6 ms·

How to hire C players: Do what everyone else, including recruiters and HR departments, are doing. How to hire B players: Implement serious recruiting processes

by edw519 15y ago

How to hire C players: Do what everyone else, including recruiters and HR departments, are doing. How to hire B players: Implement serious recruiting processes and plan to spend a lot of time on it. Get creative with hacks like OP's. How to hire A players: Identify them through never ending networking, research, and keeping your finger on the pulse of the industry. You'll never find them the same way you find B and C players.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
I think hiring A players is actually more complex than that even. To get A players, or even the best B players, the most important thing you can do is to make your company somewhere those people will want to work in terms of the work, the culture and the facilities. If you're doing that then it's possible they'll find you, if you're not then nothing you can do is going to help.
- Retric 15y ago
  It greatly depends on what you call an A player. Linus is extremely talented and well known, but in some tiny organisations his actual programming talent may not be above average. Most programmers working for the NSA are probably about what you would expect at a large organization, but I suspect they have a few people that would rock your world. And the thing is Google, Microsoft, and GM also have some amazing teams simply though blind luck. The kind of thing where a few friends all end up working for a manager they like on some interesting little problem. Some people have only worked on such teams and don't understand why so many projects fail, and others have never even seen them and wonder how complex software ever get's written. But, so few people have a truly understand the range from inspiring though dysfunctional people and teams out there that talk of A, B, and C coders / rock stars becomes almost meaningless. PS: One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas Instruments. One day, he got a long distance call from a user whose system had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone. http://www-personal.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/Humour/Real.Programmer.Stories.html http://www-personal.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/Humour/R... or the modern equivalent http://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html http://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html
jpdoctor 15y ago
> How to hire A players: One thing missing in your list: Have 'A' leaders.
- negamax 15y ago
  This is very important. A player under B or C leader will soon be looking at the exit sign
  - jpdoctor 15y ago
    Yes, exactly. My advisor in grad school also managed 100+ PhDs in one of the national labs, and that was one lesson he imparted in almost the same words. He went one step farther: If you have B and C leaders in your org, it's basically all over because few organizations are capable of taking the measures to correct that problem.
  - nickfromseattle 15y ago
    Does this conflict with the mantra, 'Hire people that are smarter than you.'?
    - jpdoctor 15y ago
      You bet. I never see the answer to: Why would people smarter than you want to work for someone dumber than them?
      - zem 15y ago
        there are two classes of boss, those you look to for technical leadership and some degree of mentoring, and those you expect to do the actual "management" stuff so that you don't need to. for the latter category, i'm not looking for sheer brains so much as i am looking for good leadership qualities.
        jpdoctor 15y ago
        > and those you expect to do the actual "management" stuff so that you don't need to. Sounds like your answer is: When there are items that smart people want to outsource, they often go work for people stupider than them rather than hire people to take care of it. Do I have that right?
exim 15y ago
One thing to note is that we are talking about humans[1]. So there are no absolute A's, B's or C's. These are just values for the given _time_. If you're a decent company, you shouldn't hesitate to invest in B,C players so that they become A players. [1] - Of course I'm talking about humans who are mentally healthy.
- eshvk 15y ago
  I am surprised how many people completely ignore this. I see tons of people blog on and on about the bright eyed, bushy tailed genius programmer out there who needs to be acquired. I see very few about companies actually trying to make an effort to look into their organizations and seeing how they can, if not try to bring their "C" players to par, at least bring their "B" players to "A" level[1]. Although I don't have any experience training other people (apart from improving myself), I am not especially convinced that software engineering and programming skills are hard enough or impossible that relatively smart people can't be with proper coaching be helped to excel at it [2]. Caveats: [1] Implicit assumption that the person is actually interested in becoming better. [2] I understand that this takes a "toll" in productivity because you could be out there building stuff instead of helping these people improve. However, once a company reaches a certain size, I should think there is enough "boring" work for the company to staff "B" players to handle those, while simultaneously making them spend another chunk of their time working on becoming better.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
bbwharris 15y ago
How to hire A players: Offer way above current market value. How to hire B players: Offer market value. How to hire C players: Offer below market value. You do two things when you offer more money. 1) You are more careful about who you hire. 2) You actually attract good people who would make a move for that kind of money. I would love to hear an inverse argument against this.
- DanBC 15y ago
  I don't know what GCHQ pays for programmers or mathematicians. I imagine that Cliff Cocks (invented public key crypto before RSA) didn't get the many millions of dollars that RSA did. So; offer an environment where people want to work. Give them interesting work. Add a dollop of patriotism.
  - bbwharris 15y ago
    Work environment definitely matters. If the environment isn't any good, then the pay had better be great. Ultimately, if you had an interesting product, a great environment and offered extremely competitive salaries then you would most likely end up with interest from more people in the "A" range.
- eric-hu 15y ago
  The finance industry tends to offer way more for people with a strong technical background to do quantitative analysis work. To use real world examples, no amount of money you offer Salman Khan now would pull him away from his non-profit Khan academy to go back to the hedge fund industry. If you're going to point to your step 2, then that sounds like a tautology. "Attract good people who would make a move for more money. Offer them more money"
  - bbwharris 15y ago
    That's actually an excellent point. Uber personal success would completely remove the desire to make a move for money. Isn't that what acquihiring is about though? Purchase the talent that wont make the move for money.

by edw519 15y ago

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago

I think hiring A players is actually more complex than that even. To get A players, or even the best B players, the most important thing you can do is to make your company somewhere those people will want to work in terms of the work, the culture and the facilities. If you're doing that then it's possible they'll find you, if you're not then nothing you can do is going to help.

Retric 15y ago
It greatly depends on what you call an A player. Linus is extremely talented and well known, but in some tiny organisations his actual programming talent may not be above average. Most programmers working for the NSA are probably about what you would expect at a large organization, but I suspect they have a few people that would rock your world. And the thing is Google, Microsoft, and GM also have some amazing teams simply though blind luck. The kind of thing where a few friends all end up working for a manager they like on some interesting little problem. Some people have only worked on such teams and don't understand why so many projects fail, and others have never even seen them and wonder how complex software ever get's written. But, so few people have a truly understand the range from inspiring though dysfunctional people and teams out there that talk of A, B, and C coders / rock stars becomes almost meaningless. PS: One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas Instruments. One day, he got a long distance call from a user whose system had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone. http://www-personal.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/Humour/Real.Programmer.Stories.html http://www-personal.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/Humour/R... or the modern equivalent http://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html http://bellard.org/jslinux/tech.html

jpdoctor 15y ago

> How to hire A players: One thing missing in your list: Have 'A' leaders.

negamax 15y ago
This is very important. A player under B or C leader will soon be looking at the exit sign
- jpdoctor 15y ago
  Yes, exactly. My advisor in grad school also managed 100+ PhDs in one of the national labs, and that was one lesson he imparted in almost the same words. He went one step farther: If you have B and C leaders in your org, it's basically all over because few organizations are capable of taking the measures to correct that problem.
- nickfromseattle 15y ago
  Does this conflict with the mantra, 'Hire people that are smarter than you.'?
  - jpdoctor 15y ago
    You bet. I never see the answer to: Why would people smarter than you want to work for someone dumber than them?
    - zem 15y ago
      there are two classes of boss, those you look to for technical leadership and some degree of mentoring, and those you expect to do the actual "management" stuff so that you don't need to. for the latter category, i'm not looking for sheer brains so much as i am looking for good leadership qualities.
      - jpdoctor 15y ago
        > and those you expect to do the actual "management" stuff so that you don't need to. Sounds like your answer is: When there are items that smart people want to outsource, they often go work for people stupider than them rather than hire people to take care of it. Do I have that right?

exim 15y ago

One thing to note is that we are talking about humans[1]. So there are no absolute A's, B's or C's. These are just values for the given _time_. If you're a decent company, you shouldn't hesitate to invest in B,C players so that they become A players. [1] - Of course I'm talking about humans who are mentally healthy.

eshvk 15y ago
I am surprised how many people completely ignore this. I see tons of people blog on and on about the bright eyed, bushy tailed genius programmer out there who needs to be acquired. I see very few about companies actually trying to make an effort to look into their organizations and seeing how they can, if not try to bring their "C" players to par, at least bring their "B" players to "A" level[1]. Although I don't have any experience training other people (apart from improving myself), I am not especially convinced that software engineering and programming skills are hard enough or impossible that relatively smart people can't be with proper coaching be helped to excel at it [2]. Caveats: [1] Implicit assumption that the person is actually interested in becoming better. [2] I understand that this takes a "toll" in productivity because you could be out there building stuff instead of helping these people improve. However, once a company reaches a certain size, I should think there is enough "boring" work for the company to staff "B" players to handle those, while simultaneously making them spend another chunk of their time working on becoming better.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

bbwharris 15y ago

How to hire A players: Offer way above current market value. How to hire B players: Offer market value. How to hire C players: Offer below market value. You do two things when you offer more money. 1) You are more careful about who you hire. 2) You actually attract good people who would make a move for that kind of money. I would love to hear an inverse argument against this.

DanBC 15y ago
I don't know what GCHQ pays for programmers or mathematicians. I imagine that Cliff Cocks (invented public key crypto before RSA) didn't get the many millions of dollars that RSA did. So; offer an environment where people want to work. Give them interesting work. Add a dollop of patriotism.
- bbwharris 15y ago
  Work environment definitely matters. If the environment isn't any good, then the pay had better be great. Ultimately, if you had an interesting product, a great environment and offered extremely competitive salaries then you would most likely end up with interest from more people in the "A" range.
eric-hu 15y ago
The finance industry tends to offer way more for people with a strong technical background to do quantitative analysis work. To use real world examples, no amount of money you offer Salman Khan now would pull him away from his non-profit Khan academy to go back to the hedge fund industry. If you're going to point to your step 2, then that sounds like a tautology. "Attract good people who would make a move for more money. Offer them more money"
- bbwharris 15y ago
  That's actually an excellent point. Uber personal success would completely remove the desire to make a move for money. Isn't that what acquihiring is about though? Purchase the talent that wont make the move for money.