Where should employers look for employees?

[Jez Nicholson]

Question to Johanna:

The traditional methods of sourcing (job adverts, interviews, agencies, etc.) appear to have a poor record in finding suitable candidates. What methods would you suggest that employers use to locate technical employees?

Personally, I have found that personal recommendations have been our best source and as such we encourage Developers to increase their people network outside of the organisation.

[Linda Pan]

That's a good question. My company used a small recuiting company who used headhunter.net and that's how I got hired after 2 interviews. We also recently hired an office manager/tech support person using another site and she has worked out just fine.

[Anselm Paulinus]

I thought job boards like monster does just this.

[Tim Holloway]

Originally posted by Jeremy Nicholson:

Personally, I have found that personal recommendations have been our best source and as such we encourage Developers to increase their people network outside of the organisation.

Which actually suffers from the problem that software people are infamous for their lack of social skills.

I got my present position because while I really can't abide getting out in traffic to go to any sort of meetings, I do try and keep up a presence in various Internet forums. One of them was the local Java User's Group, and when my current employer announced a position, I applied.

[Johanna Rothman]

Yes, referrals from current employees is one of the best techniques to find people who fit the job culturally, and can perform.

I've also used contract recruiters (people who come in as contractors to your organization and use their network to find people) effectively. I've used my alumni network, professional group meetings (IEEE, SPIN, ACM, PMI, ASQ, HDI) to find people.

It's really an issue of how much time you've got and how much money you're willing to spend. The least time and the more money, use a good recruiter (I've had great luck with some agencies). The more time and less money, use your personal network.

Some techniques that have worked (but also generated a lot of useless resumes) were: advertising on the radio, in movies, newspapers. I still tend to use newspaper ads, but I'm very careful about how I write the ad.

Johanna

[Arjun Shastry]

Some companies conduct series of tests.These tests include the topics which are necessary for that job.But many times,people find that these tests don't have any practical significance.For example,test invloving questions of Computation Theory,Turing machine etc.and so people without academic "touch" tend to fail.
1) Should the test involve only those topics which are required for the job? or should test include theoretical aspects too? to test the background?

[Johanna Rothman]

I think it's only worthwhile to create tests (which should be auditions) that are relevant to the job. Asking Theory of Computation questions for a non-research job sets up a dynamic that says (put on your deep booming voice here) "I'm the interviewer. I have the power. I'm going to make you feel like an ant."

That doesn't help anyone. Asking someone to solve a typical problem that they would encounter on the job -- that's what helps.

BTW, I think interviewers do this because they don't know how to create auditions or how to ask questions.

Johanna

[Vijay Vaddem]

1) Should the test involve only those topics which are required for the job? or should test include theoretical aspects too? to test the background?

Just to add to this, Communication skills.....

It is very important to have communication skills for an employee
to succeed in his role.....

But still, most of the universities and students just tend to ignore
this important aspect of professionalism...

No matter how good a programmer you are, if you could not
explain or share your knowledge with your collegues; its
a waste of resource....

So, What is your suggestion for those people who are lagging
behind in this aspect....

Vijay

[Johanna Rothman]

Vijay,

I agree with you that interviews themselves are a good technique to test those all-important interpersonal communications skills. If the interviewers ask behavior-description questions, the interviewers will be able to tell if a candidate has those all-too-necessary, and sometimes too-rate communication skills.

A question I like is, "Tell me about a time you had to explain your work to someone else. What did you have to explain and how did you do it?"

Note that this is also a meta-question, because the candidate is explaining how he/she explained :-)

Johanna

[Tim Holloway]

Originally posted by Arjun Shastry:
Some companies conduct series of tests.These tests include the topics which are necessary for that job.But many times,people find that these tests don't have any practical significance.For example,test invloving questions of Computation Theory,Turing machine etc.and so people without academic "touch" tend to fail.
1) Should the test involve only those topics which are required for the job? or should test include theoretical aspects too? to test the background?

Back in the '70's, there was this "programmers aptitude test". I don't remember much of it. Think there were some "which number comes next in the series" stuff. Do remember hating the ones with a geometric shape progression where they showed one one series and you had to guess what came next in another series. It annoyed the autistic in me because they'd change the rules as well as the shape sets, and it annoyed the geek in me because I could could generally take any 3 of the potential next shapes and come up with rulesets that qualified them.

The other memorable test was an authentic Insurance Company test. 8-point grey ink on yellow paper. My eyes were watering like crazy before it was over.

BTW, neither test so much as got me an interview, but a year or 2 later the outfit that gave me the first test ended up hiring me. As part of the OS System Programming team. Spent most of the next 6-7 years doing assembly language coding for security exits, resource monitoring and controls and other things that, if done wrong, could shut the whole shop down for a day or 3.

So pardon me if I'm a little jaundiced about testing.

[Peter Rooke]

Yes, I've seen this. Employers look first for people they know, or that have been recommended to them. Problem is a lot of potential employees tend not to do this, they rely on more traditional methods. I first read about this in
What Color Is Your Parachute?.

Here in the UK, I've found that companies are increasingly relying on employment agencies. All would be fine, but I have found that these companies do not have the technical knowledge to be able to make creditable judgements. They then tend to determine a person�s ability purely on experience, and cannot differentiate between a strong candidate with 2 years experience and a weaker developer who has 5 years bad experience. They can screen good developers out. Just my two-pence worth!

What Color Is Your Parachute? - Web Site
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"The fault, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings"
[ February 22, 2005: Message edited by: Peter Rooke ]

[Mike Gershman]

neither test so much as got me an interview, but a year or 2 later the outfit that gave me the first test ended up hiring me. As part of the OS System Programming team.

That's funny, I got hired as an OS System Programmer from a written test, but it had only practical questions like system calls and dump reading rules.

The only way to validate a non-job-related test, like honesty, analytic skills, or personality, is to give the tests to some applicants, score the tests, lock up the results for a few years, get written evaluations of the employees, and only then look at the test scores. Every attempt to validate these tests has failed miserably. But some HR departments have so little faith in the hiring managers or so much desire for an "objective" numeric rating of applicants, that they give the tests anyway.