At Face Value

I’ve hired a lot of people over the years. Both for my own businesses and on behalf of clients.

One thing most of these hirings have had in common is taking the successful candidates – well, all the candidates, really – at face value.

Which is to say, believing the things they say about themselves – about their character, their abilities, their experience, their needs, etc.. A bit like UPR (Unconditional Positive Regard).

Background

At the time, we needed an IEEE 754 floating point package for our commercial Modula-2 compiler. At that time our compiler only supported integer math, and for greater commercial appeal we decided floating point support was also necessary.

So we looked for someone with floating point implementation experience. We found someone who said he had such experience, and we took him at face value.

Nicklas

Let’s dive into our experience with Niklas. He was a student from Germany looking for some summer work experience in London. We had a chat over the phone, and invited him to join us. He took us up on the offer, and came to stay and work with us. His work was outstanding. Everything he had claimed, and more. He accomplished the necessary in two months. It would have taken me six.

Trust or Doubt

How likely is it that new hires are going to be impressed that the hiring manager, team or organisation doubts their word? Is doubt any constructive basis upon which to start building a positive relationship? Lack of trust, much?

How do you deal with candidates’ claims and representation of themselves? Scepticism or respect? Doubt, or trust?

– Bob