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>I have one simple rule: I don’t want to work with people whom I wouldn’t invite for coffee. When hiring a remote team member, I always talk to them about their life plans or favorite books. This small talk shows me whether a person will be a good fit for our team. Hrm.... I was under the impression that people hiring were looking for employees/teammembers/coworkers, not buddies?? I don't personally care if I would enjoy coffee/beer with a coworker as long as they are a good teammate, employee, and coworker. I don't find an team full of people that have the same hobbies and enjoy the same literature particularly beneficial in any way. I just don't think "enjoys the same books as me" is a good test for "makes a good teammate." In the past I have had some absolutely fantastic coworkers that I had absolutely nothing in common with outside of work and would never want to hang out with (stuff like young earth creationists, has a mail order bride younger than his daughter, incredibly sheltered people, and just weird people). OTOH, some people I've become friends with outside of work make for horrible coworkers (stuff like poor work ethic, poor code quality, horrible attitude towards work, primadonnas in a work setting, control freaks at work). I also worked with a guy who just wouldn't talk about anything personal at work with coworkers (boss obviously different) because he believed in a separation between personal life and work life. No problem, he still made a fine coworker. I'd very, VERY strongly discourage asking interviewees about their "life plans," like, seriously, this is a BAD idea. Asking about "life plans" can come across as looking to discriminate against people with families, people who plan to start a family soon, or even people who have certain religious beliefs, which is illegal in many parts of the world, including the US. It might seem like a harmless question if a young male is asking another young male "what are your life plans?" in an interview, but it seems a lot less harmless when the interviewee is a female of childbearing age. If an interviewer asked me "what are your life plans?" I'd assume the subtext was "are you planning on going on maturity leave soon?" Also, what the hell sort of answer to this question would be a "good" answer and what would be a "bad" answer? Are you just looking to hire people with the same life plans as you??? |