Planning to Employ
by Fred Roed on 25/01/07 at 9:34 am
3 comments
On Tuesday morning I met with Wanda Olszewski, a recruitment specialist who, together with her hooligan business partner, Madelene, runs the award-winning agency Taudata Recruitment.
Taudata specialises in sourcing IT, Marketing, Finance and HR candidates for blue chip companies like Multichoice and Sanlam. I told Wanda about our search for a PHP programmer to take over Andrew’s role in the studio – no mean feat – and she had some advice for me.
Know what you’re looking for
Wanda suggests that this is top of the pops when trying to employ someone. It becomes very difficult to make a decision when the parameters of the position are not clearly defined. Before interviewing applicants, a company should list the skills and attributes that they are looking for. This is more than a job spec, as it includes the ‘soft stuff’.
Accept someone that you would feel comfortable with in your own space
This was echoed by Andrew a few days before with the question: ‘Would you feel comfortable leaving this guy alone with your wife and kids?’ Wanda makes the point that you will be spending a whole lot of time with this person, and whether you like it or not, someone you don’t get along with will be detrimental to work performance – both yours and his.
If you have any doubt, ask yourself:
Why did I feel uncomfortable?
What did he say that made me stop and be cautious?
Look for people who smile!
Wanda advises to look for people who are genuinely happy and passionate about what they do. ‘Avoid the long face!’ Wanda also adds that one should be wary of people who express themselves in negatives rather than positives e.g. ‘I left the other company because I wasn’t allowed to do anything!’ Rather look for: ‘I left the company to look for new challenges!’
And finally: ‘It’s not what a person says; it’s how they say it!’
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
Uno de Waal
Jan 28th, 2007
Hehehe, so weird! I met someone who works there last night, at random in Long street.
Karin
Jan 29th, 2007
JUst found this quote on Middle Zone Musings:
“In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.â€? – Warren Buffet
http://middlezonemusings.blogspot.com/2007/01/great-quotes-7.html
neola
May 10th, 2007
Growing up in Natal the Zulu’s have an expression: “Beware of someone that shows too much teeth” That has stuck with me and if I meet someone who smiles a lot, I want to run away!
The best software developers I know will only smile if you show them a new tool / youtube / a gadget / your new mac / pc / software or a pic of their wife kids or pet..:)
In general I know that software developers are not the smiling type and I would feel very uncomfortable hiring one that “shows too much teeth”.
I would never hire someone I dislike, even if they are brilliant though.