How to hire an idiot

http://nukemanbill.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

by tyn • 15 years ago

407 179 15 years ago

nukemanbill.blogspot.com

TruthElixirX• 15 years ago

"Sadly, I could have found out all of that by simply asking him before offering him the deal."

Wow. Really?

jaredsohn• 15 years ago

Comments from a previous time this was posted (three years ago): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=263599

"How do you find a good salesperson?": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=264282

wcchandler• 15 years ago

Thank you. After the 4th paragraph I was hit by deja vu. Had to scroll to the top to check if it was stolen.

iand2• 15 years ago

Number one rule of hiring: take up references

docgnome• 15 years ago

I'd think that would be an issue to. In this case the guy wasn't trying to deceive him really, but if he had been what good is a "reference" from some guys buddy at the "awesome sause corp"

ww520• 15 years ago

Does reference checking really work? People pick references that can put them in the best light.

How would one phrase questions to get the true answers from references?

iand2• 15 years ago

They do work but are not foolproof. I always ask to speak with the person's current manager. Its usually possible to discerne whether the manager is sorry to lose the employee or not.

ams6110• 15 years ago

If the candidate says he was a latex salesman for Vandelay Industries, that could be a red flag.

Seriously... I've found that people in sales are so used to bullshitting their way to a deal that you have to double and triple check everything in their backgrounds.

baddox• 15 years ago

It's still difficult to get good references if you're not competent. Sure, some people might get friends to flat out lie and say they're a previous employer and give a glowing review. But how often will that really happen? More likely, people will pick real references that will give a good review, but you can still get good information from that reference (e.g. their responsibilities at the previous job, why they left, etc.).

FreakLegion• 15 years ago

Absolutely. My current employer never asked for references, and in fact, they didn't even get my full legal name until after they'd hired me (no background check, in other words). Luckily it's not an issue in my case, but even so, this is an InfoSec company. They really ought to be more careful, even with charming fellas like me!

rdl3• 15 years ago

I'm curious how people feel about (criminal, credit) background checks. Our lawyers suggested that both those and drug tests are sometimes done, but might not be appropriate in silicon valley. We're pretty anti drug-tests, but especially for an infosec company or someone with access to sensitive customer data, running at least a criminal check and possibly credit check makes sense. I wouldn't say having previous convictions necessarily excludes someone, but refusing to disclose and being unable to explain something is probably a big problem.

earl• 15 years ago

I've turned down job offers over required background checks, for a variety of reasons. I could see how they would be appropriate if someone were involved in handling money or deals or some such, but for a plain dev, it's silly.

I'd consider just a plain criminal background check, but for the rest of it, my credit is none of anybody's damn business. The demand to call all my previous employers and verify salaries is similarly horseshit -- my previous salaries don't matter a damn, all that matters is our agreement on what an employer is going to pay me. The weird thing is companies get indignant if you turn them down for this reason, and pissy when you characterize the demand for such a check as a lack of trust. Particularly since my previous 3 bosses are references. While I suppose someone could fake references, it's hard to do with linkedin, especially since someone doing a reference call to an arbitrary phone number could just ask for a verification email from corporate email.

dctoedt• 15 years ago

California and several other states have imposed legal restrictions on using credit checks in hiring decisions. See an article by two lawyers at a prominent labor-law firm: http://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/califor...

_3u10• 15 years ago

The more important lesson to learn is that if you're confident, likable, and remember people's names you can be VP of a $100 million dollar company. Now if you're competent as well, imagine how far you could go...

apaprocki• 15 years ago

Reminds me of this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Desai

At a company in SF we interviewed him and I can only imagine what would have happened if he was hired. Luckily everyone who talked to him thought he was nuts. Cramer talks about him in his book.

kevinalexbrown• 15 years ago

Maybe the rule is "don't be embarrassed about asking questions when your business/reputation is on the line." Kind of easy to get starstruck, I guess.

MaxGabriel• 15 years ago

I think you can still do this: "-- Hire people smarter than myself, who get things done! -- Trust them to do their job, let them do their job and give them enough resources to do it! -- Pay them WELL and offer great benefits! Work at home! Sure, why not? -- Give people second chances! Don't throw out resumes because of lack of buzzwords! Or disjointed writing! Or lack of education! It's all about Smart People who Get Things Done, not interviews or resumes or formalities! Have an open mind!"

You just need a way to check if they can get things done, like looking at past apps they've coded. Nothing like that was done here. Really, if he just did an interview, one thing from that list of things he didn't want to do, this probably wouldn't have happened.

Periodic• 15 years ago

The problem is that he took "VP of a $100M company" to be stuff having been done and other people thinking the ex-VP was smart. He never verified it though. He took a secondary indicator of ability to make a sale (VP status) and used it to infer a bunch of primary indicators (stuff done, intelligence, actual ability to close a sale) without actually checking any of that.

dangrover• 15 years ago

This is exactly what happened to me with Etude and why I ended up selling when I did.

lukev• 15 years ago

So he was a highschool dropout. How do you not notice something like that on a resume?

College degrees are always listed on resumes, and while they aren't that important in most cases, it should at least be brought up as an interview conversation point if it's missing entirely (and from there, launch into a discussion of how a person gained their skills, which would have completely unveiled this guy).

ianl• 15 years ago

The point was he didn't have a resume nor did he do any background checks because he was obsessed with the fact that this guy must be good because he was a former vp of a $100m company.

wisty2• 15 years ago

VP of sales is the worst proxy for start-up skills you can think of. Firstly, a salesman in a big company might be good at reading off a script, or writing a highly polished script for worker bees to read off; but they aren't necessarily a good all-rounder. Second, it's common practice to give a VP position to anyone who asks for it, because it helps them convince customers that they are a mover and shaker in the company:

"Look, I'll ask the engineers to put it in the next patch." ... "Well, I'm a VP - they should listen."

tptacek30• 15 years ago

How would you notice that on a resume? High school drop-outs don't write "high school drop-out" on their resume. In fact, many people, including many of the best people, don't put "education" on their resume at all.

Bartlet• 15 years ago

I think an "education" section is a boilerplate resume item. If it wasn't there, I'd at least ask for details.

elliottcarlson• 15 years ago

Though don't hold not having a college degree against a candidate. A good candidate can come from all walks of life - but in the end it is the interviewers job to make sure that the candidate is suited for the job - regardless of his background.

jsavimbi• 15 years ago

The author fails to mention how much his own greed played into this.

matdwyer• 15 years ago

I don't think anyone gets it right the first time. My first two "hires" were horrific. I ended up learning from the experience and better shaping what I wanted, what I needed to do differently, etc.

Most recent hire has been a much better fit into that mould, but still not perfect. HR isn't at all my specialty, and I know it will be years before I perfect it.

Glad to hear that the company recovered - one of mine didn't.

rdl3• 15 years ago

A founder should not be delegating sales to a hire, and if you have multiple cofounders, it is moronic to have only one of them aware of sales (with 3 people, you could maybe get away with 2 people knowing about most of the clients, or a different subset of 2 for each client, but even then).

freejack• 15 years ago

The lesson here is to never rely on someone else's hiring process to do your screening. Big Corps VP can easily become your douchebag if you aren't on the ball.

This is a great startup story - I think the original poster got off easy. For the price of some pens, a dinner and a whole bunch of wasted time (and perhaps a small hit on credibility) the truth was found. I've seen situations much, much worse.

This is exactly why hiring is described as the most important thing a manager/executive/founder can do.

ericflo• 15 years ago

What I'm taking away from this is that it really is important to check up on the background and specific accomplishments of new hires, regardless of prior accolade or title.

bomatson• 15 years ago

He should of at least Googled the guy!

wdrwilson• 15 years ago

The hiring process and possibly placing too much trust in a new employee can be dangerous without the proper due diligence. However I think there is something else that has to do with technical people running their businesses that is worth mentioning.

Being a technical person in sales can be bloody scary, I run a software company and at the beginning I was scared to death about both sales and marketing. So much so that I would avoid it, and only do it when absolutely necessary. Which lead to basically working on whatever came along. Not ideal, and I was basically working for myself, with no real growth.

While working at a co-working space I met a fellow entrepreneur who had a sales and marketing company mainly focused on lead generation and online marketing. I hired his company to help with new messaging for our company. However this engagement quickly turned into sales coaching 101: how to build a sales funnel, effective proposal writing, understanding buying signals, targeting ideal customers, the whole works.

The whole time we worked through this process I was learning and understanding, and becoming less and less scared. One of the books that he recommended to me was 'Customer Centric Selling', it's a good read and I think is ideally suited to technical folks finding themselves in sales roles. It talks about sales as a process, and not a "who you know" connections mystical black box. you know.. Like the VP of the 100 million dollar company wanted to do. Connections always help, but the process is there to make sure that the optimism that the sales people will undoubtedly assign to each deal can be measured and verified. I find you don't get into these situations where a sales person feeds you a loaded forecast with nothing to back it up.

As the founder you need to know what works for your business, and don't hire a sales person hoping they will have magical powers and be instantly able to sell your product/service. Learn and create the process yourself, then hire a sales person and have them execute and refine your process. You know your business best. Others can help, but at the end of the day it's on you!

tptacek30• 15 years ago

The moral of this story, which virtually every startup founder in the history of the universe has heard or told a variant of, is:

CHECK. REFERENCES.

lotharbot• 15 years ago

Further, "check references" needs to be deeper than just asking if the guy actually worked there. Ask about his role and responsibilities. Ask how he helped the company's bottom line. Ask real questions.

jarek7• 15 years ago

The problem is a lot of places will not make any further comment beyond confirming the employee worked there and perhaps the circumstances of their departure (resignation/laid off/fired). This is often for legal reasons.

stevewilhelm• 15 years ago

If you are hiring someone for a sales position, talk with their customers not their former employer.

0x12• 15 years ago

Ask how he/she left...

Would they hire him/her again.

biot• 15 years ago

I think I've worked with that guy before...

coenhyde• 15 years ago

Everyone pay attention, this seems to be one of those lessons everyone learns the hard way.

I'd made a similar mistakes with my first hire. Basically I hired the first guy who said he was awesome at php. Great I said. Do this, this and this. You can do some work from home, set your own hours at the office etc. He stopped coming into the office to work from home instead. I was so over capacity that i didn't check on his work for about 2 months (fool is me). When I finally did I discovered a horrible horrible mess. The app was completely useless and the 'awesome php dude' was completely incompetent. Lessons learned:

1. Do your own investigation into a potential hire to see if they are actually capable.

2. Watch new hires carefully

3. It costs more to fix hiring mistakes than to prevent them from happening.

Actually my second hire was pretty shit too. This time I made sure the dude was technically competent but he didn't fit the company culture I wanted. I don't like egos or office politics.

After those few bad mistakes my subsequent hires were great.

sunsu• 15 years ago

I'll second the "watch new hires carefully".

You can save yourself a lot of problems if you just keep an eye on your new people for the first month. Obviously you don't need to be overbearing, but at the end of that first month you should do a detailed work evaluation (code review if a programmer). If the employee shows signs of producing crap in their first month, get rid of her/him then. Do not wait unless there is a really, really good reason to.

mattdeboard3• 15 years ago

Yep, I have been very surprised in recent weeks at how bold people will be in their lies about their professional capabilities and/or history.

SanjayUttam• 15 years ago

I'd also add: Never assume an individual is competent based on their title and/or the company they work for.

steve_cronin• 15 years ago

Excellent post. Mirrors my own experience a lot. How many life-savings and great business ideas have been burnt beyond repair by doofus business losers only god can imagine.

xarien• 15 years ago

It's a shame OP had to learn the hard way given that he stated he was not going to buy into resume hype and ended up doing so anyways albeit in a less formal fashion.

While stories like this would any employer cringe, the very opposite scenario occurs as well. I've personally been part of the receiving and giving end of that type of scenario.

3pt141593• 15 years ago

Dude was a psychopath. I've been tricked by them before, cost me at least $20k. They lie. Straight to your face. They are often terrible at spelling, grammar, and just general "this document should look right" skills.

rcthompson• 15 years ago

Does that mean he was also faking his regret when he finally got "caught" so he could get off scot-free?

3pt141593• 15 years ago

Possibly, I only know my situation. The guy I knew coiled up into contract speak. "You signed something that said that I received 10 percent of gross sales" etc. But it would depend on the situation. I can only say that the parallels between the guy that fucked me over and this guy are huge. So many 10% truths (as opposed to half truths) so many ass covering statements. If you have never dealt with a psychopath you have no idea what you are in for.

evan_• 15 years ago

Of course he was.

The whole story about how he was into drugs and crime and turned his life around and worked his way up from the bottom, maybe that happened and maybe it didn't- but the story about how he's just a simple mook from Circumstances was calculated to gain sympathy and shift the blame away from himself.

>Well, at least he was honest. He wasn't trying to deceive me, and he really thought he could do it, he explained. No hard feelings.

And it worked!

wisty2• 15 years ago

The word "psychopath" is getting waaaay overused. Not every bullshit artist is a psychopath. Just like not everyone who frowns a lot is clinically depressed, and not everyone who washes their hands before lunch is OCD.

He was probably incompetent, and didn't realize he was incompetent. People don't realize their limitations unless they are actually hit over the head with them. In a big company, people would just politely remove him from any situation where he in danger of screwing up - that's a large percent of what office politics is about (never letting managers feel stupid, even if it would be good for them).

He thought he knew sales, when he was really just good at a certain stage of sales (lead generation, in an industry where he had tonnes of experience). He fell flat, then tried to cover his screw-ups with bullshit.

Actually, a psychopath would have been better salesman. If you are talking to a salesman, and you think "this guy is a snake", he's probably a psychopath (or ASPD), and would make an effective salesman as long as you keep him at arms length. The first clue the author had was the guy's informal manner - he seemed way too balls-out confident. He lied, but they were the desperate lies of a guy trying to get (or keep) a job, not the lies of somebody who's really out to deceive.

Everyone lies, when they feel they have to. But they hate doing it, and usually try to fudge first. ("I'm qualified ... yep ... yeah, a degree ... um, actually it's a diploma ... well, look, I've done training, but most of it was industry based".) I think a psychopath is more likely to come up with a shamelessly complete story "Yes, I graduated from Harvard in 1987, and was in the top 5% of my class."

3pt141593• 15 years ago

Either you haven't dealt with one or the one you have dealt with is much more crafty than the one I dealt with.

They have no morals. That's a psychopath, by definition. What you describe is a more intelligent psychopath, but they are still a psychopath. The lie to your face. You trust them because they are often charismatic, but it makes no difference. When push comes to shove they screw you.

I'm not over using the term. The person that I've dealt with (whom sounds strikingly similar to the $100m "vp" except for the reveal portion) was a class A psychopath. He lied to me before he even noted that I was useful to him. That is a psychopath at work.

jwallaceparker• 15 years ago

Wow a similar thing happened to a friend of mine in what he calls the "flying dragon" story.

About 5 years ago my friend Bob (not his real name - real name is Andrew) started an entertainment business to do shows like Cirque du Soleil.

He advertised on websites looking for acts. A man came in saying he was an agent that represented a flying dragon. Bob was incredulous. He asked to see the dragon. The agent told him the dragon would only come out for performances.

Bob paid the agent $1000 up front and spent another $3000 on marketing for the dragon's first performance. On the night of the performance, the agent called Bob and told him the dragon was sick but that he could definitely do a better, bigger show the following week.

Bob paid another $1000 but the dragon didn't show up again. Three weeks later the agent told Bob that the dragon died but had already spent the $2000 on his lair.

Bob now says, "Make them show you the dragon," as advice for almost any situation.

jarek7• 15 years ago

A certain adage regarding a fool and his money comes to mind...

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

I suppose the first $1000 could be justified as a wild investment into curiosity and possibility, depending on whether or not his business could easily afford it. A little bit of that risk-taking every now and again can pay off, if you have luck or insight.

yters• 15 years ago

Tell Andrew I have a metamorphic monkey. The monkey does shows for $1000 apiece. I can make him look like any member of the audience.

alanh• 15 years ago

> Bob (not his real name - real name is Andrew)

Uh. What?

xnxn• 15 years ago

I've identified this as a form of humor. Homines sapientes react to it like this: Ho! Ho!

Graham24• 15 years ago

for £1000 up front, I'll explain the joke to you...

gautaml• 15 years ago

I cringed every time this came up in every paragraph.

But... he was the VP of a $100 million company, after all!

rphlx• 15 years ago

Titles are bullshit. At some companies almost every salesperson is a VP of Sales, Western Antarctica (or whatever) -- it's a free way to make customers feel important.

philwelch• 15 years ago

Likewise, I've been cold-called or cold-emailed by many a "senior recruiter", but never a "junior recruiter" or even simply a "recruiter".

mrb• 15 years ago

Job-title inflation is real. A decade or two ago, titles were more modest.

yesreally• 15 years ago

"business executives are sometimes just full of shit!"

not just business executives.

tokenadult• 15 years ago

There is an art to checking references. Even if a company has a policy of giving bare minimum information, find out a TELEPHONE NUMBER of someone in that company who knows your candidate and start a conversation. I was given a specific script of questions to ask back in the 1990s when I was a community volunteer for my local public school district, doing reference checks on superintendent candidates. A consultant advised the school district (and through the district, me) on how to do this. If you talk to someone directly by voice, and have a good list of specific questions to ask about the candidate, you will be AMAZED at what people say, policy or no policy. Company policies don't keep people from sharing stories with curious listeners. The key is to learn what questions are legal to ask and reveal the most interesting stories about the person you are thinking of hiring. There are consultants who can advise you about checking references, and, as several comments here say, they are a lot less expensive than making a wrong hiring decision, and once you've learned the questions, you know what to ask.

I've just asked my consultant Google, and he suggests several sets of useful questions to ask when checking references:

http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/recruiting-hi...

http://www.drgnyc.com/list_serve/Jan24_2005.htm

http://www.acadweb.wwu.edu/hr/Employment/InfoForHiringOffici...

http://www.best-job-interview.com/reference-check-questions....

http://www.k-state.edu/hr/employment/referencecheck.htm

http://pbsbo.ucsc.edu/personnel_payroll/staff/recruit/ref_ch...

http://www.bridgestar.org/Library/HiringToolkit/ReferenceChe...

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/referencesrecommendations/a/re...

tptacek30• 15 years ago

You might be surprised how often bad hires end up not having any real references at all, and just bluster their way through that part of the interview. For too many of us, reference checking is an afterthought. Fortunately, when you're small, the feedback loop is tight and you only need to get burned a couple times before you take it seriously.

By which I mean to say, even an anodyne reference ("yes I worked with person, yes I would hire them for this role") is a major improvement over no reference at all.

JoachimSchipper• 15 years ago

Also, our own Peroni (IIRC) mentioned that "is $candidate eligible for rehire by your organization" will be answered by nearly all employers. And it's quite useful.

[I have no personal experience, just passing this along.]

AppSec2• 15 years ago

I would be careful with that question. I worked at one company where they were very much against re-hiring anyone that left based on where they went/were going.

Another factor is personal differences can lead to that same false positives (negatives?) about that person.

I guess I'm simply trying to say: that question is not always answered based on work ethic or product.

gambler• 15 years ago

The reference-checking process described there is skewed towards certain types of personalities (liars, job-hoppers, social butterflies, etc.).

grinnbearit• 15 years ago

Have you met Frank? http://businessofsoftware.org/video_10_pkenny.aspx

abbasmehdi• 15 years ago

This is one if the things that could happen when you try to compensate for a cofounder with an employee/contractor.

algoshift• 15 years ago

The reason you get head nods when you relate this experience, in my opinion, is that versions of this sort of thing are all too common when hiring sales people. Sorry to be biased, but I'll go as far as saying that there's a certain separate species in the sales world. By now I recognize a lot of the signs, but it cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of lost business to get there. Just ask fellow entrepreneurs "What's the secret to hiring a sales person?" and watch as the first reaction is eyes rolling.

If business where easy everyone would be doing it. Don't give up, you'll figure it out.

tptacek30• 15 years ago

EVERYBODY HAS THIS PROBLEM HIRING DIRECT ENTERPRISE SALES PEOPLE.

Everyone.

It's hard to hire good direct sales people into a new sales organization for the same reason that it's hard to find an effective SEO consultant on the open market: the people that have this skill can make it rain money and are not looking for jobs. So you can safely assume that almost everyone you're talking to for your first sales hire is a product of adverse selection.

robot• 15 years ago

Anyone know who this is, or his company?

willpower101• 15 years ago

"Every time I relate this experience, I get a lot of head nods."

o.O is what you get from me. Is everyone you relate this story to you a half-wit? Quite simply, who hires without adequate research? (apparently many more people than I realized)

sarcasmatron• 15 years ago

As a hiring manager, I always try to either (a) hire 90 day contract to full-time; or (b) hire under a 90-day trial or probationary period. At the end of the period I ask myself if I would still hire that person. If my instinct is "no", I trust my instinct. It's good for morale when everyone knows that the 90 days is a meaningful evaluation period.

As a job-seeker, I always make sure that I contact my references and give them a heads-up that the call is coming in, along with a copy of the resume I submitted for the job and the job posting. It's out of courtesy to the person I'm asking to provide me with a reference.

erikb• 15 years ago

It's funny how the boss actually was the idiot for buying that guy. Even his goals in the beginning were stupid. I can only learn from this article that my goals are probably shit, too. At least as long as I don't have some experience as people manager.

nhebb• 15 years ago

The author, Bill, answered questions about this on Joel on Software:

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.665091.3...

Key comment:

"[..] when you're in your spare bedroom alone slaving away for 5-6 years, then someone comes along with deep connections to the industry (proven from asking around), who everybody in the niche knows, and who was 'part of a team' responsible for booking $100 million in sales in a single year... it is easy to not go through all that due dilligence and just accept someone like that at face value."

maeon3• 15 years ago

The Bozo Explosion, and how to prevent it: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/02/how_to_prevent_.html#axz...

Mordor• 15 years ago

No time for any of them - called out the sales director for being a bullshitter and amazingly kept my job for several years. Sold nothing, was like watching a galaxy imploding into a black hole. Stayed for the entertainment. Was well worth it.

chipocabra• 15 years ago

As an idiot I take offence

shn• 15 years ago

Unfortunately I have encountered those "sales" people quite a few time during my long career (in financial industry.) They sell themselves very well, they're very good at with people, they make a lot of jokes, laugh a lot, they use their own families (dinner parties etc.) for getting closer to people and, dresses very very well for all occasions. They play politics in the office very well as well. When it comes to deliver something, you always see delays, they quickly offload responsibility to those who can actually do it (and they are very good with them as well). They suck up, but when it comes down to it, they kick down hard especially those who helped them in the past. They all disliked me, since I was very blunt to them. It is easy to detect them, since if he is really someone to deliver he will do it very soon, otherwise they play endless delay tactics.

anjc• 15 years ago

Alternative title: How to hire like an idiot

16s• 15 years ago

People like this who know a lot of folks and who get along and are likeable can be a huge asset. You may not want them selling for you, but you certainly want them to mingle, talk to potential clients and take them to dinner, etc.

They aren't idiots, they are very valuable employees when used appropriately. He would make an excellent client relations manager.

evanmoran• 15 years ago

Anyone who will work for free may not be worth the price.

How to hire an idiot

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