Will hiring for atttitude vs Tech skills be the new trend for 2012?

NetworkingStudent

This make sense to me, since I have been asked more of these types of questions interveiws, and less of the tell me aobut your self type questions

From Forbes
“As the focus on hiring has shifted away from technical proficiency and onto attitude, it’s precipitated a lot of tactical changes in how job interviews are conducted. For example, the new kinds of interview questions being asked are providing real information about attitude instead of the vague or canned answers hiring managers used to get. Smarter companies are less likely to rely on the old standby questions like “tell me about yourself” and “what are your weaknesses?” Companies now have answer keys by which to accurately rate candidate’s answers. Interviewers can listen to candidates’ verb tense and other grammar choices and make accurate determinations about someone’s future performance potential.”


Hire For Attitude - Forbes

Also, here’s a good article on writing resumes

Blog > Robert Half Technology

Turgon

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

This make sense to me, since I have been asked more of these types of questions interveiws, and less of the tell me aobut your self type questions

From Forbes
“As the focus on hiring has shifted away from technical proficiency and onto attitude, it’s precipitated a lot of tactical changes in how job interviews are conducted. For example, the new kinds of interview questions being asked are providing real information about attitude instead of the vague or canned answers hiring managers used to get. Smarter companies are less likely to rely on the old standby questions like “tell me about yourself” and “what are your weaknesses?” Companies now have answer keys by which to accurately rate candidate’s answers. Interviewers can listen to candidates’ verb tense and other grammar choices and make accurate determinations about someone’s future performance potential.”


Hire For Attitude - Forbes

Also, here’s a good article on writing resumes

Blog > Robert Half Technology

Technical proficiency on its own died in 2003. Being able to understand and deliver technology to meet strategy is the key today. Being able to influence people as a large factor there.

Everyone

Turgon wrote: »

Technical proficiency on its own died in 2003. Being able to understand and deliver technology to meet strategy is the key today. Being able to influence people as a large factor there.

^^ This.

Technical interviews are still first round (or 1st part of if they only do 1 interview), and if you're completely lacking here, you won't make it any further. However if you can hit I'd say at least 60% of what they are looking for as far as technical skills are concerned, you'll move on to the next round.

The attitude/behavioral round of interviews can make or break you. IMO this is the area you absolutely must dominate in. You can easily beat out other candidates that were stronger than you technically with the right attitude. If you manage to be the best in both categories, then it's in the bag for sure.

networker050184

Everyone wrote: »

Technical interviews are still first round (or 1st part of if they only do 1 interview), and if you're completely lacking here, you won't make it any further. However if you can hit I'd say at least 60% of what they are looking for as far as technical skills are concerned, you'll move on to the next round.

The attitude/behavioral round of interviews can make or break you. IMO this is the area you absolutely must dominate in. You can easily beat out other candidates that were stronger than you technically with the right attitude. If you manage to be the best in both categories, then it's in the bag for sure.

Agreed. But I don't think this is anything new. People hire people they like and believe can fit into their work culture.

Everyone

networker050184 wrote: »

Agreed. But I don't think this is anything new. People hire people they like and believe can fit into their work culture.

No it most certainly is NOT anything new.

ImTheKing

Funny that Robert Half still says to use an objective.

N2IT

That's how I got my first IT job. It was my personality and my passion in the inteview. I had a degree in management and 0 certifications.

it_consultant

I like attitude and problem solving skills. If you don't know d!ck about a computer, but you know how to work through issues systematically, I could use you. I run into people who I think should be in IT all the time because they can do that, and often are able to generate the most simple solution to any given problem. I can teach IT, I can't teach you how to think.

Tackle

N2IT wrote: »

That's how I got my first IT job. It was my personality and my passion in the inteview. I had a degree in management and 0 certifications.

Same with me (AAS in networking though). My boss said they interviewed a lot of people with better qualifications, but liked my attitude better than the others and that's why I was hired.

N2IT

LucasMN wrote: »

Same with me (AAS in networking though). My boss said they interviewed a lot of people with better qualifications, but liked my attitude better than the others and that's why I was hired.

No need to get away from that strategy. That's why I sometimes wonder why I bother to get all these certifications.

Turgon

Everyone wrote: »

^^ This.

Technical interviews are still first round (or 1st part of if they only do 1 interview), and if you're completely lacking here, you won't make it any further. However if you can hit I'd say at least 60% of what they are looking for as far as technical skills are concerned, you'll move on to the next round.

The attitude/behavioral round of interviews can make or break you. IMO this is the area you absolutely must dominate in. You can easily beat out other candidates that were stronger than you technically with the right attitude. If you manage to be the best in both categories, then it's in the bag for sure.

Correct. Circa 1994 - 2001 nobody cared about all that. What they cared about was corralling geeks, as many and as fast as they could. And that was because the money and power was in IT. The geeks loved the attention even though they were despised by the people that needed them because of their dress sense, attitude and general disdain for anything other then 'stuff'. The non geeks made their plans and surrounded the geeks with standards, strategy and all the rest of that white collar management nonsense that geeks dont like. So the non geeks slowly took over. The geeks made the same mistake anyone makes when things are good. They think it will last forever.

vinbuck

Attitude will get you in the door

-Being able to distill down complex ideas and convey them to the technically uninitiated is a valuable currency.
-If you can do it without making the other guy feel like an idiot (either by accident or on purpose), then you have an even more valuable skill set.
-If you can translate technical goals into terms the bean-counters understand and how you can save them or make them beans completes the trifecta.

Turgon

vinbuck wrote: »

Attitude will get you in the door

-Being able to distill down complex ideas and convey them to the technically uninitiated is a valuable currency.
-If you can do it without making the other guy feel like an idiot (either by accident or on purpose), then you have an even more valuable skill set.
-If you can translate technical goals into terms the bean-counters understand and how you can save them or make them beans completes the trifecta.

Correct. We dont have to like it, but that's the way it is.

tpatt100

We had a guy that was super awesome with Checkpoint. Problem was he was a total a-hole. I would come on shift and he would tell me "something is wrong with Provider 1. I asked "oh what's up?" I was still learning Checkpoint and volunteered to cover second shift to learn. He said "oh its out there somewhere" and left. He never liked sharing information thought it was good job security. Then we found out he was enabling logging certain workstations and tattle to the boss, who then told him to grow up and stop worrying about what everybody else was doing since we were keeping on schedule for work. He left got a new job and a year later tried to come back, they ended up hiring somebody else when they heard the collective groan from the SOC that he was apping to an open position.

Turgon

tpatt100 wrote: »

We had a guy that was super awesome with Checkpoint. Problem was he was a total a-hole. I would come on shift and he would tell me "something is wrong with Provider 1. I asked "oh what's up?" I was still learning Checkpoint and volunteered to cover second shift to learn. He said "oh its out there somewhere" and left. He never liked sharing information thought it was good job security. Then we found out he was enabling logging certain workstations and tattle to the boss, who then told him to grow up and stop worrying about what everybody else was doing since we were keeping on schedule for work. He left got a new job and a year later tried to come back, they ended up hiring somebody else when they heard the collective groan from the SOC that he was apping to an open position.

Epic fail dork. The industry is weeding these types out.

Hypntick

We just hired two new guys at work. I was involved in the interview process for both of them as I will be their direct supervisor. Personality played a huge part in my decisions with them. Sure they aren't 100% on the tech, but I can train the tech. I can't train the people skills.

Zartanasaurus

Companies are always trying to find the best way to interview candidates and some next big thing makes the rounds. It's like when your GF is breaking up with you and you feel like there's that one thing you can say that will magically fix everything. Except that one thing doesn't exist. There's no magical one way to get good employees. Verb tense and grammar? Give me a break.

Ryan82

I interviewed recently with a couple of the tech giants and had 7 interviews at each company which consisted of approximately 50% technical interviews and 50% behavioral based type interviews.

In my experience, you should always be prepared to speak intelligently to anything on your resume, technically or otherwise. You should also be as familiar as possible with anything listed on the job description. Lastly, you should always be prepared to answer the following:

1) Why do you want to work for this company?
2) Why should we hire you?
3) Tell us about yourself
4) Tell me about a time you had to make an unpopular decision
5) Tell me about a conflict you have had with a co-worker and how you went about resolving it
6) What do you do if your manager is assigning you more work than you can handle?
7) What is your greatest weakness?
Describe a mistake you have made and how would you have handled it differently

techdudehere

While it's a nice story to sell, the truth as I see it is that skills still matter. The hiring difficulty is not in finding someone who has been setting up SBS servers or Sonicwalls for the past 5 years. With that type of skill set, if a company does not like the candidate for any reason at all, they will not hire him/her unless they are desperate to find someone who will accept the salary. The issue with skills is finding people who have years of enterprise experience, people who can be trusted with big jobs and high stakes, people who can reassure the high dollar clients. If you fit that niche, you can get hired at a good salary even if they don't want to be your best friend .. as long as you can come across professional to the clients and make them feel like they can trust you, some company will take you.

Slowhand

My start in IT was in large part due to my personality over my technical skills, (I was able to show my perspective employers that I was willing to learn and could work with people, in addition to my basic, A+/Network+ level knowledge.) Still, it's not exactly a new idea that hiring managers look for the right attitude in conjunction with - and sometimes in lieu of - technical skills:

"The Job Interview

The turning point in your life will be when you look for you first job. How do you convince a prospective employer that you are the well-balanced, congenial, industrious, ambitious young man that he is looking for? Technical competence will not be enough; your academic record and your recommendations will take you only so far. Your ability to express yourself clearly and effectively will be very important.(3)"

- Dietrich, John E. and Kieth Brooks. Practical Speaking for the Technical Man. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1958. Print.

LinuxRacr

Slowhand wrote: »

My start in IT was in large part due to my personality over my technical skills, (I was able to show my perspective employers that I was willing to learn and could work with people......

Same here. In the initial interview with the manager I would be reporting to, she asked me some questions about monitoring software I had never heard of. I had a pen and a pad, and made it a point to write it down, and go research it. When I came back for my second interview, I was able to at least tell her about the application, and how it was similar to what I had used in the past. Being teachable is a big plus, as well as being able to work with people and customers....