Dear Summer Interns: Your stock is up — like way up. Ten years ago when I was hiring interns at the mothership, my incredibly flawed and shortsighted policy was to hire as many as they’d let me, dole ’em out to the teams that screamed the loudest, and see what happened. There were successes, we… more
Weather permitting, the Netscape pick-up roller hockey game has been played every Saturday since 1996. 14 years. This hockey game has outlasted all but one of my former employers. This is pick-up hockey. If you were to arrive with skates, stick and protective gear, you would discover a chill game where the expectation is that… more
Jesse walked. Monday is the day we set aside for new hires. All the new hires spend the morning learning about the company, figuring out how to create accounts, and becoming indoctrinated in company culture. When lunch time arrives, managers pick up their new employees and take them to lunch. Their morning starts at 9am,… more
This article was written over a decade ago, and business has changed. You can read a much-updated version of this article here. You’ve had a small number of career-defining moments. These are the select few moments in time when the trajectory of your career changed instantly and drastically. I have two buckets of these: ones… more
Just back from Scotland for recruiting. Same universities as last time, St. Andrews and Edinburgh. Last year, this is the trip that inspired the A Glimpse and a Hook article, so it’s appropriate that this year’s trip forces a revision. I bagged on the objective section of the resume in the Glimpse piece, using the… more
If you’re wondering about your next job, there are a series of Rands articles that might make the transition easier. First off, there’s A Glimpse and a Hook, which will describe how managers read your resume. Then we’ve got The Sanity Check, which will prepare you for the phone screen. And finally, there’s Ninety Days,… more
As we discovered in A Glimpse and a Hook, it’s almost a miracle when the phone rings and a recruiter wants to set up a phone screen. The fact is, someone, somewhere in the organization has successfully mapped you to an open position. This is a really big deal because, in my experience, the chance… more
The terrifying reality regarding your resume is that for all the many hours you put into fine-tuning, you’ve got 30 seconds to make an impression on me. Maybe less. It’s unfair, it’s imprecise, and there’s a good chance that I make horrible mistakes, but there’s a lot more of you than me, and while hiring… more
I believe this is the first presidential candidate to have a weblog. http://deancalltoaction.blogspot.com I can’t imagine that mixing Rands in Repose with politics is a good thing, but the guy has a decent platform and I’ve never been more frustrated with the current administration. [3/28/03 Update]: Gary Hart has a blog, as well. My guess… more
A former employee recently asked, “What are questions you ask software engineering management candidates?” These questions really focus on the people-skills for managers. If you’re looking for technical questions, I highly recommend techInterview or stumbling around on Stack Overflow. Lead Off Questions: These are vanilla, boring questions which I use to begin to assess a… more
