First 3 things to ask when hiring your next CFML developer

What happened the last time you started a new ColdFusion project and wasn’t sure about your team, and how will they handle it?

Recently, I had a meeting with (let’s call him) John, from one very big company. He actually wasn’t sure if he wanted to quit his job as a CIO or ask for another HR company to send him a better candidate, or just to go to a bar and drink. Every candidate they sent him was awful. The last one forgot about his sisters birthday and left to attend it the week when they had to deliver their next project.

Not funny, at all. After listening to his complaining, I immediately remembered that we all have similar problems when hiring developers (no, I don’t think you guys are that bad, just there’s so many of you that are) and having to deal with their personal problems.

Let’s take a look at his (your) options here.

Clear intent — a first step

Before you start asking your intuition for help on successfully filling your position, you must have super clear intent as to what you want and don’t want.

• What is your ideal person for this position?
• What skills, characteristics, and energy do they have?
• Which ones must they have?
• What ones would be nice to have?
• What ones must they not have?

Your list of “Not haves” may be especially clear in your mind if you recently fired someone from the position who you thought would be a good fit but later turned out to be a disaster. Rephrase these negatives to the positive.

• Must not be a complainer → must have positive attitude
• Must not be late to meetings → is always on time to meetings

Note: Your ideal candidate may not be someone else’s ideal candidate. Make your list unique to you, your business and the position.

Your intuition is valuable companion

Your intuition can help you in getting clarity by asking yourself WWIT (What Would It Take) to know what an ideal candidate is for me?

You may also draw on your own past experience with hiring and managing. Or the experience of other people you know who have been doing it for longer.

It may also come from perusing other people’s job ads to find missing characteristics.

It may come from hiring several candidates for paid trial periods, not keeping them and repeating until you are clear what you want.

Why is clarity of your ideal candidate important? Because when you are clear the WWITs work must better.

Example ideal candidate bullets for a marketing manager

• You are a creative person who is passionate about implementing effective marketing campaigns.
• You are a genius at getting other team members to perform their best and beat their job metrics.
• You live and breath GTD and get shit done on schedule every week.
• You love tasks to be organized and clear and change anything that is not to be that way pronto.
• You have a natural curiosity that drives you to learn, research and investigate.
• You have done some amazing work to date and are certain your best work is still ahead of you.
• You have an irrepressible joie de vivre that permeates your work and elevates it from good to great.
• You know that great marketing is the result of both your spiritual side and your practical side.
• You are good at working remotely, working smart for results and working reliably.
• You love to get results and track different marketing approaches obsessively to optimize your campaigns. You have a secret romance with numbers and statistics that makes this part of the job fun.

WWIT to attract an ideal ColdFusion developer?

Now you are ready to use some WWITs (What Would It Take).

• WWIT to attract an ideal candidate?
• WWIT to attract an ideal candidate who can start by or before the end of this month?

As always with WWIT, you want to TLC (To the Light, Connect) first to get the best results. Then ask the question and see what inspired actions come to you. If you have resistance or blocks to this hire, you may need to ask the WWIT many times over several days to hear your intuitive answers.

You only need to hear the next step to take, not the whole plan and who you will hire.

Eg WWIT to attract an ideal marketing manager?

Example Inspired actions

• Posting a job ad in a certain job board
• Asking a friend for a referral
• Looking through your LinkedIn connections to see if someone jumps out at you
• Searching for that kind of person on LinkedIn.
• Who do I know in LinkedIn who is a marketing manager? If they are not available for this job, then who do they know?
• How could I use FB ads to find an ideal marketing manager?
• How can I have a better job ad than my competitors?
• What kind of salary will attract this person?
• Where do people like my ideal marketing manager hang out? Are there groups or conferences for them?

Start taking inspired actions and notice what candidates you are attracting.

*TLC= To the Light, Connect

*WWIT= What Would It Take

PS How do you know which candidate to choose? What are the steps you take to reduce possibility of hiring a wrong one? Leave a comment bellow and let’s discuss it!

Originally published at teratech.com on January 7, 2017.