Hiring engineers now is easy, right?

Wrong!  I’ve run across quite a few people in the past year that have assumed that’s the case, but have found out differently.  Hiring top software programmers and hardware engineers is always a challenge.  Having piles and piles and piles of resumes does NOT make it any easier.

So what’s a hiring manager to do?  Well, the last hire I did for myself (as opposed to the ones that I help our clients with) I had four very clear objective criteria.

1)      The candidate had to have a Bachelors’ degree

2)      The candidate had to have experience with a specific program

3)      The candidate had to have at least 2 years professional experience

4)      The candidate did not require H1-b sponsorship

One of our clients is doing this now with good success.

Now, I know you can make valid arguments against any of those hard and fast rules.  Some of the smartest people I know don’t have college degrees.  In different times I might have made that argument myself (might be good idea for a blog entry next year), but you need some way to get through hundreds of resumes a week.  The nice thing about objective criteria is that a hiring manager can get help – someone to prescreen for him.  So what are your deal breakers?  Knowing that going in will make hiring in these times much easier.

I’m sure all you job seekers out there are saying “That’s not fair!”  You’re right, but as my mother always said, Life’s not always fair.  So what’s a job seeker to do?  Well, I need something to write about next week…

Selecting a Channel Partner

One of the challenges I face this year is selecting and managing channel partners. Although this is not entirely a new experience it is the first time that I have determined to actively manage the relationships. In the past, partnership arrangements have been created solely by expertise in a certain technology.  For example we became experienced with a specific microprocessor family and toolset and developed a solution partner relationship with the vendor.  The relationship was casual with few interactions. And as one might expect we had had mixed results; some referrals, some proposals, and minimal actual work.

I began to think whether having channel partner relationships are really helpful towards meeting our business development goals. I believe they can be. But I need to figure out how to make the partnership work.

So I began asking questions.

• How can I know which company is the right one to establish a relationship?


• What type of company should I be evaluating (i.e. service or product)?


• How much time and money should I invest in the partnership?


• How does our company add value?


• How can I project a business return?


• Are our business interests aligned?

I have many more questions with few answers so far. But it is a beginning. I will have more to say about channel partnerships as the year progresses.

Messiness

I happen to be one of those people who are very organized. In fact, I don’t function very well when I’m not. My desk is neat, my files are organized, and when they are not, I am not as productive. I don’t consider my self compulsive, but I suppose some might.

I think this kind of mindset has made it very easy for me to adopt and appreciate a formal development process and good architectural standards. I’ve known a lot of people who have offices or workspaces in which every available surface is covered with piles of stuff. Similarly, I’ve know developers whose code is just as “messy” - inconsistent coding standards (even with themselves), poorly partitioned, intertwined spaghetti.

Do you think some people are just naturally predisposed to be “neat” in all areas of their life? Can developers that are not naturally predisposed to this find comfort and value in good development practices?

Can Customer Service be Dangerous?

What lengths have you gone to, to handle or avert a potential customer issue?

I had my doubts about whether or not to tell this story, but my partner convinced me Michael - you're paying my ticket, if I get one.

I was running some errands today at lunch, and while stuck at a light I checked my Blackberry. I suppose I could tell you that this was the only time I'd ever looked at my BBerry while driving, but would anyone really believe me?

Anyway, I had just gotten an email from a consultant that was not going to be able to make a 1:00 meeting with a client. This was about 12:30. I did not have the client's number on me, and I knew I would not be back in the office before 1, so I called my office (also illegal to do while driving in CT) and was able to get someone to call the client to let him know. Issue averted!

Believe me - I get how dangerous this is, but I'm sure glad I was able to let the client know in advance. Don't try this at home.

Don't Forget to Listen

Whether you’re in Consulting or in a Consultative Sales Role, it’s so important to REALLY, REALLY LISTEN! I know, this is Sales 101, but I’ve had so many experiences lately where people (consultants and sales people) were far more interested in pushing their own agenda – whether the customer wanted it or not. I know when it’s happened to me, it’s completely turned me off. Even if these people have wonderful services or products to offer, it’s not likely I’m going to be interested.

Peer Coaching - Improved

I recently read about an interesting company – The Alternative Board. They provide facilitated peer coaching for business owners and Presidents.

I think this is a great idea. I’ve have good experiences with peer coaching. A group of bright, experienced business people with diverse backgrounds can figure out anything. The only downside for me is that sometimes these groups can go off the tracks. The conversation gets high jacked by one person, or the topic of the day does not really get covered, or all the great contributions don’t get shared.

It seems to me that adding an experienced facilitator would not only maximize the contributions, it would also maximize the benefits to all the participants.

Full Process Review or Quick Fix?

Lately we seem to have so many consultants interviewing for so many opportunities it's hard to keep track of all the details. We do have some tools in place but they're not enough. When the "pain" gets to be too much we've been creating quick fixes to relive the particular difficulty we're having at the moment.

In a casual hallway conversation, we were just about to do this again, when it dawned on me that we had not really looked at our end-to-end process and inter-relationships between Sales and Consultant Services in a while. Certainly not since our business volume has picked up. My Software Development background kicked in and I suggested we take a step back and do just that.

I know that when we're moving so fast, it can be tempting to just address the immediate issue, but sometime a more holistic approach is the way to go. The trick is in knowing the difference. I think, just like in Software Development too many quick fixed can create a mess really quickly. In this case, we had been doing the quick fix thing for a while and it just seemed like time to look at the big picture.