Hiring senior people

Hiring senior peopleObservations & Suggestions

Introduction Hiring senior people whether senior architects/ managers is an essential qualifying step to the success of a product team and having been on both sides of the table many times I have made certain observations which have accumulated from personal experiences. A senior person would help steer the ship to a better course hence is critical to the success of the product teams. Bad choices at higher grades are not visible in a month or two but may manifest over years. Recruitment has a dual cost overt and covert. Both types of costs vary on the higher sides for the senior people being hired. This presentation will introduce the cost of hiring and then focus on the human resource aspects of the process this is where our friends from HR flex their muscle or help in identifying and getting the right person.

Table of Contents

II

V

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

QUESTIONS

Introducing a generalized recruitment process to set context.

Some interesting questions which can be used to assess candidates

IVTECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

Notes/ observations on technology assessments/ technical interviews

ICOST OF

RECRUITMENTAn introduction to the overall cost of recruitment

Overt Cost of Recruitment

This ignores the cost of salary which I assume is already budgeted. The reference checks can sometimes be outsourced which may also add up to the cost. Interviews and profile short listing is done by senior people for senior roles hence their time is costly and most critical. During training/ ramp-up period generally there is loss of business as business will not wait for the senior person to get trained.

Recruitment Cost

Interview Cost

Reference Checks

Training/ on

boarding

Cost of Recruitme

nt

The cost of giving advertisements/ banners/ human cost of recruiter etc.

Time cost used to shortlist and conduct interviews

Getting the person up to speed with trainings on product, processes & tools

Covert Cost of Recruitment

Product development requires immediate alignment to business needs to be able to take decisions and steer the team to the right direction a leader is expected to do all this. The covert cost of a wrong hire can set back the entire development it can lead to a wrong/ unusable product. Such a cost is not measurable and is also not evident immediately. All the more reason to hire the right person.

All Good

Can be improved

Wrong Hire

Table of Contents

II

V

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

QUESTIONS



IVTECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT


ICOST OF


Recruitment Process

SEARCH & IDENTIFY CANDIDATES

NEW JOB POSTING

REFERENCES AND CHECKS

INTERVIEW OF CANDIDATES

SALARY NEGOTIATION

FOLLOW UP DISCUSSIONS

ACCEPTING OFFER

1

2

3

5

7

4

6

The above is a generalized flow of recruitment process which normally starts with a new job posting. Some companies may do the referral checks later and some may do them in parallel. It is important to have a flow in place to have spans of control as then we become traceable and predictable rather than having a free for all no process scenario.

New Job Posting

In my experience most of the times the job descriptions are copied from what someone else did, no one really cares to match them to the profile being sort. I feel it is assumed that the JD is read by recruiter for keywords to search the portal. But it goes beyond it is shared with people who can read and acknowledge fitment. The “shortlisting” of profiles can be done by the candidate as they acknowledge they fit the need.

Having a job description which fits the position is the first critical step. What is the problem you face and what is expected to be solved. These documents go a long way they not only help the recruiters but also tell prospective candidates that you mean business.

Detailed JD

A good JD will describe the position, expectations from the person, technologies and process to be used. Lot of thought has to go to define JDs as recruiters pass them around treat them as marketing material. As the same guys who read these may become your customers.

Misleading JD

Examples

The above abstains from naming the companies but these are big brands some of them the leading companies in their space, companies which do not care of the titles/ roles. And senior candidates who apply for positions without knowing what they demand.

The job description for a vice president engineering title at a very large travel portal described the role which matched duties of a senior developer The job description shared

for the position of a senior architect was having EJB specifications way old that what is current when I checked with the recruiter he admitted I was the only one who asked for the JD!!

“Hands On” This word is perhaps the most abused

word in recruitment

parlance. Who is hands on? Who is hard core?

On the flip side after having a discussion for 15 full minutes a candidate

asked me why is he being asked so many design

questions, I told him this is an architect position he

said he just applied without reading the JD!!

At many places JDs have

mentioned emphasis on some core

values and I have seen them being lambasted

in all rounds.

Search & Identify Candidates

How do you shortlist people? This is the first gate and also a critical as 5 minutes of profile reading will save 40 minutes of discussion over phone/ in-person. The general start of interview phrase “Can you describe your role…” is a waste of time as the role is written in the profile and perhaps the same has not even been read. Only the keywords have been matched regardless of when they occurred in the course of time.

How is a senior lead different from an associate architect?Even with a good JD it will be tough to differentiate profiles, recruiters normally look for keywords, experience ranges and degrees as they are easy catch.

Fitment

Three out of four are in scope of HR and can be done parallel to technical assessment. Culture that a senior person brings along will shape the culture of his/ her team. Humans have a tendency to take the well taken/ known path if for example I have done 10 products in Java-applets I will try to do the 11th using the same technology. Sometimes we hire for crucial cycles where midnight oil may need to be burnt; HR can pose these questions upfront.

PROCESS

FITMENT

TECHNICAL

FITMENT

CULTURAL

FITMENT

BUDGET FITMEN

T

Cultural fitment for example related to products and domain.

Lean-agile is not the answer to lot of projects still

Remember it is not a sling-match

Salary expectations and budgets have to be met.

Examples

The above are real examples which I personally think can be better handled and perhaps should be done by HR. Culture is an essential element of a company and a tough one to change. Loyalty has to be valued but in the context of performance; star performers normally look for challenging assignments and recognition.

I have seen people bad mouth organizations on sites like Glassdoor; but we forget that the companies can also respond with their views.

A large global e-commerce player who has frugality as one of the core values flew me around cities for interviews then to realize that one of the person was on “planned” travel to USA.

I may have been labelled as a frequent job

switcher without even asking why

I made the switches.

Remember this is not a

recession proof industry.

Agile-Lean/ SCRUM are not the solutions to the worlds problems and these models require

changes which starts way up the food chain,

whether you need them or not is part of cultural

fitment.

Salary expectations are

an easy kill perhaps can be taken upfront rather than

haggling at the end.

Table of Contents

II

V

IV

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

QUESTIONS




ICOST OF


Showdown?It is about matching the needs which are generally a mix of technical, process and managerial skills; to the candidate experience. The ratios of which vary based on the role

It is neither about proving who is the boss nor showing who is in command. Trust your vibes for the chemistry or being able to adapt to your needs.

I have found interviews very interesting at this stage when I am interviewing I try to learn what the person has done in their project/ product. No harm in learning on other person’s dime. The architectures and design patterns keep changing for good from client-server to web etc. and every problem has many ways to solve; when being interviewed I try to restrict to the business problem and how we solved it with reason to avoid showdowns.

Ideal CandidateTECHNOLOGY/ DOMAINIf you need someone who needs none to less ramp-up time. Or perhaps a specific technology like Scala. PROBLEM SOLVING/ INNOVATIONWhen a team is starting to build a product, or the role needs the person to be innovativePROCESSProcess weightage to what you follow or intend to follow.MANAGEMENTPeople/ project/ schedule/ cost management.

EDUCATIONThe degrees/ certificates

PEOPLE SKILLSHow well the person connects with people, perhaps there is an element of customer interaction.

What is your requirement matrix? The weights may vary based on products a complicated advertisement platform may need machine learning skills but a web business application may not. And what will this person do, bring process awareness and predictability or drive innovation. There are various hats which is your need and the person on the other side has worn many of those hats; do they match?

Examples

Again no reference to a company or individual but I do feel there is a big gap in knowing what you want and then finding the right person to do it. Clarity on one’s own needs is critical. Imagine the role and position and see whether the person has done something similar; for example if you want to build a product & team from zero then does the person have good connections; has he/ she done this before? Is he aware of the technologies you plan to use etc.

A person was more keen to build OCR and image recognition rather than use OSS tools; he was not even aware of different OSS licenses. At a large e-commerce

company being interviewed for management role I was constantly asked about JVM internals; initially I replied as much as I knew finally I asked him if he had gone through my profile answer was no!!

A very senior architect who was only interested in

the hype technologies assumed that

customer’s priority is to use latest

technology not the best fitting.

While having a discussion for a managerial position for a web based product the only questions asked

were puzzles and algorithms. Which the

interviewer agreed may not be used at all.

A candidate who had worked on SalesForce for a

long time applied for a position for a Spring based product and constantly

wanted us to switch to SFDC.

Table of Contents

II

V

IV

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT

QUESTIONS




ICOST OF


What To Ask? I have seen people ask stuff they did not even care about when I joined the organization. As an example someone who grilled me for 10 minutes on Agile-lean was really not interested in implementing it when I joined. I believe generally people struggle as they are not aware of the JD/ requirements themselves. Or perhaps they are not sure of what to ask. In such scenarios you either end up asking things which really do not matter or bashing up the candidate with stuff which is easy to ask for example algorithms. Based on observation it is at such times that what I studied in college and the college I went to suddenly become important. I have seen many senior people biasing their opinion towards a candidate based on his/ her college. The bias is not completely incorrect but this cannot be the sole judgment criteria. Years of work adds experience; which is perhaps more valuable than the college after 15 years.

Where Are You?

Knowing where you are on the product development lifecycle is good, whether it is a concept or an idea or you already have the blueprint ready you just need to design.

IDEAStarts with an idea or a way

t solve a visible/ known

business problem.

CONCEPTA concept

document is prepared

along with a business plan on feasibility.

DESIGNING PRODUCT

We start the design of the product mockups/

screens/ wireframes etc.

PRODUCT CREATION

Development/ coding to build the product to

specificationsNEW PRODUCT

SUSTAIN & SUPPORT

Maintain the product & provide support to

customers

Idea & Concept Gates• Have you been part of a team

which has conceptualized a product; what were the challenges?

• How would you create POC’s quickly to eliminate choices?

• What are some of the latest technologies you have worked with?

• What are some of the technology decisions you helped take?

• What experience do you have in the business domain we plan to work on?

Presentations, creating quick POC, knowing the latest and greatest of tools and technology are all important at this stage. People who can align to your idea/ concept and add value to it as they have done it before or come from same background. These senior people will also help bring in more who have delivered such things as they would know others who have delivered. Giving a case study and seeing the proposed design is also a good way to judge.

Design & Creation Gates• Describe the architecture of

your current product?• How would you design for

performance?• What are different types of

caching mechanisms?• How are products/ content

personalized for example Google news?

• What process should be followed for product teams?

• Know-how on rapid development tools and processes?

• The importance of early testing and related tools?

These gates require case studies which focus on design and architecture. Practical questions on clustering, cloud, social features and mobility are important. The POC is approved someone has to design it and build it properly. Awareness to the technology, merits & demerits of frameworks is important. Being able to create prioritized backlogs and then consume them is important.

Design & Creation Gates• Describe how to setup product

support process?• What are different support

contracts and what are SLAs?• Tools to be used for server/

software support/ monitoring?• How do you handle

escalations/ define escalation matrices?

• How will you define L1, L2 and L3?

• How are bug releases handled, what is patching versus hot fixing?

• When are upgrades released?• How are upgrades applied,

process and plan?You probably need stable people who can work to ensure longevity of product. The right person will be process oriented and will help setup SLAs and support mechanism. Such a person will be aware of patching customer installations based on versions. He/ she should be a good communicator and an effective presenter. He/ she will be able to present regular status on SLA met and customer escalations.

Miscellaneous: Team/ Tools/ Process

• What is the ideal size of a product team?

• How are slippages to be dealt with, how can we predict a slippage?

• Create a single pager slide to depict project status.

• Have you ever inspired other people?

• Define a devops setup for a Java web project; all tools and how they are linked?

• What is the right time to start testing?

• What dimensions should be tracked to measure performance?

A lot of times we can call up colleagues, managers, team members and even other people who the candidate has worked with simply by looking at social media connections. The more we get to know the person from other persons who have been part of his/ her universe the better it is. Status reporting, tracking issues to closure and planning are some of the key activities you want such people to do, have you judged them on these skills?

SummaryHiring the right guy for the right role is extremely important not only for the team but for the organization

It is about finding the right person

Which depends on the type of journey and where the ship is now

The right person who can help steer the ship

It is not a superiority match or a college exam

Strategy

Getting th

e right p

eople an

d

enabling them

to get th

e work

done is a g

reat st

rategy. T

he

good guys

get things d

one in

time.

SelectionSelecting people at senior level should be fair and transparent. The jobs if described well will be accepted well.

Re-HireAre the past managers/ organizations willing to work with the candidate again; easy to check via LinkedIn

RecommendationsPublic recommendations on platforms like LinkedIn can help you make a decision.

Case StudiesCase study based assessment and learning are proven ways to judge a person as they are closer to reality.

Thank You

Leadership & Management

Hiring senior people