A few colleagues have had this experience. They get a call about a job. It looks like a great fit. They apply. They go through all the interviewing. It takes forever. And, they don’t get the job.
One asked, “Is it ok to ask why?” Sure, it’s ok to ask. Just don’t have a fight about [...]

In yesterday’s Boston Globe there was an article, Start-ups stifled by noncompetes, which had a wonderful quote (go to the second page):
Luckily, we have an academic here in Massachusetts who has dedicated the past few years to looking at the impact of noncompetes. Matt Marx, who recently joined the faculty of MIT’s Sloan School of [...]

I just read Most Likely to Succeed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job? by Malcolm Gladwell. He talks about how a football recruiter agonized over his decisions:
…“This guy threw lasers, he could throw under tight spots, he had the arm strength, he had the size, he had the [...]

I’ve been at the PMI Regina PDC this week. I did a general session talk Monday, and am leading a two-day estimation workshop through tomorrow.  Andy Nulman had a great riff on normal vs. abnormal employees. You can see a clip of it here. Warning: racy, not completely clean.
If you think of normal as conforming [...]

Now that it’s a hiring manager’s market, I’m hearing that a number of interviewees are hearing questions such as “Why do you want this job?” or “Why Should I Hire You?”
Hiring managers: that’s a shorthand question. You know what it means, but your candidate may not. You’re looking for ways to know if this person [...]

When I was about 8 or 9, my father taught me to shake hands. “No limp  fish!” he explained as he taught me to grip the other person’s hand making sure our thumbs met. (I really hate it when men prevent me from shaking hands properly by grabbing my fingers instead of my palm. They’re [...]

George asked in a comment what a fake audition was. Finally, I’m ready to discuss this. (Sorry for the delay, George.)
A fake audition is when the audition is incongruous with the situation. In the situation described in A Second Chance Audition, the candidate cared about the outcome of the first audition, but the audience did [...]

Thank you for reading and commenting as it fits for you. I hope you have a great 2009.

Way back in November, I taught a half-day tutorial called “Hiring for an Agile Team” at Agile Development Practices. The participants had several questions I thought you might find useful.
Several participants wanted to know how a candidate would deal with challenging others and taking “criticism” during the workday. They had these questions:

Tell me about a [...]

I was working with a client recently, and one of the managers declared, “What we really need are a bunch of innovators. All of our open reqs–let’s hire some innovators.”
Well, there’s a little bit about creating an environment in which innovation can flourish (e.g. ending the multitasking, giving people a little slack time, building trust [...]