raganwald
Sunday, August 15, 2004
  Would you hire yourself as Chief Geek?
"Technical skills are relatively easily taught and learned. How people communicate with one another, their drive, their sense of responsibility, their problem-solving abilities—those skills are valuable parts of each person."
-- Johanna Rothman in Hire People, not Tools

Johanna's article describes how to hire a great developer. She explains why experience with a specific language or tool is one of the least important factors in a developer's success. If you're hiring right now, the article has direct, obvious relevance.

There's another way to read an article like this: with an eye to self-development. What's the best investment of your personal self-improvement time? Do you really need to memorize what a Left Outer Join does? Or would you obtain a greater benefit from putting together a presentation for your local user's group?

Think of yourself as a corporation with a vacancy for "Chief Geek." What is the real job description? Write it down and identify areas where you can get better. The nice thing about this exercise is, if you don't fit the bill right now, your personal corporation is willing to pay for your training and wait for you to qualify.

All you have to do is follow through. And sometimes that means putting aside things that appear to make you more "marketable" like knowledge of Outer Joins and SAX Parsing in favour of softer skills like technical communication and problem solving.

Want more specifics? Follow the link to Johanna's article: she gives specific examples of soft skills that produce better software.


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  12:13 PM

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