If you want to hire a user interface designer you get to see their portfolio and you will immediately see the quality of their work.

If you want to hire a software engineer, you can see their code and see what it is that they can produce.

But when it comes to hiring product managers for software businesses, it's not quite as straightforward.

When you look at the role of a product manager you see that they identify someone else's needs and turn them over to others to…

The great American comedian Jerry Seinfeld is quoted as saying that “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

We can all understand this feeling as we’ve all felt the fear of having to stand up and talk in front of others…

Scenario:

You are in the process of hiring for a role that has a lot of technical skills requirements, however, the team is very collaborative and communicates a lot on how they will work together to achieve a specific result.  

Question:

What tests can you put together that will illustrate the candidate's soft skills in this area?

It's a…

I’ve hired a lot of people in my time. From cashiers and ushers when I managed cinemas, through client service managers when working in digital agencies, through to software engineers, data analysts, and marketing managers when working in software startups.

Some of the hires were successful and some less so, but one thing the most successful ones had in common was the ability to communicate. They were capable of talking to their colleagues, or to customers or partners about the needs…

You’ve gone to the effort of writing a job description, creating some online adverts or engaging a recruiter to find you someone, but have you really thought through who your business needs? 

"Of course” I hear you cry. “Why would we bother doing all those things if we didn’t know what we needed to recruit for?”…

Following the recent purchase of my last company I’ve been spending a bit of time talking to other businesses about working with them and it’s been quite surprising how much the businesses have focused on what I can do for them and not what they can do for me.

Yes, if you’re looking to hire someone to come and do some work for you, absolutely you need to find out if they can do the job. For me…

Dear business owner,

You need to fill a role within your business in order to achieve your strategic goals, and you entrust the job to either an internal recruiter, an external recruiter or a department head to get it done. You want a specific type of person to help you fill a skills gap and deliver on your targets. And you need them now.…