Hiring …

For the first time since we adopted Scrum, I am looking for staff.  Specifically I’m looking for a new development manager (the current one is moving out of country) as well as a programmer.  My perspective on hiring has changed dramatically in the past year.

For starters, I believe it’s important to find people who’ve worked using Scrum and XP practices before.  For my manager, I need someone who can coach the team, and for the programmer, I need to know that he or she has ‘drunk the agile cool-aid’ — I don’t want to have to do a sales job on working this way.  I’m finding this has replaced technical skills as my primary evaluation criteria.  I just hope I’m not being too unrealistic.

I’m also looking forward to a different type of interview.  I’ll still conduct the ‘get-to-know-you’ interview, but I’ve become more interested in the growing trend of more realistic interviews — for example pairing programmer candidates so see how they approach a more realistic task and environment.  I know there will be limitations to this, but it’s a step beyond hiring someone based on how they do answering your questions in a board room.

So far it has been an interesting experience.  The job market in Vancouver is obviously slower than it has been, which means I’m seeing more resumes than I’ve seen in the past (probably 20-25 for the manager and 30-35 for the programmer).  What I’m not seeing is quality — most people are wildly under-qualified or ‘wrongly-qualified’, making me wonder if they’ve even read the job description.  Every time I hire I experience this problem, but I guess I’m just seeing it on a bigger scale with more candidates on the market.

Right now my biggest concern is that I’m being too unrealistic.  Will I ever find a programmer who can write a cover letter addressing the qualifications I’ve asked for?  Will anyone who actually has actually worked as programmer in the past apply for the manager role?  Only time will tell … .