

Kayak co-founder Paul English on "hiring religion" (2002) - adammichaelc
http://www.paulenglish.com/hiring.html

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epi0Bauqu
If you like this, hear him more recently on the same subject (an interview I
did with him earlier this year):
[http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/paul-english-
on-...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/paul-english-on-early-
kayak-and-recruiting-relates-to-getting-traction.html)

~~~
wyclif
That was a great interview, I learned a lot about hiring from that.

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abyssknight
This is excellent. Best article of this genre that I've read in quite awhile.
The best part? It isn't developer/programmer/coder specific.

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adammichaelc
Gabriel Weinberg does an interesting interview with English on his views on
hiring. [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/paul-english-
on-...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/paul-english-on-early-
kayak-and-recruiting-relates-to-getting-traction.html)

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wyclif
There's a problem for a newbie or budding entrepreneur, though.

How do you know you're any good at hiring if you've never done it before? By
English's admission (and many other wizened ones), that first hire is very,
very crucial to your startup's success.

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alec
If you've never done it before, you'll probably be terrible. I was the first
time I interviewed someone (and the second, and ...) despite all the
preparation I did. If you're in a position to do hiring interviews for your
employer, definitely do it - not only will you get better at it with practice,
but you'll probably better on the other side of the table, too.

~~~
enjo
Entirely right, experience is huge. That said, I cut my teeth growing an
engineering organization from 2 to 50+ when I left. For our first hires we
interviewed a LOT. We we're incredibly inefficient, but it paid off. Those
first hires are still with the company 6 years later. We didn't get fancy, we
simply tried to hire the smartest people we could find.

Today I'm much more efficient and a bit more nuanced in how I conduct
interviews. I'm intentionally casting a wider net these days. In those first
interviews we did a lot of basically language trivia. It excluded some smart
folks, but seemed to select those who really knew what they we're doing.

Also, you might find that there are startups willing to let you sit-in on
their interviews. You get to see how they do it, they get an outside voice.
I've done this a few times and it's really helpful.

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trustfundbaby
I'd love to work for this guy.

