Applying Courtship Principles: Hiring for the Long Term

As managers, we tend to focus on improving our processes. But have you considered that good people—not processes—are really the foundation of high-quality software? Competent and skilled people—combined with good process—can consistently produce higher-quality software. When we look for a spouse, we go out on a date, then another, and another as part of an information gathering process. We collect several months or even years of information to make this critical decision. So, why do we often make long-term employment decisions with a few brief interviews? Philip Lew shares his ideas on how to find the best testers. Determining what qualities and characteristics to look for, what questions to ask, and which non-traditional activities or exercises to employ can be done as part of the interview process. Phil says that adapting our questions and methods can help us not only find people suited for our development processes but also help us hire for the long term.