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And that's why my hiring criteria has always hinged on the level of compulsion said candidate exhibits. Sleep needs to be a secondary concern when stacked agai

by xarien 15y ago

And that's why my hiring criteria has always hinged on the level of compulsion said candidate exhibits. Sleep needs to be a secondary concern when stacked against a deadline. Although, I will be the first to admit that every now and then I fully rest up and swear I'm going to get more sleep because I can actually see the productivity increase. That thought is often a quickly fleeting thought however....

oinksoft 15y ago
> Sleep needs to be a secondary concern when stacked against a deadline. Do you tell the candidate this during their interview?
- xarien 15y ago
  I wouldn't hire someone if I didn't believe they possessed the same mentality. Is it really a big deal given that the chances of having to pull all nighters in college to meet an assignment deadline is so common? How is work (especially in a startup) any different or less important?
rhizome 15y ago
Interesting. How successful has this strategy of hiring only compulsives been for you? Assuming you're not joking, of course.
- xarien 15y ago
  Pretty well even in a corporate environment. The word compulsion was used to polarize and by the comment score card, it did a pretty good job at getting a rise out of a few people. A more positively associated word to be used would be dedication and I find it to be a great ruler to measure the quality of candidates.
  - stateless 15y ago
    I couldn't agree more.
dextorious 15y ago
"""Sleep needs to be a secondary concern when stacked against a deadline.""" Actually there is only one deadline that matters, and it's called death. If your company is "stacked against deadlines" in order to compete, you're doing it wrong. "Fast time to market" is a rat race for marginal benefits, not a business strategy. Google didn't get #1 because it was first on the market. Neither did Facebook, Microsoft et al.
- xarien 15y ago
  Honestly, deadlines aren't there to be first to market. Deadlines are there so you can accurately pace / measures yourself. Once deadlines start slipping, it's a slippery slope. At some point, you may have to look at the planning to see if the plan itself is too aggressive given the resource constraints. With that said, I firmly believe that a strong team needs to stand behind deadlines however arbitrary.
  - danssig 15y ago
    >Once deadlines start slipping, it's a slippery slope. Yes, and once people start doing insane things like working double hours and skipping sleep then the deadline is going to get worse and the finished product will be a train wreck. I worked somewhere where there was a big push for a deadline. People were put on 12 hour days, 6 days a week for about a year. When they made their release it was one of the biggest disasters in company history (big place). The CIO looked at it and said "we're not giving anyone more time to get their projects done because we've seen that when they have more time the result is crap anyway"....
brown9-2 15y ago
So you actively promote and exhibit behavior that you admit decreases productivity (especially your own)?

by xarien 15y ago

oinksoft 15y ago

> Sleep needs to be a secondary concern when stacked against a deadline. Do you tell the candidate this during their interview?

xarien 15y ago
I wouldn't hire someone if I didn't believe they possessed the same mentality. Is it really a big deal given that the chances of having to pull all nighters in college to meet an assignment deadline is so common? How is work (especially in a startup) any different or less important?

rhizome 15y ago

Interesting. How successful has this strategy of hiring only compulsives been for you? Assuming you're not joking, of course.

xarien 15y ago
Pretty well even in a corporate environment. The word compulsion was used to polarize and by the comment score card, it did a pretty good job at getting a rise out of a few people. A more positively associated word to be used would be dedication and I find it to be a great ruler to measure the quality of candidates.
- stateless 15y ago
  I couldn't agree more.

dextorious 15y ago

"""Sleep needs to be a secondary concern when stacked against a deadline.""" Actually there is only one deadline that matters, and it's called death. If your company is "stacked against deadlines" in order to compete, you're doing it wrong. "Fast time to market" is a rat race for marginal benefits, not a business strategy. Google didn't get #1 because it was first on the market. Neither did Facebook, Microsoft et al.

xarien 15y ago
Honestly, deadlines aren't there to be first to market. Deadlines are there so you can accurately pace / measures yourself. Once deadlines start slipping, it's a slippery slope. At some point, you may have to look at the planning to see if the plan itself is too aggressive given the resource constraints. With that said, I firmly believe that a strong team needs to stand behind deadlines however arbitrary.
- danssig 15y ago
  >Once deadlines start slipping, it's a slippery slope. Yes, and once people start doing insane things like working double hours and skipping sleep then the deadline is going to get worse and the finished product will be a train wreck. I worked somewhere where there was a big push for a deadline. People were put on 12 hour days, 6 days a week for about a year. When they made their release it was one of the biggest disasters in company history (big place). The CIO looked at it and said "we're not giving anyone more time to get their projects done because we've seen that when they have more time the result is crap anyway"....

brown9-2 15y ago

So you actively promote and exhibit behavior that you admit decreases productivity (especially your own)?