MBA2477 Q&A Wednesday: I need to hire a developer. How do I make the right hire without stressing out?

Wed Jun 05 2024

Are you in the market for hiring a full-time developer and feeling stressed about making the right choice? Do you find the technical hiring process overwhelming, especially when you aren’t familiar with the intricacies of the role? You're not alone, and today's Q&A Wednesday episode is here to help you navigate this critical task with confidence and ease.

Summary

The $100 MBA Show - Episode MBA2477 Summary

Title: MBA2477 Q&A Wednesday: I need to hire a developer. How do I make the right hire without stressing out?

Host: Omar Zenhom
Release Date: June 5, 2024

Introduction

In this episode of The $100 MBA Show, award-winning host Omar Zenhom addresses a fundamental challenge faced by many entrepreneurs: hiring the right developer without succumbing to undue stress and overwhelm. Drawing from over two decades of entrepreneurial experience and the successful scaling of his own software company, Webinar Ninja, Omar provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to making informed hiring decisions that can significantly impact your business's success.

Listener Question

The episode centers around a question from Michelle, who asks:

"I need to hire a full-time developer. How do I make the right hire for an engineer without stressing out and getting overwhelmed?"
— Michelle [00:48]

Omar acknowledges the complexity and critical importance of this decision, sharing insights from his extensive experience in hiring and managing technical talent.

Omar’s Experience with Hiring Developers

Omar begins by emphasizing the profound impact that hiring the right developer can have on a business:

"Making the right hire in your business, especially in a critical position, a critical hire like an engineer... is going to make a huge difference in your bottom line because you're improving your product and therefore you're able to really demand higher prices and a better experience for your customers."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

He also candidly shares the consequences of a poor hiring decision:

"I know firsthand because I made it wrong in the technical space in my software company. That cost me nearly half a million dollars."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

Step-by-Step Hiring Process

Omar outlines a meticulous hiring process designed to minimize risk and ensure a successful hire. His approach is divided into several key stages:

1. Mindset for Hiring

Omar underscores the importance of patience and strategic thinking:

"You should have the mentality of taking your time with hiring... it's better to hire slowly, to take your time to find the best person, not anybody who could do it."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

He advocates for a measured approach, even if it means the hiring process extends over several months, highlighting:

"Trusting people in your business, when you hire somebody, you're trusting them to take care of your baby, the thing that you built, and to make it better."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

2. Crafting the Job Description

A well-crafted job description is crucial for attracting the right candidates. Omar recommends a three-part structure written in conversational language:

a. What the Job Is:
Detail the specific responsibilities and day-to-day tasks.

b. Why Work Here:
Sell the position by highlighting growth opportunities and the quality of the team.

c. About the Company:
Share the company's story, mission, and vision to align candidates with your purpose.

"Be specific, get real, don't try to sugarcoat it. It's better for you to set people up with the right expectation."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

3. Application Process

Omar emphasizes the role of the application process in filtering candidates:

Use a Google Form:
Simple and free, it allows you to ask pertinent questions related to the role.
Video Submission:
Candidates are asked to submit a two-minute video answering a prompt. This step serves as a critical filter to assess communication skills and cultural fit.

"This part of the application is a huge filter... most people don't do this part. We make it optional for a reason."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

4. Cultural Interview

Before diving into technical evaluations, Omar recommends a cultural interview to ensure alignment with the company's values and team dynamics.

"The cultural interview allows you to know, hey, do I want to hang out with this person more? Because you're going to hang out with them every day."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

This initial interview is brief (15-30 minutes) and focuses on assessing whether the candidate will thrive within the existing team culture.

5. Technical Interview

Following a successful cultural interview, the candidate proceeds to a technical interview designed to evaluate their practical skills and problem-solving abilities.

"It's not for them to have a perfect result, but more about how they work through the problem and how they use their resources."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

Omar describes typical technical assessments, such as live coding sessions or role-playing scenarios, tailored to the specific role. These interviews are often lengthy (up to 2 hours) and are recorded for further review.

6. Trial Period and OverHiring

To further mitigate risk, Omar suggests implementing a trial period:

"Putting them on a trial, trying verifying before you actually commit... this says we need to extend the amount of time we see and work with each other before we make a commitment."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

Additionally, he introduces the concept of overhiring, where multiple candidates are hired on a trial basis to identify the best fit.

"Hire two or three people for this position and then commit to whoever is the best person."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]

Key Insights and Strategies

Throughout the episode, Omar shares several valuable strategies for effective hiring:

Prioritize Communication Skills:
Especially for technical roles, the ability to communicate effectively is paramount. Omar believes that the best engineers are also great communicators who can articulate their ideas clearly.
Use Video Submissions as a Filter:
Video responses help assess a candidate's initiative, personality, and communication style, serving as a powerful initial filter.
Cultural Fit Over Technical Skills:
Ensuring that a candidate aligns with the company culture can prevent long-term mismatches, even if the candidate is technically proficient.
Trial Periods Reduce Long-Term Risk:
Implementing a probationary period allows both parties to assess fit and performance before committing to a long-term relationship.
Overhiring Increases Chances of Success:
By interviewing multiple candidates simultaneously, employers can more effectively identify the best fit for the role.

Conclusion

Omar concludes by reinforcing the value of investing time and resources into a thorough hiring process:

"The reason why you want to hire the best person for this job is because the best person is going to be worth whatever you have to pay them. They produce so much more results like they 10x the results that you get with an average person and therefore they're worth whatever they need to get paid."
— Omar Zenhom [End of Episode]

He emphasizes that a strong team is the cornerstone of a competitive business, asserting:

"The way you're going to out compete your competition is with you, your team."
— Omar Zenhom [End of Episode]

Omar wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to implement these strategies to build a more efficient, cohesive, and high-performing team, ultimately driving their business toward greater success.

Notable Quotes

"You should have the mentality of taking your time with hiring."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]
"Trusting people in your business, you're trusting them to take care of your baby."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]
"Most people don't do this part. We make it optional for a reason."
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]
"The cultural interview allows you to know, hey, do I want to hang out with this person more?"
— Omar Zenhom [00:48]
"The best person is going to be worth whatever you have to pay them."
— Omar Zenhom [End of Episode]

Final Thoughts

This episode serves as an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs and business owners seeking to enhance their hiring processes. Omar Zenhom's methodical approach, grounded in real-world experience and strategic foresight, offers actionable steps to secure top-tier talent while minimizing the inherent stresses of recruitment. By following his guidance, listeners can build stronger, more effective teams that drive their businesses to new heights.

Learn more and access additional resources at https://100mba.net.

Transcript

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Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra default terms@mintmobile.com hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, helping you build a better business with our practical business lessons. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. And today's episode is Q and A Wednesday where we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you've got a question you want to ask, go ahead and email me over at omar@100mba.net. Today's question is from Michelle and Michelle asks I need to hire a full time developer. How do I make the right hire for an engineer without stressing out and getting overwhelmed? Fantastic question Michelle. And you're in luck because I have interviewed and hired literally dozens of engineers as I was building my software company, Webinar Ninja, which I grew to over 30,000 users and then just recently sold and had an exit. In today's episode, I'll be sharing with you my exact process for hiring any employee and then also specifically how to hire a developer whenever you're hiring anybody, but especially a technical role, maybe a role that you're not familiar with or have technical knowledge in. Things can get risky. You need to know how to evaluate people and attract the right people for the job. I'm going to show you how in today's lesson. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Making the right hire in your business, especially in a critical position, a critical hire like an engineer, like a developer who's going to help you develop your software or your app, their impact on your business is going to be crucial. It's actually going to make a huge difference in your bottom line because you're improving your product and therefore you're able to really demand higher prices and a better experience for your customers. But on the flip side, making the wrong hire can cost you a lot. I know firsthand because I made it higher in the technical space in my software company that cost me nearly half a million dollars. So in today's episode, I'm going to go through the process that I went through and refined so I don't make that mistake again. And how to attract the right people to your business so that you don't make a costly mistake. The first thing I want to start with is you should have the mentality of taking your time with hiring. I'm not saying slow walk it or procrastinate. I'm saying that it's better to hire slowly, to take your time to find the best person, not anybody who could do it, because getting it wrong can be quite costly. Like I mentioned, they say in business it's best to hire slowly and fire quickly to stop the bleeding as soon as you notice it's not working out. So it's actually better to take your time with hiring, even if it takes a. A few months to make that higher. That's a more strategic move. I know that sounds, you know, a little bit not attractive. Maybe you want to make this higher quickly so you can get some work off your table or to move a project forward, but you should allow enough time to make the right hire. Sometimes you get lucky and the right person comes earlier than you expect. But plan to take your time. Don't rush this. This is not something you rush. Trusting people in your business, when you hire somebody, you're trusting them to take care of your baby, the thing that you built, and to make it better. Next, I believe that 50% of all the hassles and the stress and the risk of hiring can be solved through the application process. You want to make sure you're attracting the right people. And how do you attract them well through that application process? So what we'd like to do is when we post a job, we have a very clear job description. I don't recommend you look at other job descriptions that have a similar role that you're hiring for and trying to kind of copy it or borrow from it. I like a 3 part job description that is written in layman's terms in just conversational language. So the three parts of this job description is talking about what the job is, what your responsibilities are and what you're expected to do. Like literally what is the day to day actions they're going to do, what are they going to be responsible for, what are they actually going to be doing every day? So for an engineer, it could be pushing weekly code to improve and update our software, solving bugs every single Thursday, whatever it is, okay? Be specific, get real, don't try to sugarcoat it. It's better for you to set people up with the right expectation. Part two is why why should you work here? This is where you actually sell the job to the they're going to sell themselves because they want the job, but you have to also sell why they should work there. One of the things that we say is we're going to challenge you to grow. And most of the people that work at our company say that they do their best work of their careers with us. You might want to say, hey, we only hire a players, so you're going to be working with other talented people. Again, this part is all about why they would want to work there. Third part, a bit about the company, the story behind why you started it and the vision, the mission, what you're really doing this for, the why behind your purpose and the reason why you get up in the morning to do your business. They need to be sold on what they're joining, the mission they're about to take on. So this is really important and this is something that you should include in your job description. Now you might be saying what about qualifications, what about experiences, what are you looking for here? I mean, you can include that if you'd like in your job description. But honestly, anytime somebody applies and we'll talk about the application process, they're going to include their LinkedIn, they're going to include their CV, they're going to include the resume and you can find out, you can filter what their experience is and then you can choose. Okay, but if you write what they actually have to do that really matters, if they have done it before, then they're going to apply. Next is the application process. So at the bottom of the job description we say apply here and there's a link to a Google form. Very simple. A Google form is easy to create, it's free to create. And basically this is a form that we ask them a bunch of questions about that job role to give us examples of when they solved certain problems we'll need them to solve in the future in the job. So this is basically a chance for them to tell us stories about their past. If this is a remote job, we ask questions like, what's your home setup? What does your office look like? We like to ask questions like give us an example of when you had a conflict with a fellow employee or even your manager and how you resolved it. I know that they can think about this and script this and even use ChatGPT if they want to, but that's okay. I'm okay with them trying to make an effort to answer these questions. And then I can reiterate or ask them in a different way in the interview if they get through. But I want to get some answers from them. I want to learn about how they approach this question or these problems rather than the actual answer. Lastly, and this is very important, especially for a job like an engineer, we ask people to send us a video. They shoot a two minute video answering a question or a prompt that we give them. This could be something so simple, something like share a project or something that you built that you're really proud of and what was the outcome? Or sometimes we get a little deeper and say, share a time where you failed at something horribly and what did you learn from it? Now this part of the whole process is critical because it actually filters out so many people. Number one, many people. You'll be surprised. I would say most people don't do this part. We make it optional for a reason. We don't make it required because we want to see who has the initiative to do it. But if they're not willing to go on camera and talk about themselves, then for us, this is not a good fit because we're going to be talking to each other all the time on video, on zoom calls. I need to see how this person communicates. I need to see in their face how they feel about this job, how they speak about their experience in life and in business or in work. So when they do submit a video, any kind of video, even if it doesn't really, you know, win my heart, it usually means I want to speak to them again. It usually means they're worth an interview. And this is a huge filter, especially for engineers, because engineers for some reason think that their job is just technical and they just are supposed to code. No, they got to communicate. Engineers, the best engineers, are great communicators that communicate their ideas and explain why they're doing something. And Argue for their craft, and that's okay. I need somebody that can communicate with me and the rest of the team, the designers, the support team, the qa, all that. So this part of the application is a huge filter. And I love watching these videos because it gives me an understanding of their personality, how they're approaching the question. I haven't interviewed any, anybody yet in this process. Right now I'm just taking in applications and I filter for those who submitted a video first. I want to see these people first. I want to see if these people qualify for an interview first and if they do, they move on to the next step, which is a initial chat or cultural interview. This is an interview to see if they're a good cultural fit for the company. I like to do this as the initial interview because if they're not a good fit, if there's somebody I don't think would jive with our team, would really enjoy being part of our team, or we would enjoy them being part of our team, then there's no point in doing a technical interview. There's no point in finding out if they actually could do the job if they're not a good cultural fit. A lot of people do the reverse. They do the technical type of interview or assessment and then they do the cultural. I don't like to do that. I like to do the cultural first because this is a quick chat and I can quickly evaluate this in 15, 20, 30 minutes max. A technical interview is a lot more of an investment and it could take, you know, a couple meetings. It could take, you know, two, three hours, especially an engineering position. So usually I like to do this with Nicole, my founder, and we just stack them back to back in a day. So we might do, you know, about 10 cultural interviews in one shot. And we'll have a quick 10 minute discussion after we get off the call and say, hey, how do you feel about this? If we get off the call and we feel like, oh, we want to keep on talking to this person, this person seems interesting. This seems person would fit with our team or has a unique perspective that we don't have right now on our team, then they are checked off and we say pass them to the next step. If we get off the call and we just feel kind of down or feel like maybe kind of meh, nothing really that's special or they really didn't make an effort in the conversation, then we usually say it's a no. And of course there's a total mismatch. They are not a good fit for our team. And you'll know that because you know your own team and your own culture. At that point you can just email them and say, hey, sorry, seems like we're not a good fit, but thanks so much for applying. There is no point in saying we'll reach out if anything else opens up because they didn't pass the cultural fit. Even if something does open up, they're not a good cultural fit.