An Agile Approach to Hiring Engineers

Many technology companies have implemented agile methodologies in order to deliver products more efficiently with greater reliability. A few reasons development teams have adopted the agile approach include increased customer satisfaction, collaboration within teams, constant feedback, reduction of risk, and adaptability to change.

It’s not rocket science to figure out why so many companies have adopted (or are in the process of adopting) agile methodology.

In fast-paced work environments, waterfall methodologies have fallen short because they’re plan-driven and change is discouraged – which simply doesn’t work when you’re trying to do things quickly, efficiently, and your original strategy isn’t working the way you expected it to. 

If the agile approach has proven to be so effective within development teams, why haven’t other groups caught on yet? Although the agile manifesto is ultimately geared toward producing a successful product that the consumer is ultimately gaining value from – this idea can easily be applied to other divisions within a company.

Everyone hates HR. Everyone hates recruiters.

“I’ve never met one of you who didn’t suck. I’ve never known an HR person who had anything but a mediocre mentality.” - Steve Jobs

For about 99.9% of HR professionals, I would have to agree with Steve Jobs. Companies continue to devalue HR as an important part of their business – but usually with good reason. "HR Nightmare" – ever heard this term before? HR & Talent Acquisition teams are never thought of as an important resource contributing to a company’s overall business value.

So, why have company's settled with having mediocre HR & Talent departments?

Why does HR & Talent Acquisition need to be looked down upon? Have companies simply given up hope that it's possible to have highly effective and strategic HR & Talent teams? The increasing demand for software engineering talent is continuing to put more pressure on companies to hire the right talent for their team. If there was clear communication between teams and HR/Talent departments felt more heavily invested in their companies and knew how their contributions could make an impact on their overall business goals – both sides would benefit. There are a lot of different areas you could apply agile methodology within HR & Talent teams, but here I’m going to focus on the hiring process.

Let’s take a look at the core values of the Agile Manifesto:

           Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools.

           Working software over comprehensive documentation.

           Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

           Responding to change over following a plan.

Now let’s see how we can translate these values into the hiring process:

           Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools.

           Hiring the right employees over comprehensive documentation.

           Candidate collaboration over salary negotiation.

           Responding to change over following a plan.

Not much changed, right? – Here’s a brief overview of how this can be applied:

1.    Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

Companies track their hiring process through their ATS, gather job requirements from the hiring manager, & schedule interviews – yet there is not much interaction between HR/Talent teams and the teams they are hiring for aside from the surface level communication that occurs when transitioning from one step of the hiring process to the next. Managers and team members involved in the interview process also need to have clear communication, because they will be able to evaluate a candidate on a deeper level rather than giving a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” and pushing them off to the next stage.

Focus on individual strengths and how those skills can be utilized to ensure the right candidates are being hired. At the end of the day you’re hiring people, and every person is different – so using the same process for every candidate that comes through the pipeline may not be the most effective approach.

2.    Hiring the right employees over comprehensive documentation.

Why do we interview candidates? To hire great employees for our team. The hiring process gets messy, and we try to document each step along the way. Here’s an example: Candidate takes code test (check!) – candidate meets a few people on the team (check!) – candidate meets the hiring manager (check!) – all boxes are checked, so you’re ready to make an offer right?

Interviews are very superficial, and it’s really hard to get a good view of a candidate and how they’ll work with the team from a few rounds of interviews. Just because all the boxes are checked and the documented information looks right doesn’t mean a candidate is right for your team. How many times have you thought a candidate looked great, but their actual skill set doesn't reflect what you saw in the interview?

It’s extremely important to make sure that your team has a clear view of who they want to hire, and what they’re looking for when their interviewing a candidate vs. “hearing what they want to hear”. Teams need to establish what values are important to their team, what type of people currently succeed on their team, and how they can identify those qualities in potential candidates during the interview process. You are hiring people – people that you’ll have to work with every day – don’t hire someone just because you have an open role to fill. Who cares if everything on paper looks great if that person ultimately won’t be successful on your team?

3.    Candidate collaboration over salary negotiation.

Sometimes the first thing asked before the hiring process even starts is “what’s the salary range?” - on both sides of the equation. Of course this factor plays an important role in the candidate’s final decision, but that shouldn’t be the sole reason they want to work for your company. Team members need to interview candidates while keeping in mind the fact that this person could potentially be working on their team. The goal is to work with the candidate during the hiring process, rather than intimidate them or focus on how much money it’s going to take to bring them on board.

The goal of interviews & the hiring process really should be to give the candidate as much information as possible about your company, as well as for team members to learn as much information as possible about the candidate in order for both sides to make an informed decision. Do you really want to work at this company? Do we really want to work with this person on a daily basis? Will they fit into the culture of our team? If you’re only thinking of $$$, you’re not focusing on what actually matters. Will you enjoy going to work every day? Will you take pride in the work that you’re doing at this company? Is this candidate passionate about the same things our team is passionate about? If the salary seems right but the answer is ‘no’ to any of these questions, it may be time to re-evaluate.

4.    Responding to change over following a plan. 

Companies usually have a linear process they follow when interviewing candidates. For engineering, many times this includes an HR Screen, Phone interview with a member of the technical team, coding test, and on-site interview with the rest of the team. Most of the time this process may work, but it should be used as a generalized structure to fall back on. Every candidate is different, so the hiring process cannot be treated the same for everyone. As one example, I’ll use employee referrals. Sometimes there is a candidate interested in your company that another team member has referred, but they aren’t convinced they want to work for you – and they aren’t actively looking for a job. Why would they be inclined to take a code test following an HR interview?

 Hiring technical talent is extremely difficult, and only becoming more challenging as the demand for skills rises. How do you think the same process will work for every candidate that comes through the pipeline? If your team is having trouble finding the right people, or heavily reliant on agencies, you might want to come up with some new ideas. My point is, that every case is different, and you can’t expect the same process to generate the same results every time – especially when you’re dealing with people. 

Final Thoughts

I could go a lot more in depth on the hiring process, but wanted to give a quick overview of how easily agile methodology can be translated into other parts of your business. In my next few blogs, I'll be going over how to apply this to recruitment, team success, engagement, and overall, how it fits into the big picture of running a successful business.