one. That being said, somebody else that will shoot you that he shoots you pictures if you send him an email as well. I'm not gonna say it's pictures of him, maybe of his house, maybe of like the neighbors, who knows is Michael and he's going to go introduce himself. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Milosh. I'm one of the co-founders of developer building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA, where we help businesses build software that meets their needs. Nine out of 10 times businesses have software that is piecemeal. They have five or six different applications to help them do their work. We come in and we actually from a test driven development perspective as the user, we walk processes, analyze what it is that you're doing, what you really need, and we can help you build this one software tool that does it all. Basically we are the one that are what's the nevermind. I've lost it about the toolkit. I was thinking I was thinking the hobbit anyway, one ring to rule them all. We can write you one piece of software to essentially do all the work for you or help all your processes. Good and bad. Bad. I really need to rethink how I do my interest. Good. Things are coming along with the project I'm working on and I am starting to get into a routine. I'm off caffeine or just about off caffeine and I'm getting into a better normal sleep schedule sort of habit. I'm no longer doing my days where I start somewhere around five, six in the morning. I am still up at two, three o'clock in the morning. It's getting better. So that's my good. That in itself is a good thing. That is like I did that many years ago and started shifting that off and it was very useful and very that's like one of the healthy sides of being a better developer. Today this episode we're going to talk about hiring and finding talent. We talked last episode a little bit about just expanding your company through employees and contractors. This episode I told you last episode I lied because I thought we were going to talk about the leadership. That'll be in a future episode. I'm not going to tell you it's the next episode because I don't want to be a liar again. Smack my hand for doing that. There we go. That's right close enough to the microphone that'll get picked up. I want to talk about we want to go through this time is a little bit more about the whole idea of how do you hire or find somebody that is going to do the work? You don't just like go out walk out your front door and go hey I need a JavaScript developer and suddenly somebody's like cool like 10 people show up and they're like we'll do it. That's not how it works. You've got to go just like when you're searching for a job or searching for a client you also have to search for employees and you need to think of some things that there need to be some things that are part of that decision process that are going to help you and them be successful. And of course the ultimate goal is that they need to be successful. You're successful in hiring somebody that's successful doing the job you need them to do. I know that seems very redundant but it also blows some people's minds because they don't really think about it that way. It's just like I need to find somebody that's a good match of this. But also the challenge is like what makes them a good match for that? Now I have hired employees. I've hired contractors. I have been a manager that's been part of interviewing. I've recommended stuff. I've done a lot of these different things. And I've done it professionally but I've also built teams of varying sorts and it's like there's all sorts of different ways that we've gone through this. And a couple of things that I've learned over the years that I hope will help you if you haven't already figured this out is probably one the best people for the job are the ones that actually like doing the job. It's just like yourself. The stuff you do the best is the stuff that you enjoy. That is almost always going to be the stuff that you are going... I mean maybe not initially but because you enjoy it you're going to spend more time. You're going to be more invested in it. You're going to do the things to get better. Just like this. Building better developers is about you're here, you're listening to this because you want to be a better developer. You enjoy doing that. You have a reason to do that. You're not just doing it to punch a clock or something like that. So the first thing is like make sure you're bringing people in that enjoy doing what they're going to do. Now with that, that means that you have to also allow them to do it their way. If you're going to bring somebody in and you're going to dictate them that they've got to do it this way and they've got all this stuff then that burden is going to wear them out and they're going to lose their joy and they're probably going to leave or they're going to suck. I mean maybe not that bad and I'm sorry if that seems harsh but they're not going to do as good a job as they could because they're not happy. Because you put them in a situation, you changed the square peg, the square thing that they were getting into, you turn it into a round hole and now suddenly they're not happy. And this is something that... This is like you want a good example of this. You go back to the Miracle on Ice team and that whole story now 45 years ago where a coach for those of you who don't know, this coach took a hockey team and he took a bunch of guys that were not necessarily the best but they were the best team. They worked together and he found people based on like this is what you like doing this thing. You bring this piece to this puzzle piece to what we need. It's literally like thing about filling out a puzzle. I need a puzzle piece that fits this exact thing. That's what you're looking for. Now how do you find these people? You do not do it through language tests. Don't give them a test that's like, okay, I need you to understand how to do this syntax. There are places where that is valuable where you can get a baseline of their skills particularly in people that are newer or junior and mid-level developers or if you want to go to more senior developers stuff, don't ask them syntax questions. Ask them things like how do you solve this problem or put them in a situation that is what you're going to put them in effectively when you hire them assuming you hire them and say, okay, you sit down and this is what you face. How do you react? Because what you're going to get out of that is you're not going to get their technical knowledge necessarily although you may get some pieces of that. What you're really going to get is like how do they handle it? Do they jump right in? Are they hesitant? Do they find ways to avoid doing the work you need them to do? Do they dive right in and do they like zero in on the work that you want them to do is exactly the stuff that they focus on and that's what they talk about. The bonus is if you've got the right person, they're going to talk for you. You don't have to ask them another question. I have a person that I hired years ago and this is like one of, this is such an iconic moment is that I was talking to his roommate at a party. I'm talking to his roommate and it comes up like, what do you do? And I say, hey, I do software development. I've got a little consulting company. I didn't have this great elevator speech that I have right now or anything. And it was hilarious because the roommate was looking at me and immediately almost turned to go talk to somebody else while this guy that ended up hiring rotated from the conversation he was in and started talking to me and he's like, hey, I need to talk to you about some stuff. And we had a conversation that was very one sided because I told him about two or three things about what we did and he just went on. He was like, oh, that's so great. This is cool. I've done this project, blah, blah, blah. And I knew then this is somebody that is going to be a fit as soon as I can find a, you know, I need to find a project and bring them in those kinds of things you want to do. Now, I think I've set up, I've really set up loaded table. So I'm going to allow you to dive into this and figure out where you want to pick and choose your snacks and your main courses. So I think I'm going to go the IT for recruiters route on this one. So I'm going to set the table from a hiring perspective, what not to do and what you should be doing. So when, so I mentioned IT for recruiters and Rob knows this because years ago we had this great idea to try and bridge the gap between software development managers who need talent and HR and recruiters. The problem we constantly run into, and this is where I'm going today, is nine out of 10 times when you as a manager, if you're not the owner, if you're a manager or you have a larger company with an HR, where you're trying to find talent, you're going to type up some description and hand it off to HR and they're going to go post it to all the job boards and all the different locations. The problem is the template that they give or the essentially the synopsis for the job they have, they will take it, they will massage it for these platforms and what you want is not necessarily what translates to the job posting. So the talent you get or what the recruiter send you is wasting your time because you're not really talking to the people like Rob said, that really want to do the job, that really are enthusiastic about it. So there is a very specific gap there that you have to be very careful of when you do go out and start using these sites like LinkedIn, Fiverr, Freelance, Guru, whatever they're called these days. You have to make sure that you understand what it is that you want from your employee and you make sure that you really put that in the job posting. If you want someone that is skilled, that has eight years of experience, do you necessarily need to have a college degree? If they can prove that they can do the job in an interview, you don't need the degree. Now if you need someone with more like business or technical or some type of college level knowledge, sure throw that on there, but don't put roadblocks in place just to quote unquote, limit the pool that comes into you. The problem we have is HR and a lot of these tools are essentially your gatekeepers. They are to help whittle out the flood of talent that is potentially coming in. So you get the talent that you want. The problem is if you put too many barriers in place, you're not going to find the right talent. You're going to get the people that can figure out how to game the system and maybe one in ten is someone you might want to have an interview with. I'm going to call time out because I want to like, I want to add to that, I want you to continue, but I just want to add that when we did this before AI was not what it is today, that has only made that problem bigger because people will use AI to generate a, basically use that to like block people and try to get all these keywords. And then of course on the other side are people trying to get in. So they're using AI to try to build the right proposal or response to get through it. So this is not something that has gotten lesser. This has actually become a bigger issue in recent years. And now I'll toss it back to you. Well, and on top of that, which is where I was wrapping up with is one of the biggest problems, especially with online sites like LinkedIn is not as much of a problem these days because they actually do like user authentication to make sure you're not a bot. But very recently, it came out that like freelance guru and some of the other contracting sites that are out there, 60 to 80 percent of the job postings were fake. They weren't even real job postings. This is a huge problem for companies that really want to get talent. How do you stand out from these fake businesses or these fake postings? So things to consider now. Post-COVID is a little bit different world, but, you know, what are they? Not resume, but like job. Oh, I'm losing the thought like job where a lot of businesses come in and promote their business. Job fairs. Thank you. It's been a while since I've been to these, but those are very good. Other things to consider, which is not really a place that I would typically consider finding talent, but I've actually had multiple job interviews from just going to like Java one, going to like software development conferences, any type of software conference or business conference in your focus area is a very good place not just to find talent, but also to find customers. So as you're talking to people, if you see someone within a very similar concept, like Rob said at this party, it's like, let me get your business card. Let me contact you. Let me talk to you. Let's see if we can maybe build a relationship. Maybe I can hire you. You never know. One of the biggest things that's interesting, I was sitting at a restaurant back in my old whole town of Nolensville and I was just sitting there having my lunch and a guy sat down next to me and we started talking. He was a finance guru. I'm a software guru. And he's like, well, how do you do that? Like he wanted to know how software could help him do his business better. And I wanted to know how the hell he did all this, you know, the, uh, business or the accounting and not the accounting, but like the investment stuff in that for retirement. And at the end of the day, I hired him to do my, basically my portfolio and we still consult from time to time about software and other things. You never know. Don't shut the door on potential talent. That is the last thing I will kind of say on this topic and I'll throw it back to you. I think that's one of the keys is that you need to be open, but I think it comes back to going back to some of the earlier points Michael made is it's really, you need to know what matters. What is it that you actually need? Don't, don't tell me you need somebody that has a degree. Don't tell me that you need somebody that's been five years of experience, especially if it's five years experience and a technology that's only been out for a year. There's like, there's something more that you need. There's something different. It's not, those are a la carte menu items that really don't contribute to an actual like, you know, meal, um, you know, it's like, they're really, you're really not, you're chasing the wrong direction if you're going to do that. What you need to think about is like, what do I need? What is the problem I need this person to solve? Or what are the problems that I need this person to solve? And then what sort of skills are going to help them do it? Now, a lot of times it does. This goes back to having an interview process, a proposal writing. If you're going off to one of these sites, a proposal writing process or an RFP process that really gets into this is what I need solved. And when you do that, then you're going to be better, more likely to get something useful. And then of course, what you want to do is yeah, you may get 500 responses, but you should be able to, if you've got, you know, a good little list of these are the things that I know are going to be part of that, you know, that population, you can start cutting that out really quick. Um, and it may take a while, but the investment's worthwhile because then you're better off taking a little more time and get that good person than you are to just throw them out because you weren't able to spend the time to really properly call the herd as it were. It looks like you had a thought. Yeah. Quick thought before the challenge. Um, when you do find the talent and you bring them in for an interview, please take a moment to reset your mindset, to talk to the interviewee nine out of 10 times, I have almost every company I've worked for, it is a mad dash. Oh, we got someone coming in. Let's throw people in. Well, and let's say, if you want to really find the right person to fit your company, to fit this role, spend the right amount of time with them to understand who they are, what they can do and will they fit your position? Yeah. You do not want to scare a good, you know, the best person off because you're just, you know, your company is a train wreck from the start and that, that has happened more often than I would like to say to some, actually I have more, no problem saying about that. Some of the places that I'm like, Nope, never going to work there. Don't want anything to do with you guys. It's like, it is a, you guys are a dumpster fire from a thousand yards away. So I don't want to touch that challenge of the week. What is it? Because we talked last time about like, you know, pulling something out and saying, all right, I'm going to, what if I was going to outsource this? So I'm going to sort of follow that up this week and say, let's say you've got something to outsource and maybe it's the project you're doing right now. So maybe it's a little bit like interviewing for your own position or something like that, but it's what like you're doing this, let's keep it small. Like save three to five items. What are three to five key traits that will make somebody successful doing the job you're doing or the job that you choose this challenge for? And it's not like literally think three to five traits. And I think then the way to do this is actually walk through this process a couple of times with those. So you lay out, let's say you lay out five traits and then go back and review those and like walk back through them and go, what if they don't have that trait, is that a problem or is it not? And then that is what you need to work from is basically to say, what really is going to make somebody successful in doing this? Cause a lot of times you're going to say, well, they need to do this. They needed that. They did that. Like a favorite one of mine is, well, they need to, you know, it's a Java program. So they need to know how to code Java. Okay. What if they're a C sharp programmer, but they understand your business better than any Java person does. Sometimes it's like, well, wait a minute. Maybe it's easier for them to learn that C sharp person to learn Java than it is for that Java person to learn my business. Things like that. And I can't answer that for you. There's not like, you can't go get a book and it's just like, boom, this is what you do. If you do, you've done it wrong because there's books out there that will say, this is how you hire this certain person. There's sites that will say, this is how you do it. But if it doesn't include you getting to like know that person and you knowing what that position is that you're filling, then you're going to miss out. There's going to be, there's too much opportunity for a disconnect. That may seem to be a little bit much, but I think it is something that if you don't do it this week, if you ever get to point where you're hiring somebody, where you're bringing somebody on, whether it's like joining your team or, you know, going to be an employee or whatever, that will be a very useful exercise for you to go through. So give it a shot and see how it goes. Hopefully some of that will stick. So when you come actually to have to do it, you'll be able to remember that and go, oh yeah, this is a good way for me to get this, to solve this particular problem. For example, what things we do all the time. And because it is important, it is critical, is that you need to send us an email to info at develop a new dot com. I can list all of the traits that will make us happy. That is the number one is we need to get feedback from you. And we want to hear, what are your thoughts? Where do you want to go with this whole thing? Because that's where we're going. We're going to go where we want to go until you say otherwise. And then we're going to work with you and we're going to make sure that we're presenting the kind of stuff that helps you love the feedback, love to hear what you like, what you don't like. If you have questions, if we could take it further with you, that's awesome because we're here to help you help yourself and become a better developer. You can also check us out on X at Develop-a-Nor. You can, we have a Facebook page, the Develop-a-Nor Facebook page. You can subscribe to us if you haven't already on YouTube, the Develop-a-Nor channel there, wherever you listen to podcasts, we are there hopefully. And if you find something that's not, let us know. We'll make sure that we get put out there as well. You can leave us comments on any of those forms. You can also go to the Develop-a-Nor.com site and leave us all kinds of stuff there and check out our like rapidly approaching decade worth of content. Thousands of articles and postings, almost a thousand, we're getting there like almost a thousand episodes of the podcast and you can go find old stuff of that as well. That being said, really appreciate the time that you've given and the investment you have in yourself and talking to us or listening to us every, you know, every couple of days or how often you do it. As always go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts, we are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.