Following up on my earlier post on good things to look for in people when you are hiring - Recruit the internet-savvy – I picked up on some useful notes whilst at TechCrunch’s GeeknRolla on recruiting into startups, which I think are useful for pretty much any organisation. I also think it’s interesting to think how public services can learn from the culture of startup businesses, including around recruitment.

The talk was by Pete Smith from Songkick, which is a service that lets you track all sorts of information about your favourite live music acts, such as upcoming concerts, videos and recordings.

Here’s the notes:

• Hiring is a top challenge for a startup and getting it wrong can serious affect momentum
• Always be hiring
• Better not to hire though, rather than to compromise on talent and drive
• Very inefficient to hire from outside your network – plan for this
• Grow your network as it’s the best way to hire good people
• Have a hiring roadmap, build it into other choices: buildings, perks, and the tech you use
• Risk taking in hiring comes later in a startup’s life, not early on
• Vet applications ruthlessly before even meeting people
• Spend as much time growing your network as you do looking at ‘non-network’ candidates
• Hiring devs – use coding exercises then phone interview, then tech interview, then a ‘pairing session’ (not sure what that is)
• Everyone you hire initially is vital to establishing the culture of your startup
• How to recover from hiring errors: make sure you leave things on a good note. Don’t let people leave under a cloud. Make decision quickly but manage the exit – don’t let it drag on. Better to leave work undone than allow the wrong people to keep going.

These thoughts chime in with some activity coming out of the IDeA with regard to talent management, recruit and workforce planning. In the current financial climate, there is a lot of talk of cuts and redundancies which has the potential to be incredibly damaging.

So, the IDeA have launched an online resource, on ‘organisational redesign‘ with some useful case studies and guidance. A thriving community of practice also exists too (with various layers of sign-up required).

I honestly believe that local authorities could make massive improvements to their efficiency and levels of service if they recruited better, and made better use of the talent they already have. I consider myself to be a great example of the failings of local government workforce management. Some of the things that are important, I think, are:

• To get people to do a good job, they need a good job to do
• Innovators and the enthusiastic should not be treated as troublemakers or weirdos, but be treasured and made to feel special
• Staff should be trusted. If you genuinely can’t trust all of them, give the good ones leeway
• Give people the tools they need to be able to do their job well
• Value things like curiosity, generosity, cooperation and openness
• Allow the good people in your organisation to find each other
• Have proper systems and processes in place for inventive people to be able to suggest and progress good ideas

The IDeA are also organising an event in Birmingham on 19th May, called ‘Designing a fit for the future organisation‘. I’m going, because it sounds pretty interesting. Hope to see others there.

Possibly related posts:

• Bookmarks for March 30th through April 5th
• Mobile opportunities
• Bookmarks for May 14th through June 2nd
• Bookmarks for April 19th through April 23rd
• Transformed by You evaluation

The Telegraph had an interesting article this week: MI5 dumps spies who can’t use Facebook and Twitter:

Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Parliamentary subcommittee on counter-terrorism, told the Daily Mail: “As terrorism changes, counter-terrorism officers have to adapt to keep up.

‘Our enemies use every available method to attack including using technology. We have to be aware of the imminent threats of cyber attacks and the old generation of MI5 have to be completely comfortable using computers and the latest technology.”

You might not be surprised to learn that I’d recommend hiring internet-savvy candidates, no matter what position it is you are trying to fill. Think about it – what makes a good member of a team?

I reckon that the behaviour and attitude that the internet encourages are things that make for great employees:

• curiosity
• generosity
• openness
• cooperation

Of course, if you do hire people like this, you’ll need to provide them with a working environment in which they’ll want to stay.

“Always hire the internet-savvy” is a similar message to what the 37 Signals guys say in Getting Real about good writers:

That’s because being a good writer is about more than words. Good writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit. They think clearly. And those are the qualities you need.

Mary blogged about recruitment recently, referring to a speech by the American academic Dennis Kimbro. Some attitudes about this issue in local government, as Mary notes, are worrying.

Possibly related posts:

• Open Leadership
• Bookmarks for April 25th through April 30th
• Productivity, responsiveness and lighter weight
• More on recruitment and talent management
• Bookmarks for April 11th through April 16th