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Why would I recommend a standout performer for a position at my company? So they can outshine me? I never recommend the "true believer" tool, always the average

Why would I recommend a standout performer for a position at my company? So they can outshine me? I never recommend the "true believer" tool, always the average performer I got along with.

sim7c00 2y ago
true corporate strategist here... i recommend people i trust and beleive in and want to work with. if they can outshine me i can get better by working with them. i dont give a rats ass about my performance reviews. just quality of work and nice collaboration , preferably with people better than me.
reactordev 2y ago
It should be about raising the bar, not lowering it. You’d grow if you weren’t the smartest person in the room. Unfortunately this stance prevents one from seeing that.
- 4fterd4rk 2y ago
  Yeah... the overenthusiastic tool bringing up labor intensive ideas for minimal gain just means I can't hit the gym at lunch. Not putting up with that so a meaningless metric can go up by 0.5%.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  Even if I am, and I’ve been hired multiple times to be the “smartest person in the room” , I want to hire people who can outshine me because that means I can just delegate high level concepts and they can run with it so I can move on the other initiatives. While doing that was half the reason that I got let go from my last job, I delegated the work I was doing to the person I hired and moved on to a newer initiative that was pulled, I still have no regrets. I got a chance to put leading an impressive “AI” project on my resume and it helped me get my current much better job. Before anyone starts groaning , it was a framework to do better intent based bots for online call centers (Amazon Connect and Lex). The perfect use case for it.
psunavy03 2y ago
I bet you're a joy to work with.
scarface_74 2y ago
"A players hire A players and B players hire C players”. I’m not saying I am necessarily an “A player”. But I am secure in my skills and the ability to convince someone to pay me for my skills. I was instrumental in hiring three people at a job who were all better than me at the time. I learned so much from them while I was there, it helped set me up for my next job that was my first job as a lead. Why would I want someone that can’t help me be successful at my current job and whom I can’t learn from? Even there I would ask my then former coworkers first advice.
- blitzar 2y ago
  99% of people hiring are "B/C players”
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    And that’s often good enough depending on what your needs are…
    - blitzar 2y ago
      The reality that nobody wasnt to say out loud is that the top 10-20% of the people you interviewed for a role would all have been just as great as the "best" candidate (and often enough the amazing candidate turns out to be terrible anyway).
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        If you are hiring for your standard enterprise CRUD developer or “full stack” developer, once you have a few seniors (real seniors not “codez real gud” seniors), you can go down to the top 50%
        roguecoder 2y ago
        Or you can hire juniors, and after a couple of years have a whole team of A-players. It's like the story about the coach who watched two runners run the same time, one with perfect form and the other a total mess. He let the total mess onto the team, and the runner with perfect form got mad, "but I ran better than he did!!!" The coach replied, "I can't help you go any faster than you are, but the total mess is going to be incredibly fast with just a little form."
jimbokun 2y ago
So you don't have to spend a lot of time cleaning up their messes.

Why would I recommend a standout performer for a position at my company? So they can outshine me? I never recommend the "true believer" tool, always the average performer I got along with.

sim7c00 2y ago

true corporate strategist here... i recommend people i trust and beleive in and want to work with. if they can outshine me i can get better by working with them. i dont give a rats ass about my performance reviews. just quality of work and nice collaboration , preferably with people better than me.

reactordev 2y ago

It should be about raising the bar, not lowering it. You’d grow if you weren’t the smartest person in the room. Unfortunately this stance prevents one from seeing that.

4fterd4rk 2y ago
Yeah... the overenthusiastic tool bringing up labor intensive ideas for minimal gain just means I can't hit the gym at lunch. Not putting up with that so a meaningless metric can go up by 0.5%.
scarface_74 2y ago
Even if I am, and I’ve been hired multiple times to be the “smartest person in the room” , I want to hire people who can outshine me because that means I can just delegate high level concepts and they can run with it so I can move on the other initiatives. While doing that was half the reason that I got let go from my last job, I delegated the work I was doing to the person I hired and moved on to a newer initiative that was pulled, I still have no regrets. I got a chance to put leading an impressive “AI” project on my resume and it helped me get my current much better job. Before anyone starts groaning , it was a framework to do better intent based bots for online call centers (Amazon Connect and Lex). The perfect use case for it.

psunavy03 2y ago

I bet you're a joy to work with.

scarface_74 2y ago

"A players hire A players and B players hire C players”. I’m not saying I am necessarily an “A player”. But I am secure in my skills and the ability to convince someone to pay me for my skills. I was instrumental in hiring three people at a job who were all better than me at the time. I learned so much from them while I was there, it helped set me up for my next job that was my first job as a lead. Why would I want someone that can’t help me be successful at my current job and whom I can’t learn from? Even there I would ask my then former coworkers first advice.

blitzar 2y ago
99% of people hiring are "B/C players”
- scarface_74 2y ago
  And that’s often good enough depending on what your needs are…
  - blitzar 2y ago
    The reality that nobody wasnt to say out loud is that the top 10-20% of the people you interviewed for a role would all have been just as great as the "best" candidate (and often enough the amazing candidate turns out to be terrible anyway).
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      If you are hiring for your standard enterprise CRUD developer or “full stack” developer, once you have a few seniors (real seniors not “codez real gud” seniors), you can go down to the top 50%
      - roguecoder 2y ago
        Or you can hire juniors, and after a couple of years have a whole team of A-players. It's like the story about the coach who watched two runners run the same time, one with perfect form and the other a total mess. He let the total mess onto the team, and the runner with perfect form got mad, "but I ran better than he did!!!" The coach replied, "I can't help you go any faster than you are, but the total mess is going to be incredibly fast with just a little form."

jimbokun 2y ago

So you don't have to spend a lot of time cleaning up their messes.