Rework - Jason Fried [30]
Pass on hiring people you don’t need, even if you think that person’s a great catch. You’ll be doing your company more harm than good if you bring in talented people who have nothing important to do.
Problems start when you have more people than you need. You start inventing work to keep everyone busy. Artificial work leads to artificial projects. And those artificial projects lead to real costs and complexity.
Don’t worry about “the one that got away.” It’s much worse to have people on staff who aren’t doing anything meaningful. There’s plenty of talent out there. When you do have a real need, you’ll find someone who fits well.
Great has nothing to do with it. If you don’t need someone, you don’t need someone.
Strangers at a cocktail party
If you go to a cocktail party where everyone is a stranger, the conversation is dull and stiff. You make small talk about the weather, sports, TV shows, etc. You shy away from serious conversations and controversial opinions.
A small, intimate dinner party among old friends is a different story, though. There are genuinely interesting conversations and heated debates. At the end of the night, you feel you actually got something out of it.
Hire a ton of people rapidly and a “strangers at a cocktail party” problem is exactly what you end up with. There are always new faces around, so everyone is unfailingly polite. Everyone tries to avoid any conflict or drama. No one says, “This idea sucks.” People appease instead of challenge.
And that appeasement is what gets companies into trouble. You need to be able to tell people when they’re full of crap. If that doesn’t happen, you start churning out something that doesn’t offend anyone but also doesn’t make anyone fall in love.
You need an environment where everyone feels safe enough to be honest when things get tough. You need to know how far you can push someone. You need to know what people really mean when they say something.
So hire slowly. It’s the only way to avoid winding up at a cocktail party of strangers.
Resumés are ridiculous
We all know resumés are a joke. They’re exaggerations. They’re filled with “action verbs” that don’t mean anything. They list job titles and responsibilities that are vaguely accurate at best. And there’s no way to verify most of what’s on there. The whole thing is a farce.
Worst of all, they’re too easy. Anyone can create a decent-enough resumé. That’s why half-assed applicants love them so much. They can shotgun out hundreds at a time to potential employers. It’s another form of spam. They don’t care about landing your job; they just care about landing any job.
If someone sends out a resumé to three hundred companies, that’s a huge red flag right there. There’s no way that applicant has researched you. There’s no way he knows what’s different about your company.
If you hire based on this garbage, you’re missing the point of what hiring is about. You want a specific candidate who cares specifically about your company, your products, your customers, and your job.
So how do you find these candidates? First step: Check the cover letter. In a cover letter, you get actual communication instead of a list of skills, verbs, and years of irrelevance. There’s no way an applicant can churn out hundreds of personalized letters. That’s why the cover letter is a much better test than a resumé. You hear someone’s actual voice and are able recognize if it’s in tune with you and your company.
Trust your gut reaction. If the first paragraph sucks, the second has to work that much harder. If there’s no hook in the first three, it’s unlikely there’s a match there. On the other hand, if your gut is telling you there’s a chance at a real match, then move on to the interview stage.
Years of irrelevance
We’ve all seen job ads that say, “Five years of experience