About a decade ago, a friend of mine, Nina (not her actual name), disappeared into a religious cult. Nina broke with her family in a pretty destructive way. After a few years, we heard she had had a child with a cult leader. Her parents never met their grandchild. Until well into my teenage years, once or twice per year we’d spend a long weekend with my dad’s study mates and their kids.

If you would have to make a hiring decision for an engineer based on just one attribute, what would it be? This is a question that was asked to me by a candidate during our recruitment process. That was a first. I’m involved, generally, in two steps in our interviewing process: the “people manager” round (where we try to get a sense of “soft skill” behavior, collaboration with others, previous company experience, growth potential) and the “management interview” round (for engineering management positions).

My role in job interviews A year or two ago I had the opportunity to shadow somebody who did partner recruitment for the company I worked for at the time. After listening in on a few calls, he asked me if I had any feedback. I answered that I didn’t. I felt quite unqualified, “what you do really looks like a sales job.” “Heh,” he responded, “ultimately every job is a sales job.