This is the first in a possibly occasional series stating obvious (but oft-ignored) facts about hiring programmers. Today’s lesson applies equally well to hiring any technical staff, consultants, managers, lollipop ladies, whoever you want.

Some of this may sound obvious, but despite that, it’s exactly the sort of stuff you (or your non-technical manager) can easily forget when you’re under pressure to hire for that project which is running a bit late, and when you’re perhaps a bit too busy to spend time recruiting. It’s all too easy to forget the basics when confronted with a smooth-talking expert interviewee…

Main Definitions (no credit to Rumsfeld):

• Intelligent people know what they don’t know.
• Stupid people don’t know what they don’t know.
• Naïve people think they know but don’t really.

Secondary Definitions:

• Honest people say when they don’t know something.
• Egotists don’t say when they don’t know something, but quickly go and find out, hoping you won’t notice.
• Sneaky people don’t say when they don’t know something, but cover it with a flurry of technical terms.

Recruitment Advice:

• Everybody is a combination of intelligent, stupid and naïve (yes, including you). It’s best to hire people who are intelligent more often than they are stupid or naïve.
• Hire honest people. Egotists are timewasters, and will always turn sneaky before they turn honest.
• Don’t hire sneaky people. They can be alluring, giving you that warm feeling of saying “yes” a lot and sounding authoritative. You’ll want to hire them, especially if you’re under pressure: Don’t. As H. L. Mencken said, “It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.”
• If you interview someone who knows everything, then it’s possible you may be naïve.
• If you work with someone who says “yes” a little too often when arbitrary technologies are discussed, then it’s possible that they are sneaks.
• Nobody knows everything.

If you hire a sneaky egotist it’s quite possible you won’t realise until you find yourself in the office at 4am rewriting their code, so your interview process must find them out…

…Next Time: How To Know If They Know What They Say They Know.