The Interview

Character is more important than skill

The alarm was singing it's tune. Four o'clock is early even for a farm boy. However, the world is different today. All the promised globalization is happening at every level. I have made calls to China and India and eastern Europe without the slightest thought. Just 30 years ago, those calls would have cost us a small fortune but the internet has changed everything. Here I was sitting in my home with my video conference software up and a call to Cebu in the Philippines to have an interview for a programmer. This was a technical interview and there were 3 of us on the call.

This was a little less interview and a little more 'hands on' assessment. Essentially, we watched the candidate write code based on some sloppy instructions and an example script. It was not purposely difficult, it was a real world example of a request that he would receive. We were not there to discover whether he was a good coder as much as we wanted to know how he would think through a problem.

The struggle was apparent. He began by laying out the basic structures of the program and then you could see him reading and re-reading. At one point, he popped open google and looked up the definition of the word “purge”. English was not is first language and he was attempting to understand the instructions. The tension was building as he began writing pseudo code in an outline format to help guide the code process.

My interviews, according to candidates, are highly irregular. I interview most candidates; and by most I mean MOST. If they come close to the qualifications, I get them on the telephone and talk to them. I want to get to know them, see how they communicate and how they behave. I want to know their character.

I have found that character counts for 85-90% of what I am looking for in a candidate and team member. The tough thing about hiring is that character is not reflected in the resume, you discover it through conversation first and then through their behavior. I have read that a bulk of our communication with one another is found in body gestures, looks, dare I say, the feeling that they impart.

What am I looking for? I am looking for team players, those that can work with others. That means that they understand that they can learn from the most junior on the team and that they don’t necessarily have all of the answers. How much do they think of themselves? Are they confident but not proud? Are they open to listening? Do they take pride in the successes of their teammates?

And what of their desire to improve on their craft? I am looking for that spark of desire, passion and excitement of stretching their knowledge. A hunger for improvement, not only in themselves, but in the team. A desire to teach and be taught.

Finally, I want to see how they conduct themselves with others. Are they respectful? Do they get too familiar too quickly? How are they with our ‘customers’? When I bring someone into the interview that is not the boss, do they pay the same respects to them as they do the ‘Boss’?

Gregory was struggling and it was apparent. I received a call from William. “Gregory would like to speak with you. He has some questions about the test.” I got Tom on the line with him and he fielded the questions. Tom is the one who will have to work with Gregory every day. Their interaction would be important to watch.

Gregory got started, but really didn’t make much progress on the test. Still, I submitted an offer to him before he left the building.