Detailed Notes
In the "Building Better Businesses" season of the Building Better Developers podcast, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche dive deep into one of the most critical challenges for any business: hiring talent and how to find them. This episode provides actionable insights, real-world experiences, and practical advice for entrepreneurs, managers, and leaders looking to build robust teams.
Read More: https://develpreneur.com/hiring-talent-strategies-for-building-strong-teams/
*Episode Challenge*
Rob and Michael conclude with an episode challenge: Identify three to five key traits essential for success in a role you are looking to fill or outsource. Reevaluate these traits critically by considering what would happen if a candidate lacked any one of them. This exercise helps businesses focus on genuinely impactful qualities, rather than superficial qualifications.
*Stay Connected: Join the Develpreneur Community*
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
*Additional Resources*
* Learning From Your First Business(https://develpreneur.com/learning-from-your-first-business/) * Business Finance Management: Building Better Businesses for Success (https://develpreneur.com/business-finance-management-building-better-businesses-for-success/) * Securing Your Product And Business – Nate Sheen Interview (https://develpreneur.com/securing-your-product-and-business-nate-sheen-interview/) * Creating a Podcast – Not Just a Lot of Talking (https://develpreneur.com/creating-a-podcast-not-just-a-lot-of-talking/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] quick record boom hey we're back so I had another idea okay uh hiring and how to find Talent wow hiring find to oh let's see because you mentioned quite a few things in the last one that prompted that like upwork uh Guru um actually pretty good I like that because the leadership was good but I think I like that one better so we we can throw the leadership out on our to you know later leading leading uh contractors employees I do like the hiring fin talent because I think that's something I don't remember why I just was thinking about that the other day in some places that that's like a may have been discussions with Natalie or something like that I can't remember where that came from oh it was because I was talking about like the teams that I've built and and some of the things to look for so that' probably be pretty cool so we're going to give that a shot and if it sucks it'll be the first time cuz we have never had a bad in 850 episodes or whatever been never been a single Bad episode as far as we know 3 two one well hello and welcome back we are continuing this incredible podcast known as building better developers also develop andur if you don't think it's incredible you haven't listened to enough episodes yet I am Rob Broadhead one of the founders of building better developers developing Earth 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 it is you have technology sprawl and all 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 like you can make the best use of your dollars and your technology investment and also in the future so that we make sure you've got a road map 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 uh 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 and 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 gonna 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 but 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 I'm not gonna say 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 malash I'm one of the co-founders of developer ner 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 peacemeal 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 through your processes and 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 or what's the ah never mind I've lost about the token I was thinking uh 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 aners good uh 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 uh Habit I'm no longer doing my days where I start somewhere around 5: 6: in the morning and I'm still up at 2 3 o'clock in the morning uh it's getting better so that's my good that in itself is a good thing that is like I I did that many years ago and started shifting that off and it was it 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 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 it'll get picked up um 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 GNA do the work it's like you you don't just like go out you know walk out to 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 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 mind 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 the Challenger is like what makes them a good match for that now I have hired employees I've hired contractors I have been you know a manager that's been part of interviewing I've recommended stuff I've done a lot of these different things I've done and I've done it professionally but I've also built teams of varying sorts and you like there's all sorts of different ways that we've gone through this and a couple 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 B 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 to them that they've got to do it this way and they've got to they've got all this stuff then that burden is going to wear them out and they're going to they're going to lose their joy and they're probably going to leave or they're goingon 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 not happy because and it's because you put them in a situation you changed the square peg you know 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 you want a good example of this you go back to the Miracle on Ice team in 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 the this puzzle piece to what we need it's literally like think about filling out a puzzle like 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 like you know language tests I don't give them a test it's like okay I need you to understand how to do this syntax there is there are places where that is valuable where you can get a a baseline of their skills particularly in like you know people that are like newer more Junior and mid-level developers or with you know if you want to go to more senior stuff don't ask them you know syntax questions ask them things like how do you solve this problem you or like 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 like 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 into 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 are gonna they'll 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 like this is such an iconic moment is that I was talking to his roommate at a a party I'm talking to his roommate and it comes up like what do you do and I say hey I'm you know I do software development I've got a little consulting company I didn't have this great you know 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 excited 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 him in those are kinds of things you want to do now I think I've set up I've really set a loaded table so I'm GNA lie 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 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're 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 um 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 10 is someone you might want to have an interview with I'm gonna call time out I want to like add to that I want you to continue but I I just want to add that when we did this before AI was not what it is today that has has been 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 you know 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 um LinkedIn is not as much of a problem these days because they actually do um like user authentication to make sure you're not a bot but re very recently it came out that like freelance Guru and some of the other Contracting sites that are out there 60 to 80% 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 postco is a little bit different world but you know um what are they uh not resume but uh like job um oh I'm losing the thought uh like job where a lot of businesses come in and promote their business job fairs thank you job fair 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 um like software development um 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 restaurant back in my old whole toown of Nolanville 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 uh you know the uh business or the accounting not the accounting but like the Investments 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 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 in 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 alicart 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 uh 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 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 let's 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 trainer wreck from the start and that that has happened more often than I would like to say to some actually I'm I have more no problem saying about that some of the places that I'm like nope never gonna 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 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 you know position or something like that but it's what like do a list let's keep it small like say 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 times with those so you lay out let's say you lay out five trades and then go back and review those and like walk back through them and go what if they don't have that tradeit 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 because a lot lot of times you're going to say well they need to do this they need to do that they do 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 programmer but they understand your business better than any Java person does Suddenly It's like well wait a minute maybe it's easier for them to learn that c 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 a point where you're hiring somebody where you're 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 one of the 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@ developer.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 can 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 developer or you can we have a Facebook page the developer or Facebook page you can uh subscribe to us if you haven't already on YouTube uh the developer ner 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 developer.com site and leave us all kinds of stuff there and check out our like rapid approaching decade worth of content thousands of of Articles and postings uh almost a thousand we're getting there like almost a thousand episodes of the podcast you can go find old stuff of that as well that being said really appreciate the time that you've given and the investment that 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 and we will talk to you next time next time look at that trying to sneak one in bonus bonus bonus bonus material I'll let you start uh let's see bonus material hiring finding Talent um I think that the way that has been most successful is the filling a filling a hole kind of approach is it looking at something and saying okay not only is this person going to do do some tasks you know solve a problem is like you know take some of this work on but also finding a way that they they need to mesh with you and mesh with your team if you already have a team or mesh with the existing team uh this works whether it's employees where it's like finding them it's like even as a developer there's going to be things like you may have maybe you have to find I don't know five let's say you have to hire five developers and they're all doing a Java project well if you find one that likes B like the back end more like a database person another one is really more like loves doing front-end stuff and another one loves doing just core stuff and another one's doing know if you're doing like spring then they they love doing spring you know something like that find people that like if they compliment each other then you're going to build a better team and this is the same thing if you have an existing team look at maybe where you're where are there some gaps where are there some things that like you don't have anybody that loves to do that that may be somebody that like that's part of it is for them to be able to say bring somebody that loves doing that kind of work several times early on now times have changed but early on one of the things that we always found useful was find somebody that loves building software because that was like devops didn't exist and there were a lot of people that hated the devops world and hated doing that kind of stuff but some people are good at it and like doing it so you wanted to bring in people that could fill that Gap or you know like they didn't know how to use a database bring in somebody that knows how to use database those things are what are going to like really help your team not just solve that problem but bring the level of everything up because now you're filling not just filling a whole but you're making the you know you're making it better than the sum of the parts so the last thing I'll add to that is if you are a larger company and you have employees already don't neglect your existing employees to move them up into positions that you need or potentially you may have someone already working for you that can really meet the demand of what one of the problems you're trying to solve today so not only Outsource but also insource and look for talent internally before you go outside of the company yeah I think grow your own is always going to be it's I know some organizations they don't like to they like to grow outside because they're like H we're not really happy with our people well that's your problem you should have done better with your people but also it's like it if you go outside especially if you don't have an opportunity for your people to grow then they're ending up they're going to end up leaving because they're going to say look every time I turn around somebody gets put over me somebody gets put over me somebody puts over gets put over me and I've talked to many people over the years where that was a position they had as they came in there was a a a promise or like an alluding to them being able to grow and then there was every time an opportunity came they weren't able to grow and they ended up leaving and that's as they should because if you essentially promise or suggest that that's going to happen then you just shut it down over and over again at some point they're going to be like okay you're a filthy liar I don't want anything to do you filthy liar and a filthy animal I guess is what it is bad quote but still that's the key is that you want to like treat your people with respect and and you should be building them up so if you are not looking internally to the people that already know your your culture that are already there that you're not looking to them and growing them and you're you're saying well I'm not going to I don't trust them in that position then you screwed up you didn't do development properly of your people your people development is part of it I know this gets bigger than you know this is bigger than some of you people are when you're dealing with like hey I have one employee they don't have any I'm not hiring somebody over them or anything like that and sometimes you're going to have to if you're starting off it's like you're feeling gas app so you yeah you're going to have like a maybe a junior developer now you can hire a senior developer now you can hire like a marketing person or a project manager like but as you grow that's what you should be looking for is you should be looking for almost backfilling people as opposed to filling that new position hopefully you're growing these people your current staff into these positions that you need and then as they're able to grow then you hire in somebody behind them that now fills that position that they no longer are able to fill or you potentially find that the person you hired is actually a better fit for something else within your organization and you need to basically backfill like Rob said backfill that position I think that's where we're going to stop this one because it's like we've been going for a while so as always I want to thank you guys for your time uh leave us comments wherever you can leave comments and we will be back we are I don't know we're maybe a third something like that we're just getting started on this season so we've got plenty to go from here and and uh we will talk to you next time around so take care have yourself a good one and we will talk to you next time [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
quick record boom hey we're back so I
had another idea okay uh hiring and how
to find
Talent wow hiring find to oh let's
see because you mentioned quite a few
things in the last one that prompted
that like upwork uh
Guru um actually pretty good I like that
because the leadership was good but I
think I like that one better so we we
can throw the leadership out on our to
you know later leading leading uh
contractors employees I do like the
hiring fin talent because I think that's
something I don't remember why I just
was thinking about that the other day in
some places that that's like a may have
been discussions with Natalie or
something like that I can't remember
where that came from oh it was because I
was talking about like the teams that
I've built and and some of the things to
look for so that' probably be pretty
cool so we're going to give that a shot
and if it sucks it'll be the first time
cuz we have never had a bad in 850
episodes or whatever been never been a
single Bad episode as far as we know 3
two one well hello and welcome back we
are continuing this incredible podcast
known as building better developers also
develop andur if you don't think it's
incredible you haven't listened to
enough episodes yet I am Rob Broadhead
one of the founders of building better
developers developing Earth 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 it is you
have technology sprawl and all 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 like you can make the best
use of your dollars and your technology
investment and also in the future so
that we make sure you've got a road map
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 uh 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 and 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 gonna 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 but 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 I'm not
gonna say 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 malash
I'm one of the co-founders of developer
ner 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
peacemeal 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 through
your processes and 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 or what's the ah
never mind I've lost about the token I
was thinking uh 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
aners
good uh 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 uh Habit I'm no longer
doing my days where I start somewhere
around 5: 6: in the morning and I'm
still up at 2 3 o'clock in the morning
uh it's getting better so that's my good
that in itself is a good thing that is
like I I did that many years ago and
started shifting that off and it was it
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 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
it'll get picked up um 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 GNA do the work it's like you you
don't just like go out you know walk out
to 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 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 mind 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 the
Challenger is like what makes them a
good match for that now I have hired
employees I've hired contractors I have
been you know a manager that's been part
of interviewing I've recommended stuff
I've done a lot of these different
things I've done and I've done it
professionally but I've also built teams
of varying sorts and you like there's
all sorts of different ways that we've
gone through this and a couple 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 B 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 to
them that they've got to do it this way
and they've got to they've got all this
stuff then that burden is going to wear
them out and they're going to they're
going to lose their joy and they're
probably going to leave or they're
goingon 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 not happy
because and it's because you put them in
a situation you changed the square peg
you know 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 you want a good example of this you
go back to the Miracle on Ice team in
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 the this puzzle piece to
what we need it's literally like think
about filling out a puzzle like 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 like you know language tests
I don't give them a test it's like okay
I need you to understand how to do this
syntax there is there are places where
that is valuable where you can get a a
baseline of their skills particularly in
like you know people that are like newer
more Junior and mid-level developers or
with you know if you want to go to more
senior stuff don't ask them you know
syntax questions ask them things like
how do you solve this problem you or
like 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
like 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
into 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 are gonna they'll 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 like
this is such an iconic moment is that I
was talking to his roommate at a a party
I'm talking to his roommate and it comes
up like what do you do and I say hey I'm
you know I do software development I've
got a little consulting company I didn't
have this great you know 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
excited 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 him in
those are kinds of things you want to do
now I think I've set up I've really set
a loaded table so I'm GNA lie 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 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're 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 um 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 10
is someone you might want to have an
interview with I'm gonna call time out I
want to like add to that I want you to
continue but I I just want to add that
when we did this before AI was not what
it is today that has has been 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 you know
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 um LinkedIn is
not as much of a problem these days
because they actually do um like user
authentication to make sure you're not a
bot but re very recently it came out
that like freelance Guru and some of the
other Contracting sites that are out
there 60 to 80% 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 postco is a little bit different
world but you know um what are they uh
not resume but uh like job
um oh I'm losing the thought uh like job
where a lot of businesses come in and
promote their business job fairs thank
you job
fair 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 um like
software development
um 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 restaurant back in my
old whole toown of
Nolanville 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 uh you know the uh business or the
accounting not the accounting but like
the Investments 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 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
in 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 alicart
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 uh
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 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
let's 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 trainer wreck from the
start and that that has happened more
often than I would like to say to some
actually I'm I have more no problem
saying about that some of the places
that I'm like nope never gonna 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
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 you know
position or something like that but it's
what like do a list let's keep it small
like say 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 times with
those so you lay out let's say you lay
out five trades and then go back and
review those and like walk back through
them and go what if they don't have that
tradeit 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
because a lot lot of times you're going
to say well they need to do this they
need to do that they do 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 programmer but they
understand your business better than any
Java person does Suddenly It's like well
wait a minute maybe it's easier for them
to learn that c 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 a point
where you're hiring somebody where
you're 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 one of the 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@ developer.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 can 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
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well you can leave us comments on any of
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kinds of stuff there and check out our
like rapid approaching decade worth of
content thousands of of Articles and
postings uh almost a thousand we're
getting there like almost a thousand
episodes of the podcast you can go find
old stuff of that as
well that being said really appreciate
the time that you've given and the
investment that 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 and we will talk to you next time
next
time look at that trying to sneak one in
bonus bonus bonus bonus material I'll
let you
start uh let's see bonus material hiring
finding Talent
um I think that the way that has been
most
successful is the filling a filling a
hole kind of approach is it looking at
something and saying okay not only is
this person going to do do some tasks
you know solve a problem is like you
know take some of this work on but also
finding a way that they they need to
mesh with you and mesh with your team if
you already have a team or mesh with the
existing team uh this works whether it's
employees where it's like finding them
it's like even as a developer there's
going to be things like you may have
maybe you have to find I don't know five
let's say you have to hire five
developers and they're all doing a Java
project well if you find one that likes
B like the back end more like a database
person another one is really more like
loves doing front-end stuff and another
one loves doing just core stuff and
another one's doing know if you're doing
like spring then they they love doing
spring you know something like that find
people that like if they compliment each
other then you're going to build a
better team and this is the same thing
if you have an existing team look at
maybe where you're where are there some
gaps where are there some things that
like you don't have anybody that loves
to do that that may be somebody that
like that's part of it is for them to be
able to say bring somebody that loves
doing that kind of work several times
early on now times have changed but
early on one of the things that we
always found useful was find somebody
that loves building software because
that was like devops didn't exist and
there were a lot of people that hated
the devops world and hated doing that
kind of stuff but some people are good
at it and like doing it so you wanted to
bring in people that could fill that Gap
or you know like they didn't know how to
use a database bring in somebody that
knows how to use database those things
are what are going to like really help
your team not just solve that problem
but bring the level of everything up
because now you're filling not just
filling a whole but you're making the
you know you're making it better than
the sum of the
parts so the last thing I'll add to that
is if you are a larger company and you
have employees already don't neglect
your existing employees to move them up
into positions that you need or
potentially you may have someone already
working for you that can really meet the
demand of what one of the problems
you're trying to solve today so not only
Outsource but also insource and look for
talent internally before you go outside
of the
company yeah I think grow your own is
always going to be it's I know some
organizations they don't like to they
like to grow outside because they're
like H we're not really happy with our
people well that's your problem you
should have done better with your people
but also it's like it if you go outside
especially if you don't have an
opportunity for your people to grow then
they're ending up they're going to end
up leaving because they're going to say
look every time I turn around somebody
gets put over me somebody gets put over
me somebody puts over gets put over me
and I've talked to many people over the
years where that was a position they had
as they came in there was a a a promise
or like an alluding to them being able
to grow and then there was every time an
opportunity came they weren't able to
grow and they ended up leaving and
that's as they should because if you
essentially promise or suggest that
that's going to happen then you just
shut it down over and over again at some
point they're going to be like okay
you're a filthy liar I don't want
anything to do you filthy liar and a
filthy animal I guess is what it is bad
quote but
still that's the key is that you want to
like treat your people with respect and
and you should be building them up so if
you are not looking internally to the
people that already know your your
culture that are already there that
you're not looking to them and growing
them and you're you're saying well I'm
not going to I don't trust them in that
position then you screwed up you didn't
do development properly of your people
your people development is part of it I
know this gets bigger than you know this
is bigger than some of you people are
when you're dealing with like hey I have
one employee they don't have any I'm not
hiring somebody over them or anything
like that and sometimes you're going to
have to if you're starting off it's like
you're feeling gas app so you yeah
you're going to have like a maybe a
junior developer now you can hire a
senior developer now you can hire like a
marketing person or a project manager
like but as you grow that's what you
should be looking for is you should be
looking for almost backfilling people as
opposed to filling that new position
hopefully you're growing these people
your current staff into these positions
that you need and then as they're able
to grow then you hire in somebody behind
them that now fills that position that
they no longer are able to fill or you
potentially find that the person you
hired is actually a better fit for
something else within your organization
and you need to basically backfill like
Rob said backfill that
position I think that's where we're
going to stop this one because it's like
we've been going for a while so as
always I want to thank you guys for your
time uh leave us comments wherever you
can leave comments and we will be back
we are I don't know we're maybe a third
something like that we're just getting
started on this season so we've got
plenty to go from here and and uh we
will talk to you next time around so
take care have yourself a good one and
we will talk to you next time
[Music]