{"id":684,"date":"2011-05-07T19:20:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-07T18:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/?p=684"},"modified":"2011-05-07T19:20:32","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T18:20:32","slug":"we-only-hire-the-best-i-dont-believe-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/2011\/05\/07\/we-only-hire-the-best-i-dont-believe-you\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;We only hire the best&#8217; &#8211; I don&#8217;t believe you"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/fat-elvis-impersonator.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-689\" title=\"fat-elvis-impersonator\" src=\"http:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/fat-elvis-impersonator.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"261\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/fat-elvis-impersonator.jpg 261w, https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/fat-elvis-impersonator-245x300.jpg 245w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 261px) 100vw, 261px\" \/><\/a>Ask anyone about hiring developers and the advice is always the same \u2018<a title=\"High Notes | Spolsky\" href=\"http:\/\/www.joelonsoftware.com\/articles\/HighNotes.html\">only hire the best<\/a>\u2019. The principle reasons being that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Developer <a title=\"10x Software | Construx\" href=\"http:\/\/forums.construx.com\/blogs\/stevemcc\/archive\/2008\/03\/27\/productivity-variations-among-software-developers-and-teams-the-origin-of-quot-10x-quot.aspx\">productivity can vary by an order of magnitude<\/a> between apprarently similarly qualified candidates.<\/li>\n<li>The best people only want to work with the best people. <a title=\" when you hire people smarter than you | meta4\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.meta4.com\/en\/2009\/09\/02\/\u201cwhen-you-hire-people-that-are-smarter-that-you-are-you-prove-you-are-smarter-than-they-are\/\">A graders hire A graders, B graders hire C graders<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p>On the face the face of it this seems like great advice, who wouldn\u2019t want to hire the best? It turns out pretty much everybody.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, how long are you willing to wait to fill the position? What if you are really really stretched? What if you\u2019re so stretched that you worry for existing staff? What if hiring a specific individual will mean huge disparities in pay between equally productive staff? What if not making the hire is difference between keeping a key client or losing them? At some point every company has to draw a line and elect to hire \u2018the best we&#8217;ve seen so far\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The difference between the great companies and the rest is how to deal with this problem. Great organisations place recruitment at the centre of what they do. If hiring is genuinely everyone\u2019s number one priority then hiring the best becomes more achievable. For starters you might even have half a chance of getting &#8216;the best&#8217; into your interview room in the first place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>Of the rhetorical questions posed above, in all cases the impact can minimised (though not eradicated) so long as management understands and anticipates the challenges in recruitment.\u00a0For example \u201cWhat if hiring them will mean huge disparities in pay between equally productive staff?\u201d A company that intends to hire the best understands the value of keeping the best. So compensation of existing staff, especially longer serving staff relying on annual raises to ensure market parity, must be at an appropriate level. Doing so can be hugely expensive when multiplied over all employees and this cost comes directly from the bottom line. Companies that put recruitment at the core are willing to make the investment. <a title=\"Yishan Wong | Engineering Management - Hiring\" href=\"http:\/\/algeri-wong.com\/yishan\/engineering-management-hiring.html\">Yishan Wong\u2019s writing on this subject<\/a> is brilliant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>If hiring really is everyone&#8217;s number one priority then there is a trade off to make, something has been deprioritised or sacrificed to make room. As a result hiring is much more than a partitionable activity, it is a statement of corporate identity. Proclamations like &#8220;we only hire the best&#8221; are meaningless without an understanding of the trade offs and sacrifices made.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/2011\/05\/07\/we-only-hire-the-best-i-dont-believe-you\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to &#8216;We only hire the best&#8217; &#8211; I don&#8217;t believe you\"><p>Ask anyone about hiring developers and the advice is always the same \u2018only hire the best\u2019. The principle reasons being that Developer productivity can vary by an order of magnitude between apprarently similarly qualified candidates. The best people only want to work with the best people. A graders hire A graders, B graders hire C [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,5],"tags":[44],"class_list":{"0":"post-684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-development","7":"category-management","8":"category-recruitment","9":"tag-team","10":"h-entry","11":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fragile.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}