CAN SASQUATCH TEST?

My Dad asked me if I was dating Sasquatch yet, and I said no, I'm not fond of hairy men with poor hygiene, but that if he could test, I'd like to talk to him. We could always use Febreeze to fumigate out his pod.

Hiring in the Great Northwest has thus far been an interesting experience. First, the candidates are generally of higher quality. I believe that's because Intel, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon aren't too far away.

However.

The pool of available bodies is much, much smaller. And those who are looking want top dollar. I've got a budget, and it's reasonable. But I need 33 people and can't afford to pay every one of them top dollar. I can't pay an analyst with 4 years of experience senior dollars. If you've never worked on a multi-million dollar effort with global impact, I can't use you at all. And experienced people are in demand; if you find a candidate you like, you'd best make an offer immediately. Because they'll have 4 offers by the end of the week.

That's the FTE side (full-time employee). On the consulting side, things are much more normal. We get a lot of schlock. They pick up whomever they can from the net who fit into their profit margins and send them on, hoping we'll bite. Not. Some firms send us better candidates than others, particularly after they realize a candidate who can't even spell the word "test" isn't going to make the cut. It's a learning experience for them and most consulting firms go through the same process with everyone as they learn what they can and can't submit to a given client. This is where it's an advantage to a company to have experienced resources on board selecting their personnel. The fact of the matter is that those unqualified resources are and have been working for SOMEONE. But if you have a critical effort underway and need sharp, experienced personnel, you certainly don't want it to be YOU.

The only requirements for people on my team are talent, experience, and passion for the work. That's it. Oh, and they have to appear to be nice. Not sugar-candy, sweety-sweety nice, which would make us all gag, but "normal" nice, where they'd pitch in to help someone out, recognize that they might not be the center of universe, and don't appear to have any serious mental illnesses. We have all had experiences with evil trolls on our teams and generally feel we can do without them. One bad apple can bring down the entire tree. So no one perpetually stuck in Martyr Mode, where everything is everyone's fault but their own, no one so ambitious they would happily step on the bloodied bodies of their compadres and people who have helped them in order to get ahead, and no fanatics of any kind - religious or other. They're a pain in the behind , since they're categorically incapable of recognizing the worth of anyone's opinion but their own. Merely being a bit weird is totally acceptable. Welcome to Portland.

Talent is kind of a tricky thing to identify, but it's worth the time and effort. We ask a combination of questions; some technical, some situational, and gauge the answers accordingly as best we can. On a number of them there is no "best" answer; we just want to see how someone thinks. Or if someone CAN think. Federal law prohibits us asking someone if they're a total whack job, so we're stuck with our instincts on that one. Even though our need for people is critical, taking the time to find the RIGHT people is time well-spent. There's a world of difference between "competent" and "talented". The talented people give a damn and are self-regulating in terms of the quality of their work. No one is harder on a talented person than the person themselves. You know what I mean. Chances are good if you're reading blogs about testing, you're an overachiever yourself. A testing geek. Someone who cares about what they do. Competent people just do what they need to do without putting anything extra into it. Competent people are fine, if you have the time and size for just "getting by" on a given effort. Something involving a lot of regression testing with pre-defined tests is a good example. But it's not good enough for an 'A" team, if you know what I mean. And everyone puts agile testing and automation on their resumes. But they know nothing, and I do mean nothing, about agile test techniques and have never actually automated squat. They know detailed manual test cases and that's it. And given their lack of capacity for creative thinking, it's doubtful their detailed tests were anything to write home about either.

I had a firm that supposedly knows all about "agile best practices" telling me they need detailed test cases to do their job. First, there's no such thing as "best practices" - one size does not fit all. There are good practices that can be adapted to your environment and that can become a best practice for your particular organization, but you certainly have to be familiar with them before you can adapt them! This particular firm is about 15 years behind the rest of the field. And they want to be involved in "helping" us with our process and procedure!!! Argh!!!!!

I had a candidate that had written "a couple" test cases a few years ago; it took them 2 or 3 days! Per test!! Good grief; unless you were writing the Test Case From Hell and writing 50-page test cases, how could documenting one test take 3 days? And how is that AGILE?I had a candidate that waxed poetic about what they wanted to do when they retired. And their primary goal was to retire early. But passion for their chosen field until they reached that goal? Nada.

And no one had read any books, blogs, or was interested/curious in what's going on in our field. How can build something cutting-edge with a bunch of lackadaisical stumps? YOU are in control of your career and nothing stops you from learning. Your circumstances might keep you from PRACTICING at a given company, but if this is your chosen career, you should freaking know something about it!! Why should I pay big bucks for someone who'd be just as happy to be a sales clerk, if the money were there?

Pardon me, I must go plunge my head into a bucket of cold water before it explodes. And I'll clean up the flying spittle as I appear to be foaming at the mouth. But this is a personal sore point with me - talking to people who don't care, shouldn't be in the field, or who expect people they know are experienced to swallow a bunch of bullshit they give to people who don't know the field (whilst smiling and remaining professional). It sucks the life out of me. And my leads and managers are hating life right now, since they're involved in the process as well and just want to hire some help and Get On With It. We all have ten thousand things to do and hiring staff takes TIME. We're all working long hours and don't even have time to eat or take care of certain necessary bodily functions during the day; I think my skin is turning yellow. We're considering requesting porta-potties as part of our standard office equipment.

So If we find some talented Sasquatch (I don't know the plural!), I'll post a picture of them, cups of coffee next to their PCs and entering tests in-between casually picking lice out of each other's fur...