Conversations with recruiters over coffee would always start the same. I would say something like: if you are just trying to find a warm body to fill a position, then you don't need to hear what I have to say. If you want to hire someone who thinks and has a good chance of fitting in with the culture of the team and organisation to provide value, then it is a complex problem that requires insights into what the position actually involves.
There are about a dozen different checkpoints that I go through when considering and interviewing candidates, and the paper I wrote touched on some of the major points but not all of them. Actually, I even removed some of them from the article as early drafts had too much information. My intention was to get some of the important points across without writing a book.
Recently, a colleague and friend, Michael Mahlberg tweeted the following:
RT @NolanBushnell: At Atari we hired based on hobbies and not grades in school. We ended up with the best engineering group in the world.I liked that comment and followed up with a supporting tweet:
On Hiring: if a résumé or cover letter doesn't describe Hobbies or other Interests, I usually skip it.This sparked some conversation on twitter and I want to elaborate on my comment here.
