Hard & Soft + Magic
It’s simpler to have two categories rather than thinking of more combinations, as during interviews we will basically act as a questionary tailored to what the participant can answer. Part of that questionary is about what they know, normally you will have a defined pool of questions, and your job really it’s to play with the candidate to see how reacts and acts.
For more rants, see the Interviews and Work, Walkthrough Guide.
Let’s see the categories in detail!
Hard Aspect
You either know/have it or don’t, there’s no between. In this position is what we oversight profiles that could bring more value by investing time on them.
Limited exposure thanks to the specialization and company needs leaves a gap that can block access to many positions to new candidates, unless they either explore them own their own, and that would be probably more like a hobby, at least is better than nothing.
Soft Aspect
Funny enough, it’s hard to grasp. Beside using Behavioral questions, you will practically have to rely on your gut to determine what could be a better position.
Or at least that’s what I would like to say, there are a lot of things that we can realize while talking with someone:
- Way that it communicates.
- Expressions, Language
- Tone, Fluidity.
The Magic of Writing
This will be (hopefully) covered in a dedicated page. It’s often oversighted that before starting talking with someone, you CV will be your first impression, and I have read some that seriously lack quality.
I don’t expect poetry, but at least I expect some thought put onto it, like they care. Of course, I may understand that some would prefer to leave things in ambiguity to not lose opportunities, but what in reallity happens is that you will end up with a 50/50 chance that you will get ignored.
There is a high demand of professionals, but the standards are also high. Let’s ignore IA/Scripting filtering, and consider that people only look at the experience and not other “attributes”. You have to optimize meeting new candidates, so if someone looks like a waste of time, you will get discarted.