Welcome to the Team

There’s been a lot of talk lately about hiring and retraining. So, I’ve put together my list of hiring priorities:

1. Experience – People who have had experience developing can be judged based on that experience. Just talking to these people and looking at what they have done will give you a good idea as to their fit. Most likely these people will have something to bring to the group; however, their past performance should be verified. A simple FizzBuzz like test should be enough to weed out the wolves in developers clothing.

2. Training – People who have had formal training but lack real world development experience have, at the very least, had exposure to software development. At the very least, these people have been trained, tested, and voluntarily – most likely - attended training sessions. Similarly, a simple FizzBuzz like test should be used to see how much of the training actually sank in.

3. Initiative – People who show initiative, either by doing independent learning or attending User Groups or Learning Lunch sessions, have shown interest in development and have personally put the time and effort into gaining insight into and skills in the field. These people should definitely be given the chance to prove themselves. A temporary or job shadowing position would allow them to experience what development is like in a real world setting and allow us to asses their level of fitness.

4. Aptitude – Some people are natural problem solvers. People who show a natural aptitude to solution development should be given acting positions, allowed to take formal training, or given direction / mentoring to see if they really could – or even wish to – become developers. Simple tests are basic problem solving skills, comfort with technology, or formal aptitude tests.

5. Interest – And some people are just dev-curious and it wouldn’t hurt to take formal training, or given direction / mentoring to see if they really could – or even wish to – become developers.

6. None of the above – If someone hasn’t displayed or doesn’t posses any of the above, then I really can’t see a valid reason to bring them into the group, either permanently or as an acting. These are people who are attracted to the trend or the pay or just see development as an opportunity to brown nose their way up the ladder.

I get worried when people who fall in the bottom two categories start to work their way into a development ream. Mainly because I’m not really sure what we’ll do with them, but also because they are stealing a seat from someone in the top two categories.