Tag: job

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The new developer Onboarding Checklist

Ensure a smooth and efficient start of your new team member so he/she feels comfortable and can contribute to your teams’ results as early as possible. 

4 weeks before day one

Plan for a place within your office and verify that the basics are there (desk, chair, power supply, network…)
Order required equipment:
– notebook + docking station
– keyboard & mouse
– LCD monitor
Depending on your company: order ID card(s) and organize whatever entries in your company systems may be required (company ID and directory, email, etc.)
Block time in your calendar for day one. You should have enough time to look after things, introduce the new team member and go through the onboarding plan together.
Block another hour 3 days after day one.

1 week before day one

Make sure ID card and equipment has arrived and is complete.
Depending on your company: have notebook set up with your standard enterprise applications
Prepare the onboarding plan – what will your new team member need to know about your company (you can find a template here: [*]). Make sure to review that plan with the team.
Sit with the team and plan the initial assignments during the first 2..3 weeks. Make sure to leave enough room for startup and learning.

DAY ONE

Take some time to chat and introduce the new one to the team
Explain your companies’ basics – where is the coffee machine, what are the usual office hours (if any), how to you handle work from home, overtime, holidays, business travel etc.
Explain your work context – what is your groups position within the company, who are your customers, what are your interfaces. You have covered some of that during your hiring interview (see [*]) already.
Give a broad overview of the new ones’ role. Maybe leave the details for later. Go through the onboarding plan together. Hand over that plan – your new team member will own it from now on.
Note that onboarding is not done after day one – It is a process that takes much longer

3 days after day one

Now that the dust has settled take some time to discuss what has been happening so far. Answer questions. Are there any issues to solve? How does the new position feel like? Talk about the role and why it is important. What the major success factors? Why does your group exist? What is the new one’s contribution to that?
Fix a date for the next follow-up meeting 3…4 weeks later

3…4 weeks after day one

Collect feedback. What is good? Any help needed? How’s the team? How’s the work context in your place compared to the new one’s past experience? This is also a learning opportunity for yourself.
While you sit together write down 2…4 high level goals and/or desired outcomes. Focus on goals and outcomes, not on tasks. E.g. “ensure that the developed services are highly available” is something concrete and tangible, it could even be measured. You’re not doing this to control and measure but to ensure a good mutual understanding, and to get priorities clear.
Explain your approach for ongoing communication and follow-up on this exercise. Fix a meeting for 3…6 months in the future where you will review results, give credits for achievements, talk about experiences and expections, improvement potentials or whatever needs to be adressed outside of the day-to-day work context. You can find a template in the download section.

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How to set up a high-performance team (part2 – the job interview)

So let’s assume you have published your job offering. What are the next steps to get your dream team together?

If after a few days nobody has contacted you it may be time to re-visit your job offering. Is it clear enough? Are normal human beings able to fulfill your requirements or are you looking for superman? Have you checked if a quick Google search brings up your offering? Put yourself in the shoes of the great people you are looking for – would you find that job, and would you apply for it?

(5) Select job interview candidates 

Let’s assume the first candidates have submitted their CV‘s. Scan them. Does your candidate fit to your job description and profile? Skip the section with the list of skills – everybody can write up such lists. Instead look for former positions where the skills you are looking for have been learned or used. If you look at somebody fresh from college the combination of courses may reveal areas of interest. You want people in your team that are interested in what they are doing – this is where they will achieve remarkable results. Don’t be afraid to hire people that are better than you. You want a team of A-players where the combination of expert skills is more that the sum of the individuals.

There may be also a cover letter. What you want to see in a cover letter is that the person is able to connect his or her CV to your job offering. However if writing skills are not on the very top of your priority list let’s not be overly strict. In general don’t overrate documents – never take a decision based on this information alone. Use it rather to filter out people that don’t seem to fit at all, and use them as starting point for the next step. So invite whoever passes this first scan… If it’s a development position ask your candidate to bring some sample source code to talk about. If it’s a technical writer ask for some sample documentation – whatever is uncritical from IP perspective.

(6) What to asks during the job interview

So here you are, sitting at a table with your candidate if any possible. Skype interviews are only the second best option, without the person-to-person contact you will miss a lot of information. Bring in another colleague or someone from HR to get a second opinion later on. Make sure that there is enough time planned without external disturbance, you’ll probably need 1…2 hours. Don’t forget that the candidate is as much deciding for you as you are deciding for him/her. Lead the conversation, explain what your company is doing, explain the job and how that fits together. This should only take a few minutes. Find out what your candidate knows about your company – the A players will have looked up your website and other available information.

Then let your candidate talk. Listen. Ask questions, get into a conversation. The CV is your guiding line, try to understand the history of that person in front of you. You may ask for achievements your candidate is proud of and the related success factors. Or ask about major challenges in former positions and learnings out of them. Make sure to get at least a few proof points related to the skills that person claims to have. Look at whatever your candidate brought along and have a focused discussion around that. Don’t forget that good conversation skills are not the only thing you are looking for. This is why finding the right people is so hard. Try to get a feeling for how that person would do his job and how he/she would integrate within your existing team. Take notes, ask for questions. Make sure your candidate gets an impression about what’s going on within your local company setup.

(7) Post interview reflection

After the interview ask yourself if this person – to be more precise: this persons’ personality would fit into your team. Discuss it with colleagues. Only if you are comfortable at that level think about the skill set and experience and how it matches up with your profile. You may need a second interview. Follow your head, follow your gut feeling. Talent my be more valuable than some specific piece of knowledge. Knowledge and experience can be acquired over time, talent not. If you are not sure it may be better to continue searching. Wrong people decisions will have a very negative impact on your team, and they are difficult and lengthy to correct. However if you have interviewed several candidates and none of them seems to fit your standards may be unrealistically high.

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