The problem all these people are attempting to resolve is simple to state but hard to analyze.  So simply stated, some one acting as their customer/audience/manager is dissatisfied with their work.  Usually dissatisfaction is easily identified and corrected.  The problem is probably your’s.  You’re not doing what someone is paying you money to do.  This naturally makes them a little unhappy at handing over or at having handed over their money.  If I pay a mechanic to rotate and balance my tires I will be somewhat dissatisfied with our transaction if they flush my radiator instead.  It won’t matter one whit to me if the radiator is well flushed and feeling like new with shiny hoses and non-toxic coolants made from unicorn sweat.  I paid someone to attend to my tires, not my radiator.  The problem is then one of simply doing what the person paying you or directing you asked you to do, and doing it well.  Complexity rears it’s briny green head (again with the pickles)  if you do what they ask but they are still dissatisfied.  So why are people dissatisfied with your work if you do a good job, do what you were asked to do, and do it within the time you both agreed?

First off, let’s just assume you actually are doing what is being asked and not what you think is being asked.  Assumptions are the most common source of dissatisfaction in any relationship.  The power dynamic in a working relationship, however, is completely skewed against you.  It does not matter if your customer/manager/director is at fault for incomplete or misleading requests.  Their continued dissatisfaction means you will be out of work.  You can soften this blow with the knowledge you were in the right all along, but ethical certainties will not pay your rent.  Your job then is to partially determine if what you think is being asked of you is actually what the person doing the asking wants.  That’s a pretty confusing way of saying, “Make sure you’re following the spirit as well as the letter of the request.”  Customer satisfaction often means doing what the customer doesn’t themselves know they want you to do.

Okay you’re doing all that because you’re a seasoned professional who knows language is a fickle thing full of homonyms, synonyms, acronyms, jargon, idioms, and misunderstandings.  The customer is still dissatisfied.  What do they want from me that I’m not getting?  They want the following.  They want you to demonstrate to them you are improving their lives somehow.  They want you to show them how your work is a good return on their investment.  They would like to see a general improvement in your deliveries over time in a longer relationship.  They want you to prove they can trust you.  That’s it.  They want value addition, ROI, continual improvement, and trust.  Nothing to complicated, eh?

I’ll go ahead and let you all chew on that for a little while.  All this talk of pickle guns has made me a little hungry.  Tune in later for explanations and strategies for actually implementing what I’m suggesting.

Mmmm … potato salad.

• The objectivists believe software quality is intrinsic to a product and is therefore measurable using objective criteria over a period of time
• The subjectivists believe software quality is a function of market/customer perception and therefore cannot be objectively measured since the criteria over time will radically change as conditions change

To put it into even more succinct terms, the objectivists almost always want to start measuring things like defect density and code coverage while the subjectivists almost always start using the “how do you measure happiness or fun” simile to define their position.  It’s an uninteresting discussion to me as it seems to devolve into quickly into and argument of paradigms that will never really be resolved.  You are either some one who thinks the only solvable problems are those that can be expressed in quantitative equations and discreet parts or you are some one who thinks the world is “fuzzier” than that and we should be addressing issues from the standpoint of complex systems and interactions.  Just like I can’t talk some one into Judaism or Islam, I can’t talk an objectivist into a subjectivist and vice versa.

Like I said, it’s frustrating, pointless, and ultimately boring.  But that’s not what this entry is about.  Peter asked me an interesting question about customer satisfaction surveys and how they can be useful.  He specifically asked me about the typical “on a scale of one to five, how useful did you find our last release” sort of questionnaire we can’t seem to jettison from our tool box.  It then struck me this is how most of us view customer satisfaction measuring activities.  It’s a shame but not totally expected based on the fact most of us have little to no interest in pursuing ideas or concepts outside our small little areas of excellence (see my earlier grumpy rants about hiring almost exclusively for technical competence and expecting other competencies to be “easy” or “trainable” for my views on this subject) since most of our industry thinks “cross-discipline” means some one who has knowledge of cloud computing and mobile device platforms.

Customer satisfaction gathering is a traditional marketing skill set some one looking to move more toward a QA analyst role should add to their toolbox.   The first step is usually a survey but its only the first step and is generally thought of more as a sampling tool than anything that will generate useful satisfaction statistics.  If you’d like more information about how to write a decent customer survey, I can’t recommend Priscilla Saint’s and Don Dillman’s book How to Conduct Your Own Survey enough.  It’s the first book I read on creating my own surveys and its still useful for me as  a quick reference when I need to remind myself of what sort of survey might get me the information I need based on my needs.

But what about the darn cows, you’re probably asking.  I’m getting to that.  Cows are a good reference to me because of my history.  My grandparents used to run a small ranch that these days would be wildly successful since they ran purebred Hereford cows that were mountain grass fed and completely free range.  The important bit here is “mountain” when you read that statement.  These cows were not the sort you could just saddle up a horse and find by scanning the tall grass lands visible in all directions until the horizon met the skies.  Nope.  These cows were the devilish mountain cows that could hide an entire herd in a thick stand of trees and bushes a hundred yards from the mystified cowboy.  The only way to find these cows was a two prong assault using your knowledge of cow behavior and the local geography (ie: where is the fresh water, where are the sweet grasses, etc) and trickery in this case in the form of a ten year old boy that was (and still is) and excellent mimic.  The mimic’s job was to ride around and bellow like a calf and later a cow.  If the mimic was decent enough you’d eventually hear an answering call which I can only assume was cow for “Your accent is atrocious” or “You sound like a mountain lion has you by the throat, are you okay?”  The calls could then be used to triangulate the rest of the herd since cows are not likely to go wandering off alone.

In this way, the cows is like your markets.  Clayton Christensen in The Innovators’ Dilemma talked about actual customer behavior once you move beyond the strange little group of innovators most small companies usually target.  These later adopters are more like cows in that they find safety in numbers.  This makes an immense amount of sense if you think about it.  A large group moving in a certain direction usually means better support, a wider knowledge community, and better interoperability and compatibility for other things you may want to use later.  If you can find out where these groups (herds) are heading, you can extrapolate how you are viewed.  So your job is to find the “chatty” cows moving with this herd.  This is where the customer satisfaction survey comes in handy.

You want to look for the respondents that seem to follow the herd but are liable to give you more than just a check in the “1 to 5″ rating index.  You want to find the cows that are bellowing for your cow calls but are not the ones likely to wander off to see if there’s something interesting over the next ridge.  This means you’ll need to follow up with these answering calls to check and see if they’re likely to be a second stage adopter or a first stage adopter not as likely to represent the larger market.  Once you’ve rated their likelihood you can verify it with deeper contact and interaction.  It still relates because an experienced cowboy will often develop a knowledge of their herd to the point where they can sometimes tell the difference between cows based only on their vocalizations.

Your marketing people and your quality people need to develop a similar knowledge of your markets, it not your specific customers.

But what, you may ask, do these people sitting in a room (usually in Europe or India) have to do with me?  Everything.  According to the word on the street, if by “street” you mean various blogs and message-boards, these people represent the end of software testing as we know it.  After reading the passionate debate on both sides, I’ve some to conclusion the Mayans were actually talking about this conflict and not the end of the physical world.  So look for 2012 to be the year Software Testing as a job ends.  Update your resumes.

But in all seriousness, what’s really going on here?  Quite simply there are two forces at work.  The first is a natural tendency of trades to eventually evolve into professions.  And why do trades naturally evolve into professions?  To some extent its to keep up with advances in techniques and knowledge formerly kept private to protect your livelihood.  Another reason is the movement to a profession involves a codification of first principles and a body of knowledge which allows higher level discourse and development to occur.  It’s hard to move the conversation along if you’re spending all your time trying to figure out what someone means by a “pony wall” in a technical paper.  But mostly the trades move toward professions because once the uninitiated buy into the idea you are a profession, you can charge a lot more for your services.  You see when you work at a tradesman level you are required to obtain specialized skills and knowledge, but its seen mostly as an obtainable task requiring only a certain amount of study and a little practice.  For proof, witness the number of weekend tradesmen who decide they can re-tile their bathrooms in a weekend because they took a three hour course at Home Depot.  A profession because of the existence of professional bodies, bodies of knowledge, and seemingly arcane jargon give the impression of unique abilities to the uninitiated.  The outsiders then feel as thought they must compensate the initiated at greater levels if they want to take advantage of their rare and unique abilities.  For proof, how many people do you know who feel comfortable filling their own cavities after taking a weekend course at Home Dental?  Do you even know where the dental supply stores are in your town?  How about the hardware stores?

I rest my case.

So what are the identified steps toward becoming a profession?  According to Ask.com (the Wikipedia of the 90′s except with … you know … vetted contributors), they are as follows:

1. The establishment of the activity as a full-time occupation
2. The establishment of training schools and university links
3. The formation of a professional organization
4. The struggle to gain legal support for exclusion
5. The formation of a formal code of ethics

These steps look good enough for me to throw out there as a working theory so look at them and see if you can figure out where software testing currently lives.  Have we established ourselves as an activity with a full time occupation?  Yes, with some debate still remaining amongst Luddites who persist in thinking nothing can occur without a coder dipping their beak.  But those people are to most extents doomed to the recycle folder of history as Software Test has pretty much established a beach head, moved into the dunes, and erected rides and concession stands along the piers.  So it looks like right now we’re attempting to formulate some professional organizations to help … but wait.  What happened to step number two?  Do we have recognized and accredited training schools offering degrees in software testing out there?

No.  The closest we currently come are a few classes offered as addendum at Colleges and Universities offering a more generalized Computer Science (ie: coding/architecture and sysadmin) degree.  Some lower level (two year colleges and trade schools) and unaccredited or “for profit” colleges are offering coursework in software testing but that doesn’t count.  So if step two does not exist, why are people attempting to jump straight into steps three and beyond.

The reason is the second (and possibly third) force at work … greed coupled with the desire not to seem like a fool.  Since institutions of higher learning do not currently offer comprehensive coursework on the subject or software testing, the professional organization seeking to collect people together can find a rich source of income filling that void for people seeking entry.  This is why certification by medical boards is NOT a multi-million dollar international industry, unlike software testing certification.  The business of these certification bodies is to make themselves as attractive to potential revenue sources as possible, primarily through numbers.  It’s a pyramid scheme to some extent.  The more people who get certified by a particular body, the more attractive it becomes to others.  The accrual of numbers is in essence lending it an air of authority.  McDonald’s used to attempt the same when it assured potential customers they shouldn’t feel guilty about purchasing a giant ball of fat and grease that tasted like cardboard because millions of other people had made the same choice.  The certification bodies are simply doing the same.  ” A million billion testers can’t be wrong.”  Unfortunately the cycle is becoming self-perpetuating for many because people with these certifications are now coming into positions of hiring authority.  Either because they don’t want to admit they were gullible and spent money on something that proved of little value or they actually believe in the system because of the air of authority imparted by the illusion of popularity, they have started making these letters after someone’s name a requirement for employment.  This is opening up even more avenues of revenue because now the certification bodies can loop in people who just want to get a job and find they can’t, even though they suspect it’s all “a racket.”

So is this self-perpetuating pyramid scheme the end of the testing industry, or even putting it in danger?  I don’t believe so.  I’ve been around long enough to know people who saw something similar happen with coding, and that seems to be doing okay as an industry.  Why did it stop?  Because step number two eventually asserted itself.  Four year colleges and accredited Universities began offering majors in computer science distinct from mathematics and/or electrical engineering.  Once that began happening, the natural tendency of the college academic is to publish their thoughts and ideas in order to subject them ACTUAL peer review.  Most crackpot or misinformed opinions cannot stand up to actual peer review, so all of the generalized “programmer certifications” went away.  They’d survived before only because they were usually published in an echo chamber where only those espousing similar beliefs would “challenge” them.  I see similar things happening with a lot of testing “academic journals” and other publications.  Rigorous academic review and healthy debate will soon enough silence them, once the colleges catch up to us.  In the end the only people harmed by these groups are the ones who may have spent more money than they could afford betting on a body of knowledge that later becomes discredited.  It’s an individual choice, however.  You’re free to roll the dice and spend your money how you would like.  You’re also free to perpetuate the cycle as a hiring manager as long as you would like, in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

But my advice to all of you is to weigh your choices carefully.  We’re not yet a profession as we just barely became a trade perhaps 30 years ago.  Spend money educating yourself and developing your trade craft and do the smart thing … wait it out.  In the meantime, attach yourself to the smartest and best tradesmen (and women) you know like a sucker fish cleaning off the shark.  You may guess correctly about where the industry will emerge in the decades to come, but you may not.  Can you afford to gamble with the money you’re being asked to put on the table?

I just wanted to post something to let you all know I haven’t abandoned this blog by any means.  It’s far too valuable to me as a mental tool and general soapbox on which I can stand when declaiming my half-baked theories and ideas.  I took a little break to focus on a new position in the San Francisco Bay Area, which involved some weird logistical maneuvering.  Maneuvering has been … maneuvered … so soon I will be back to rambling as usual.

Thank you for your patience.

Unfortunately the startup company has a particular place of honor in the mythology of the software development and information technology industries.  The startup ranks up there with the coder who’s arcane understanding of mathematical systems and processes departs a special knowledge rendering them superior to other humans.  It’s actually only slightly below the conceit of computers (and software) running or controlling the world (see “brothers, Wachowski” for more on this).  The myth of the startup is something along the lines of a small group of dedicated enthusiasts joining together in a quest to create something innovative and world changing.  The enthusiasts are generally credited with enough foresight and altruism to justify little to no immediate financial security while pursuing their dreams.  Certain versions of this myth have the enthusiasts eventually becoming rich(ish) but treating the monetary rewards as trivial, even losing them all with a smile on other companies and products.

So the primary aspects of a startup according to the myth are frugality, innovation, enthusiasm, egalitarianism, and camaraderie.

These are all laudable traits,  but unfortunately they are nowhere near the ones truly defining a startup and its culture.  The really unfortunate part of this problem is rooted in the general positive value assignments of all the traits.  Because they’re essentially positive, a lot of groups,  companies, departments, or teams like to call themselves “basically a startup” or “following a startup model.”  I’ve actually talked to groups with multi-million dollar budgets, hundreds of active customer accounts, and offices in three continents who referred to themselves with all seriousness as “still essentially a startup company.”  Of course no one who was actually at the company when it was in startup mode was still around to laugh in these people’s faces, so there was no one to correct them.  That’s why I don’t really blame them for their mistaken belief in an archaic system.  All I can do is educate and see if it sticks.  I have to admit to a certain amount off self-interest in spreading this message.  I’m getting tired of meeting with clients who think they’re a hare but are really a tortoise.  It’s not a value judgement but it does make working them a tad easier if I don’t have to rub their tortoise feet for luck and continually admire their “fluffy” tortoise tails and “long” tortoise ears.

So what are the actual traits of a startup, or rather what are the traits of a startup that eventually succeeds?  I’ve actually done a lot of research into this topic and I have some definite opinions … of course.  I mean why else would I be writing a blog entry?

The actual traits of a startup are as follows:

• You have no customer base for your product(s)
• You have no defined process or workflow to improve
• You are always strapped for cash and equipment
• You may not have a company in six months

Out of these traits come a lot of the things normally lauded by the industry.  Since startups have no real customer base, they must be flexible and agile enough to chase down markets as they evolve.  This means today’s dominant technology or tool is tomorrow’s unused site license.  This requirement for being able to quickly become an expert on technologies and frameworks is why startups are usually staffed with talented generalists rather than world renowned specialists.   Successful startups won’t usually refuse to interview a candidate because they don’t have experience with “X” tool or “Y” platform.  Instead they look for a pattern of rapid competence coupled with an intense desire for learning.

In order to survive past the next six months, a startup has to either take business away from an established company, create new opportunities, or attack opportunities the established companies are ignoring.  This means they need to innovate beyond subtle improvements to what’s already being done.  For a startup to be successful, they need to become dominant in their market which is why most of them attach small markets being ignored by “the big guys.”  Because a startup will have little to no advance knowledge of their market, customers, or their needs the successful startup has to keep their processes and workflows as light as possible.  Once the market starts to coalesce, the measurement and improvement can start as there will be an oracle against which you can measure success.  Until then the startup runs the risk of entrenching behaviors counter to their actual market needs.

While startups always have seed money and angel investors and venture capital, the successful ones are invariably lean and hungry.  Every minute spent working is another minute where money was siphoned out of the company funds, to greater or lesser degrees.  Until the company achieves profitability (ie: customers paying you more money than you spend on a regular basis) the only thing a startup can do to keep running is attract more capital or stop spending money.  There is no money for large development and test environments that must be maintained.  The company cannot afford expensive tools and third party systems that already solved a few of the problems.  Debts in quality and design cannot be paid by off-shoring work to someone else.  Designs and solutions have to be determined, developed, and deployed as rapidly as possible to get money coming in as soon as possible.  The constant drip of the money faucet naturally results in lean solutions with the bare minimum of design and coding that work on laughably under-powered systems.  Because they cannot afford to spend months working out the “correct” solution, the startup comes up with “a” solution and lets the customer tell them if its correct or not.

Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, there is the constant fear everyone at your company won’t be around in a few months if you can’t get the money flow turned around from outward to inward.  This fear of failure brings out a desire for daily excellence in a lot of people while bringing them together in a sense of common struggle.  Since everyone is effected, the test analyst will usually be on a first name basis with the CFO after leading them through a bug bash session with beer and pizza.  Every small victory is celebrated and every small setback is shared.  No one can be suffered to simply come in, do their job, and leave because there are simply too few people around and too little time and money to allow luxuries otherwise.

It’s my assertion that if you’re missing any of those four items, you aren’t really “just like a startup.”  You can be a small company where the CEO sits in an open cube like everyone else; but unless you’re scared spitless about next quarter’s earnings, chances are good the “open cube” policy is more of a PR exercise than a reality.  You can talk about being “agile” and “innovative” but take a look at your hiring and interview process.  Chances are very good its currently geared to attract world class specialists as your ideal candidates.   These people are usually writing papers and speaking at conferences about their subjects, but are also usually about as agile in changing direction radically as an aircraft carrier.

But hey, its okay.  It’s great to be a successful company with a dominant market position.  I can guarantee you every startup out there wants to either become you or be noticed and acquired by you some day.  The original staff may leave when that happens, but that’s okay too.  They’ll usually have a larger bank account and bragging rights about what they built.  You then have the hard task of building on success and creating innovation one small step at a time in a market now populated by a sea of wannabe imitators and conservative purchasing agents.  You have hour own unique challenges and triumphs that should be celebrated.

So stop attempting to be something you ain’t and just be happy with yourself as who you are.

So what is the “historical” definition of a hero and how is it different to the pop culture definition advanced by the literature, movies, comic books, and television shows of today?  The biggest difference is a the nature of the hero his or her self.  In modern interpretations a hero(or heroine) is someone who overcomes adversity or seemingly impossible challenges.  The young soldier who lost both legs in combat but still dances at his wedding is considered “heroic” in his ability to overcome his disability.  The comic book protagonist who battles through ever more dangerous and omnipotent threats is called a “hero” for defeating them at the possible cost of their own life.

Contrast this with the pivotal moments of the historical hero cycle as defined The Hero With a Thousand Faces.  In Campbell’s monomyth the hero is called to adventure where they overcome ever increasing challenges or perils with assistance from a divine agent or a companion or both.  These seem to line up with the modern interpretation quire well.  Unfortunately that’s just the beginning for Campbell’s hero while it is the full definition for the modern one.

Campbell’s hero eventually fails, dramatically and spectacularly.  The failure either causes the death of the companion or divine agent, or the death itself is the failure if the hero kills the divine agent or companion personally.  The hero then feels epic remorse and travels to the realm of death to retrieve the lost one.  In this they also fail.  These failures are the pivotal moment in the monomyth, triggering the second part of the heroic cycle.  In the second part, the hero must come to terms with their mortality, foibles, and limitations when they had previously thought themselves nearly immortal, infallible, and omnipotent.  The period off reconciliation and atonement for their past actions raises the person of action into the realm of the hero.  Eventually they are welcomed back into their village/tribe/city after they have achieved wisdom and humility to temper their might and valor.

So the historical hero is not one who overcomes insurmountable odds.  The historical hero is one who fails to overcome insurmountable odds, and in doing so has to face their own death … the ultimate limitation we all must face.  The hero is the one who faces their limitations, and becomes wiser for them.

So perhaps we don’t need to abandon hero culture in software development.  From where I stand, we actually need to embrace it rather than simply remaining trapped in the adolescent or nascent part.  Until we’ve embedded the entire hero, talk of abandoning him or her is a tad premature.  I think we can learn a lot from them.

In any event, there is a common refrain amongst these otherwise perspicacious group (look it up … rabble) that I find either surprising or funny, depending on my mood.  The common refrain is more of a complaint, really.  The complaint has to do with the fact these people all seem to be having a devil of a time attracting, recruiting, and retaining the sort of employees you normally want as a manager.  The people they (and the rest of us) dream of attracting and managing are intellectually curious, skilled, experienced, passionate about their career, and self-motivated.  In other words, the people you don’t actually need to manage except in acting as a conductor who directs and helps enliven the work.

As some one who’s had a small amount of success building out teams apparently made up of these sorts of people, I sometimes am asked about my “secrets” or “techniques” as such.  I’ve been hesitant to divulge my secrets for recruiting really good people, until now.  I will now give you my primary secret/principle for attracting and recruiting top notch talent.

I try and be someone for whom I would want to work every day I’m at work.  The rest of the stuff like training budget, high salaries, beer parties, and the like are largely either out of my control or somewhat superfluous.  Here are the actual things you need to implement and practice if you want to bring talented people to you like ants to spilled ice cream.

Respect – Assume everyone on your team and on other teams (often more difficult) are reasonable, talented adults who can be trusted to do their work efficiently and capably.  If you have reason to believe to the contrary, first check your beliefs.  It’s more likely you are just using a different definition of “efficiently” and “capably” than they.

Openness – This one comes in two parts.  You need to be somewhat explicit in your success expectations.  You also need to be somewhat current and explicit your expectations are not met.  Since we can assume we’re all adults (see above) we can also assume most adults really do want to do a good job.  If you are open to them about how they can do better, they’ll usually surprise you by exceeding your expectations.

Honesty – Being honest usually goes hand in glove with being open, but it also implies consistency.  No one likes aiming at a moving target or being told they messed up sometime in the past, when they’re no chance to correct it.  Honesty is about communicating successes to be celebrated and failures to be corrected.  It’s about engendering a reputation of trust so people feel confident enough to come to you with any problems or victories.

Interest – Everyone likes to think they matter to someone or something.  For most people, this translates to the workplace even if only due to the amount of time we spend there.  A good manager shows interest in their employees’ lives, professional ambitions, and daily toil.  They also show interest in their own role and industry.  Nothing attracts talented people in a certain industry more than the chance to work with others who share their interests.  Nothing keeps talented people around more than knowing they’re valued and appreciated on a daily basis.

Availability – Finally you need to be available to your team as much as humanly possible.  You never know when someone will need help resolving a thorny issue, overcoming a seemingly meaningless bureaucratic hurdle, or just want to kvetch in general about the injustice of it all.  You also never know when someone will want to show off a brilliant solution to a problem or run a new idea by you to see what you think.  You need to do paperwork and attend meetings, but your primary job is to manage a team of people … not resources.  People (even adults) will stop coming to you if they feel they can’t count on you being available.

The other thing to remember is you often don’t have to spend a lot of time recruiting talented people.  You can encourage your current staff to become talented.  In order to do that, you may have to fire or transfer away anyone not willing to themselves practice the rules of respect, openness, honesty, interest, and availability.  That’s the downside of building an excellent team, but there’s no way I can see around it.  Some people do not have the personality or desire to be excellent.  Aptitude is something you can work with.  Personality is not.  You can’t make some one excellent in spite of themself, but you can bring some one down.

In the end, I suppose that’s the one over-arching rule for success as a manager.  Create an environment where people know they are expected to exceed and will be given every tool they need to get there.  If you let them take charge of their own path to excellence, they will always surprise you with their capabilities and growth.  If you force them down your path, they will always disappoint.

Or something like that.  Anyway … you’re probably wondering what’s wrong with your job hunt now that you’ve done the things I suggested.  Specifically you’ve done your homework on the company you want to woo.  You’ve tunneled down deep into their departmental culture and identified the general archetype by which they tend to judge each other.  You’ve taken an honest appraisal of yourself and realized either those people are just like you or that you want to be them.  Finally you’ve started ringing up old classmates and distant relatives just to say “hi” and chat about their wonderful careers.   At this stage you’ve probably started getting a few half-hearted letters from the corporate human resources department, which is better than before by a long mile.

Unfortunately few if any of these contacts ever amount to anything.  So what are you doing wrong?

Chances are good if this is happening to you that you are not physically located within the primary geographic area of your target.  Yes, it’s just that simple.  The sad truth of modern job hunting is due to increased political, economic, and educational pressures often external to most companies, budgets for relocation have been slashed or outright terminated.  It didn’t used to be this way for talented knowledge workers.  A short decade ago, many companies were willing to offer relocation funds, language training, private schools, and company owned or subsidized housing in order to attract talented people with specialized skill sets.  These days are over.  The promise of telecommuting is also not bearing out as more and more companies adopt agile development processes relying on tightly integrated teams sitting in close proximity.  In other words, most companies will require you to be physically present during the business day and are not willing to move you and your family in order to get it.  This means the candidate who will need to relocate in order to start work will always be ranked lower than the local candidate who already understands the cost of living differences and commute times.

But don’t get me wrong and think there’s only one reason to relocate.  Location also brings other benefits; benefits that are actually more useful to the potential job hunter.  Being located in the same region as the department you wish to join means you will probably get to meet people already working for said department when you start attending special interest group meetings and seminars.  Large companies slough off special interest groups, startup companies, societies, and other ancillary groups like humans slough off dead skin cells.  Large companies attract talented people who usually want to socialize with other talented people interested in the same things.  Since chances are good their home life is not filled with discussions of packet security or encryption algorithms, they will usually start or find some sort of group where they can find such company.  If you join said group as well, you’ve now found another possible source for entry since said person will already know of your interests and talent.  But most of all, they’ll know you’re “just like them” and would be a good fit.

Finally being conveniently located gives you a chronological advantage over other candidates.  Oftentimes if you are doing your job correctly, you will have a good relationship built up with at least one corporate recruiter.  These are the best relationships to covet as they see all the jobs in which you are interested.  Many times in my career, I have found out about a position before it was published simply because I knew the recruiter who was notified it might be posted soon.  If you are conveniently located, the recruiter knows they can call you up and set up an interview the next day with no cost to the company.  You can then drop everything, take the meeting, and probably get the job if you really are a good fit.  No one wants to extend the interviewing process longer than it has to unless there are perks such as free food or drinks.  If the hiring manager can find a great candidate even before the job is posted, they will count themselves lucky and hire you if they’ve done this before.

So to wrap up today’s lesson in corporate schlepping … you need to be where the action is.  Most companies are not importing foreign talent at the same rates, which usually means they aren’t at all.  Candidates who will need to relocate their families, may not understand the local cost of living, and may not  understand the local culture will not be as attractive as other candidates requiring latitude for those reasons.  But on the positive side,  being local to your dream job means you can network with actual employees at special interest groups or other industry social events.  It also means your relationship with the corporate recruiter will be meaningful as they will be motivated to get you into their offices on short notice.

Of course, there are several alternatives to actually moving yourself.  But that’s for next  time ….

When last we left my tawdry little walk through the ins and outs of seeking out employment with a giant behemoth of a company where you can rest safe in deep pockets filled with money and advancement opportunities, I’d advised you not to directly apply for a position through the corporate career website.  This time around I think it would be beneficial to my readers (and my view counts) to start imparting some actually usable advice on how to attract the attention of a independent headhunter (good) a hiring manager (better) or an internal corporate recruiter (best).

Let’s start by reminding everyone of the realities of seeking a job as a cog one of the great machines of commerce.  You will have a lot of competition.  A lot of people out there like being a cog, it would seem.    Plus there’s a certain attraction to inserting yourself into a team doing really large things your family and relations will have heard about.  The most positive feedback I ever heard from relations about my career was when I did a brief stint with the XBox team over at Microsoft.  My job was to basically push buttons on a controller and venture out of my hole every couple of days for my turn at a trough full of Thai food or pizza, but I got a lot of good reactions doing it.  A lot of people associate a known brand with quality or importance; so having the name “Microsoft” associated with my job made me instantly more important (and memorable, which we’ll return to later) in a lot of people’s estimation.  The painful reality of this situation is a lot of people will be attempting to elbow you out of the way when attempting to attract the attention of the people they see as having the ability to let them into the club.  If you don’t find some way to positively attract the attention of people who can help you, well you’re going to spend a lot of Saturday nights standing at the door watching others have fun.

So how do you positively attract the attention of those what can help you?  It’s not as simple as it sounds.  Continuing the metaphor of attempting to enter an exclusive club, there are basically two ways once a club has become amazingly popular.  Backing up, a common method for gaining entrance is to start attending said club before it becomes popular.  In this manner you will be welcome as a “regular” once it gains in popularity and hopefully allowed entry.  There are three problems with this strategy as far as we are concerned.  First you won’t know which club is going to become world-famous popular at the start unless the promoters and owners have a history of popular clubs, but then they won’t let you in anyway.  Second there is always the very likely chance you will be suddenly denied entry once the club becomes popular and you no longer fit the desired clientèle persona.  Third this strategy is really only applicable to people looking at joining startups.  We’re talking about attempting entry with an established and currently popular enterprise.

So to gain access you have three actual strategies.  First, you may be lucky enough to be just the sort of person they look to patronize their club.  Second, you may know some one who can vouch for you or put you “on the list.”  Finally you can bribe the doorman.

We needn’t worry about the first strategy since it obviously doesn’t apply to us.  If you’re the software version of David LaChapelle you won’t need my advice because the companies will come looking for you.  My only advice for you all is if they aren’t, then either you need to start self-promoting your talent through articles, books, and conference engagements or perhaps I might suggest you aren’t as talented as you think you are.  Alternately I suppose it might be possible to fake the sort of talent and personality that may appeal to your corporation (see my previous posts about the mythical self-image of specific corporate employees) but in the best case scenario you will eventually be expected to produce at the level of talent everyone thinks you possess, then the jig will be up.  You can also say hello to the land of being black balled, but more on that state in a different post.

So strategy number two, knowing some one who can put you on the list, is where we’ll start.

This is probably the most effective strategy available to a potential cog.  Personal references are still crucial to entry even in the age of digital media and social networking.   But not all references are created equal.  Having the receptionist pass your resume onto the VP of Product Development may not be incredibly effective (unless said receptionist is actually romantically involved with said VP, but that’s against corporate policy and the VP might wonder how you know the receptionist which opens up a whole … but I digress) but its still better than cold calling the recruiter.  The best reference is some one said VP knows, respects, and trusts has some idea of the actual job and who would be a good fit.  To accomplish having a person like that available to you means you’ll need a fat Rolodex of contacts and people you know already in place.  To build such a Rolodex you’ll need to start right now … after you leave a comment of course.

The way you build such a network of contacts is referenced in my blog title.  You’ll need to take your pride and feelings of shame, box them up in a neat little storage bin, and tuck them safely away for future use when you have your job and can afford such luxuries.  Feeling positively amoral and shameless yet?  Good.  Now start reaching out to everyone you know and start chatting them up about your life and how they’re doing.  Occasionally and inadvertently drop how you’d heard good things about your corporation.  What you’re attempting to do is take advantage of the memorable nature of the branding efforts I mentioned earlier.  You’re making a connection between you and said corporation hoping it will either spark the memory of a mutual acquaintance or relative who’s safely sitting at the bar already.  Talk to everyone, including ex boyfriends or girlfriends.  Remember that we’re no longer at home for Mister Shame.  Social networking sites are excellent for this endeavor.  I heartily recommend a blitz campaign using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Naymz, and any other heavily trafficked site you can find.  But a word of caution, you may want to set up accounts specific for this activity unless you want some one to refer the VP to your Facebook page where they can review those pictures of you your friend posted from that time in Seattle where you partied for two days with Layne Staley and ended up … I’m digressing again, right?

Your ultimate goal is to find a friend, a friend of a friend, a relative, or a former colleague who’s working at your corporation to whom you can attach yourself like a lamprey eel.  Once the connection’s been established, keep it current but casual.  The point is to keep yourself in their mind when some one mentions a new opening in a department for which you’d be a great fit.  The scene should play out where your contact approaches the person after and talks to them a little more about their needs.  You’re casually floated as a possibility, and a promise of an introduction is made.  You then either meet to chat with the “hiring manager” and you’re in if you really are a good fit.  That’s it.  It’s really that simple.

But how do you get the person to want to put you forward as a candidate, especially if they only know you from boarding school?  The answer is you won’t have to because you’re already bribing the doorman.

All large companies have what are called “referral bonuses.”  This is essentially free money of varying amounts that a company promises to pay a current employee if they find them another cog to join the machinery.  Policies and amounts vary from a percentage of the eventual salary paid after six months to a year of employment all the way down to a flat fee paid immediately on your first day of employment.  So by referring you to the “hiring manager” they are satisfying their own sense of greed, and in this case greed is definitely good.  It costs a lot of money to advertise, recruit, screen, and interview qualified candidates.  By referring a candidate directly, the internal employee is saving the company a lot of time and money.  You get a great job.  The company gets a great employee or a really good liar, which may be the same thing depending on the company.  Your contact gets a nice chunk of money to spend on video games, vacations, or possibly the book I’m helping write <shameless plug> that’s scheduled to be released this Fall </shameless plug>.  And to top it all off, the recruiter can go back to working their screenplay/novel/play/web comic taking a satirical look at life in a corporation.

So what’s the first thing you’re now going to do, Sinners?  That’s right … comment.  Then you should poke that fellow in Burnsby you used to work with and just check to see what he’s been up to.  I know.  It’s been ages.  You?  Oh just more of the same.  Actually you were just reading about that new product over at [fill in company name] and was thinking they’re really doing interesting things over there.  Oh really?  He is?  And he’s on that team?  Ha ha.  Didn’t he nearly get fired for chatting up the receptionist all the time?  VP of Product Development now, is he?  Small world ….

Guess which one the people complaining about job descriptions usually fall into?

Of course there could be an actual issue here, which is a failure to match up stated expectations with the actual work some one performs on a daily basis.  The issue of work mismatch is a lot more common than you would think.  You can easily check on whether you suffer from it by doing a simple test.  Do you know if you’re doing a good job or meeting the expectations of your boss without needing to go ask them?  If you didn’t need to think about the answer to this question, you’re either a cocky bastard or you are working in a position with clearly defined expectations and success criteria relevant to your daily work.  In either case you’re lucky because either you can spend your time focusing on actually doing work with a clear idea of how to advance (if you should want) or you’ll probably do well in life anyway if you can back it up because cocky bastards usually do if they can.

For the rest of us, a lack of understanding usually indicates we’re working at a position where our expectations and success criteria are either ill defined, subjective, conflicting, or completely at odds with our actual work.  There are several reasons for this but the most common I’ve seen is revulsion at the thought of doing “busy work.”  Most people at most companies consider things like role definitions and such to be odious tasks best left to others with no actual work to perform.  Real workers are seen as too valuable to waste their time on bureaucratic nonsense that will soon be outdated soon in any matter.  The trouble is this hurts companies in two ways.  First it hurts morale because workers don’t have a clear idea of what they are expected to be doing, how to judge their own performance, and what steps they need to take in order to get that raise, promotion, or bonus.  Second it hurts recruitment because each job opening is then treated as a special snowflake to be treated as an individual miracle or they’re treated as identical cookies cut from the same form with a few differences in toppings for decoration.

As an example, without a clearly defined set of expectations for a role the hiring manager, recruiter, and agent are all forced to guess what is now the difference between a senior development engineer and just a regular development engineer.  Taking it even further, perhaps there are no senior development positions even though your needs cover a wide range of experiences and skill sets.

I know your company is different.  You’re showing the world what a ragtag group of misfits can accomplish without all those titles and rules, man.  Our founders call themselves “Head Necromonger” and “Chief Gelfling” respectively.  I would then submit that come time to hand out bonuses or stock options or whatever you want to call it, there are going to be people who wonder why one gelfling received a larger share of stock than the gelfling working across the cubicle wall.  The recruiter you hire will also undoubtedly wonder what the hell a “necromonger” is and which Monster group should they post the opening into.  Is it computer software or hardware or is it a religious thing and should therefore go into nonprofits?

If you spend the time to accurately document the roles and their expectations within your organization, you will find your workload as a manager eased more than you can now comprehend.  Performance reviews then become a fun activity where you can work positively with some one to advance their careers or shore up weaknesses preventing them from getting the recognition.  Conflict management within the team becomes so much easier since most of these issues fall into the “not my problem” category.  But most of all, when you finally get the okay to hire that new team member you’ve been following the director into the bathroom to lobby for … you’ll actually have most of  a really good job description completed.  Just grab the role description and add the fun bits about specific skills or needs and run it through HR to make sure nothing you don’t want public will get out.

And then its done and you can then turn your attention to sorting through the 500 resumes on your desk because it turns out there really is a job called “necromonger” in Utah and the primary employer for that industry just announced a staff reduction of 30%.

Good luck, my little gelflings.