Well that title may sound a little out of place at first read but Architects are all time interviewing and selecting people for their organizations and projects. Now what is the difference between a HR recruiter and an Architect selecting people? Well there is a hell of a difference! While the HR guy might focus on soft skills, attitude and general likeability and cost-to-company factors of the person being interviewed, the architect has a different stick for measuring the worth of the candidate. This is the context of this blog and will be expanded further.
Recruiting Challenges
The job market is more volatile and in flux than ever and there is a serious shortage of skilled IT resources world over. Really good people with matching skill sets that required for projects are difficult to find and the whole process is time consuming and error prone. Hundreds of recruiters or head hunters are on constant lookout for any body that even remotely matches the skill set requirements. Even though a die-hard recruiter may get some people onboard, there is no guarantee that the person will hang around long enough. There is always another one showing him the better carrot! It is simple driven by the demand-supply equations in the marketplace. This often results in compromises on the candidate quality and ultimately the quality of the projects being delivered on the IT scenarios.
Architect as a Technical Recruiter.
Most often in many organizations the technical interview rounds are conducted by Architects or technical project managers and by technical leads in reverse order. The idea is to filter out the most unlikely candidate before he reaches the technical leaders and saves their valuable time.
The Interview Principles
A well prepared candidate shows focus, confidence and smooth interaction with the absence of doodling and verbal mitigation. Similarly a well prepared and organized architect shows equal poise, finesse and composure conducting the interview without appearing jerky, rude or condescending to the candidate. Both the candidate and the architect should finish the process with good afterthoughts.
Technical Roles, Positions, Designations and Responsibilities
Every architect should be clear about the role or position for which he is recruiting. This is absolutely important since it is very easy to get carried away and ask the wrong questions to the candidate who might be stumped with nervousness and may give the wrong picture at the end. Below are some of the roles that may needed to be performed.
- Developer/Sr Developer
- Technical Lead
- Project Lead
- Business Domain Analyst/Expert
- Application Architect
- Technical Architect
- Enterprise Architect
The lower rungs of the roles/positions ) Developer through Enterprise Architect) calls for a more focused technology specific knowledge and expertise ranging from individual focused skill set to team mentoring, leadership and evangelistic skills that are applicable across domains of technologies, platforms and industries.
Described below is a general approach in selecting candidates that is built upon my experience hiring candidates for all positions mentioned above.
Candidate Functional Analysis
Let us focus on the candidate’s general skill types. Overall a candidate may match a purely technical , purely managerial or a techno managerial function. Further he or she may be a research and development oriented, academic, operational ( project delivery oriented).
Candidate Credibility Analysis
While it is nearly impossible to judge a candidate in the usually short time of the interview process, still an attempt can be made to ascertain the credibility factors.
Foremost in this effort would be the competence. The candidate has to prove his competence through the answers for the questions posed to him or her. The quality of the answers, often give the clue to the content (knowledge or expertise) whether it is hallow or solid. Sometimes the correctness of the answer may not be that significant compared to the approach. For e.g. Knowing by easy recall some obscure method of an equally obscure class deep in the API of a programming language may not signify an expertise but a particular approach to solve a problem might reflect competence, maturity and experience.
Secondly it is the character aspect. Character signifies honesty and in-your-face simplicity and attitude that is real and that comes forth naturally to him or her when you talk to a candidate. There is no dual sense. no beating around the bush and no playing games.
Thirdly it is composure aspect. How the candidate is mentally, emotionally composed in handling abrupt and unpredictable influences and events that affect to his overall psyche and personae. Candidates that display high composure are usually easy going, cool tempered and rational and are likely to handle themselves well in any eventuality instead of creating a scene or a mess.
Next on the list is the High-energy. Candidates who repeatedly are achievers, high-performers are seldom 9 to 5 employees who mind only office or home one at a time at a give time. They are often people with chaos around except that the constant chaos results in a positive outcome each time every time. They often display leadership and a certain self max-ing that energizes the team around them to perform and achieve.
The last but not the least is likeability. How an employee is liked and accepted by his peers, subordinates, superiors is often the significant factor in that employee’s appraisal and growth.
In the next post we will look at the inter-personal aspects, candidate enrollment, vision, expectations and other aspects that are significant in the process of technical recruitment.
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