Bad hiring managers refer to massive lists of nice-to-haves as requirements, which encourages incompetent blowhards to apply. They hire ninjas who sneak around and rock stars with huge egos. Over Dawn’s 20+ year career in technology and OSS, she has seen many terrible hiring practices at various tech companies. This Ignite talk is a slightly snarky view into what it takes to be a terrible hiring manager.

1. @geekygirldawn
How to be aTerrible Hiring Manager
Dawn M. Foster, Pivotal
Painting: Ivan the Terrible and Souls of his Victims by Mikhail Petrovich Klodt

2. WHOAMI
Geek, Traveler, Reader
20+ Years in Tech / OSS
OSS Strategy Lead at Pivotal
Photos by Mom, Josh Bancroft, Don Park@geekygirldawn

3. Rock Stars
Famous people
with big egos
who smash things
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay@geekygirldawn

4. Ninjas
Sneaky mercenaries
who may kill you
Image by MichaelWuensch from Pixabay @geekygirldawn

5. GitHub as Resume
Hire privileged people
with loads of free time
@geekygirldawn

6. Requirements
List nice to haves as
must have requirements
Image Credit: Gage Skidmore@geekygirldawn

7. Duplication
Make candidates provide the
same info multiple times
Image Credit: Ag Ku@geekygirldawn

8. Surprise!
Don’t set expectations
for the process
Image Credit: Simon Law@geekygirldawn

9. Culture Fit
Hire clones of
existing team members
Image Credit: Jeremy Keith@geekygirldawn

10. Random
Use random, irrelevant
questions for interviews
@geekygirldawn
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11. Interview Gimmicks
Whiteboard coding,
riddles, and puzzles
Image by Annoying Noises on Flickr@geekygirldawn

12. Test Scores
Rely on test scores
over experience
Image Credit: Alberto G.@geekygirldawn

13. Don’t Communicate
Black holes are for space,
not communication
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech@geekygirldawn

14. Avoid Networking
Don’t meet awesome people
doing interesting work
Image Credit: The Linux Foundation@geekygirldawn

15. What does it mean?!?
Translate from hiring manager
speak into English
Image Credit@geekygirldawn

16. Translation
20 Years of Kubernetes
experience required
Image Credit: Aaron Crickenberger@geekygirldawn

17. Translation
“Opportunity” for an unpaid
internship at a tech company
@geekygirldawn

18. Translation
List of 50 requirements
in a job posting
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay@geekygirldawn

19. Translation
Free dinner and
laundry services
Image Credit: Matthew Ingram@geekygirldawn

20. ThankYou!
Dawn M. Foster, Pivotal
dawn@fastwonder.com
fastwonderblog.com
Image Credit@geekygirldawn