Dude, doesn’t it sound like you are trying to find someone who is similar to you? Same in case of marriage

If someone is so good, they better be working at google, microsoft.

The challenge is not to find similar people. But to identify people who has the potential. It seems people who dont blog, not on linkedin, didnt contribute to OSS don’t really qualify. Is that so?

Thank God for he didn’t create his replica in everyone of us and didn’t put an entry bar. I wish God was on linkedin & I would have connection to him. Nobody would refuse me then. Hahaha

On a side note, I have met someone who worked in java & moved to .net and working as an architect. And, I liked his thoughts on software and code blah blah

He doesn’t have a blog, is not on social networks. He has a family, 4 kids. He updates himself to be good at what he does. But you cannot find him on the web.

I guess, he will fail the 1st item in the list (google him). There are people living/working and google search doesn’t recognize them. And, there are companies (which are in business) solely for the purpose of improving the pagerank of their client.

The list is good in theory but should not be the basis for eliminating people for interview.

That is my point of view.

Are there 500 such high caliber people in this organization ?

I am an HR person and I completely understand what Naresh means to say. It has definitely become a new trend to check candidates on the social networking and other online areas. It helps in getting a better peak into the candidates personal as well as professional life. Facebook and Linked in definitely showcase a candidates social as well as professional networking abilities.
Younger companies (by younger i mean the low average age group) would definitely want employees who think alike and share common interests.
But all said, being not technically active does not prove people not worthy, it just reduces the chances of their CVs getting picked. 
Lastly I like the idea of having the quiz and case study on the company website and people taking it. It can actually does a first cut of shortlisting, thereby saving some time for acquisition.

While I certainly agree with the heading of this blog and most of its content, I would like to add in a few thoughts. Probably, from an organization’s culture and recruiting criterion perspective, using the above mentioned points might be a good way to match applicants to the organization, it necessarily does not mean that those that do not meet the set criteria of filtering would not make good hires, or not good matches to the company or the job.

It is the classic case of pigeons and holes. There are n positions in a(ny) company, and there is at least n+1 applicants. (Assume…) The sizes of the holes are probably varied (…which act as the filtering criterion) and hence looking for exact fitting birds is probably organizationally correct, while the fact remains that there might be certain smaller birds that can grow to fit in, there might be some larger birds that can (diet?) and fit in.

Arguments against the stated points:
1) How does an applicant’s online or offline activities, community work etc. make a difference in who the person is, and how capable s/he might be? There are truck loads of open-source contributors who choose to keep their presence low-profile. I personally know a few wanna-be and/or entrepreneurs that have a full-time job and very quietly work late nights on stealth mode on their dreams. Reasons may vary from something as simple as social shyness to keeping their full-time jobs safe (against the non-compete, or non-parallel employment clauses in their employment contracts)

2) While linkedin is a good way to find passive candidates, or get in-sights about their non-marketing side (the fact remains that the resume is a personal marketing document, like a me-the-best-applicant brochure); does it mean that every applicant has to have recommendations on their linkedin profiles? Does everyone go about asking for recommendations? Wouldn’t you agree with the possibility that there are loads of people who would choose for their work to speak and get themselves recommendations, and their wait is probably indefinite because the expected recommenders are not even aware of the existence of linkedin?

What I am coming to is not a complete disagreement with what you say, but just a note that perspectives and opinionation is the fundamental cause of the belief system that adds on to recruiting. As a recruiter, I personally have some biases which I try to overcome but fail. I have come to realize that keeping a blank mind and objectively trying to match an applicant’s (observed) capabilities with the job requirements helps best in hiring.

In fact, I would go to the extent saying that having multiple interviews with each skill being observed by at least 2 interviewers helps in arriving at a consensus better than having to rely on one or a set of independently assessing interviewers. Moreover, since each unique job requires unique skills, the system has to be capable of adapting itself to suit all possible hiring scenarios.

My conclusion: Maybe, just maybe, from an organizational culture, hiring extravorted personnel might be a part of the hiring process (in the sense that applicants go out and mail managers’ and peers’ to write recommendations), but that just leads to opinionatedness of the interviewer before even meeting or speaking with the applicant.

@Kalpesh, if someone doesn’t blog, is not on social networking sites, doesn’t contribute to OSS, doesn’t participate in user groups and conferences, they might not be a straight reject. It depends on their project and how passionately they have presented themselves in their resume. If someone does these things, then they surely have a +ve point.

If I have time to only interview 1 person and I have to choose between 2, I would any-day prefer the one who does these things.

There are multiple dimensions to this.

Goal is to make the recruitment process more efficient.
Today in the IT industry, when it comes to finding talented and potential individuals, we are dealing with “finding a needle from a haystack” problem. So the question is how do you quickly find the good folks without getting bogged down with all the noise?
Having a high recruitment standard in lots of ways acts as a self-filter and encourages the good folks to approach us
We want to hire folks who have similar aspirations and passion and yet bring diversity to the company. Diversity is very important, but wavelengths have to resonate.

@Rahul, Does Directi have 500 people who meet this criteria? Unfortunately not everyone meets this criteria list. But does that mean we should not aim for the best? Directi has learnt a lesson over the last decade and now we don’t want to compromise on quality of people.

Our believe is that its better to find 1 good guy rather than 10 average people. This model is far more scalable and sustainable than creating a software factory model.

How this approach can be terribly wrong? Due to mistaken identity or due to things taken out of the context they were written.

There are tons of cases like this the ones below, and some even related and reported to be the cause of job loosing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/mar/31/subodh-gupta-mistake

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/02/10/facebook-photos-destroy-job-opportunities/

Even this comment I “allegedly” post now can cause me issues in the future

1,
Lopo

@Vijay, I appreciate your feedback. I agree with all your points. Please note that the points mentioned in the blog are guidelines NOT RULES. It would be stupid not to inspect and adapt. It would be stupid to think one process will server all roles and for all individuals.

We obviously do a lot more stuff than what you have highlighted. As I mentioned in my post, this is the second step. We have at least 6 more different types of interview rounds. Some being a knock-out round and some purely to give us more insights.

@ Directi we also encourage people to come work for us for 2 weeks, if they clear our interview and they want to join us, we’ll pay them for the 2 weeks.

Thanks for your reply.

I read your comments directed towards Rahul
<snip>
Our believe is that its better to find 1 good guy rather than 10 average people. This model is far more scalable and sustainable than creating a software factory model.
</snip>

Makes sense. But, how many companies (other than big names such as google, msft, yahoo, thoughtworks etc) can you come across in the space you are good at (considering you come from java/.net background), which are not “software factory”?

And to be honest, “software factory” is a degrading term to use. That implies that others are not as good as we are. Sure, other companies don’t have high criteria for software delivery & advancement. That doesn’t mean that people working in “factory” are not wanting to do better than to do a 10-10 job (mon-fri).

Like I said before, it is the potential that matters

If you look at my resume, you will see that I worked in factories and you won’t find any of the things but that doesn’t mean that I am no good

BTW, I like the idea of 2 weeks job (try and then buy)
I might approach you when I come down to Mumbai soon

@Naresh
<snip>
Directi has learnt a lesson over the last decade and now we don’t want to compromise on quality of people.
</snip>

You are very lucky that the company follows this ideology. Most of the places including product companies , they bravely start off with this mantra…..but gradually mellow down for various reasons…mostly because they fail to fill all the posts with good candidates and are running short of time. Very few companies stick to the idea that small but good team can delivery far better results than a large team with mixed capabilities.

At the end it all boils down to the company’s vision, for some; one path is good and for others it may not be that fruitful. The challenge I feel is for the companies who stick to their selection criteria. Such firms and people behind these firms deserve to be applauded because I would assume they know how to manage good people and keep them happy and not just hire them.

I could still do all of the above and yet not have a searchable web presence.  I may have a blog which is private, I may be contributing to OSS and participating in forums under a pseudonym for privacy concerns.  Or perhaps I may have written an implicating article or participated in flaming during some weak moments. Perhaps I asked a dumb technical question on a forum once and got flamed because I was too new to the technology when I asked it.  Maybe my contribution to OSS is limited to monkey patching.

The trouble with someone’s web personality is that it either tells very little or too much about the real person.  What’s more, it is not that difficult to create a false personality on the internet to impress potential employers.

So it would be dumb to do any kind of screening based on these factors. These factors can at best be used to validate your own assessment of the candidate. Everything else is just too voyeuristic and unethical.

Rahul, think of it as finding out more about you on the net.  Flaming someone, or behaving once or twice as a retard doesn’t rule you out.

Having a consistent pattern of being retarded can rule you out.

What the whole social networking/Google process amounts to is finding out your reputation in this field.
Do you have a good reputation amongst your peers?
Can I see your coding style and see if it matches what we want, or do you need training, or can we learn from you instead?
Do you have a life (or lack thereof)?

Reputation is the currency of the brave new web 2.0 world. How rich are you?

Easiest way to evaluate Candidates : Zoho Challenge
http://challenge.zoho.com/

Create Online Quizzes – evaluate your candidates or give them practice tests

Easiest way to evaluate Candidates : Zoho Challenge
http://challenge.zoho.com/

Create Online Quizzes – evaluate your candidates or give them practice tests