A handful of recruiting-related blog posts were published over the weekend; and whether you are hiring or interviewing, these are important reads.

First, in “Recruiting High Impact Employees“, Peter Flint of Polaris Ventures gives a list of questions to ask when hiring. Before joining Polaris, Peter spent several years at Ramsey Beirne Associates and is an expert in building senior management teams for early stage venture backed companies. Peter provides a detailed check list of important questions (attention job seekers: prepare for these!). Here are a few:

- Strengths and Weaknesses analysis: Delve deep and follow up any generalized comments by asking for examples. Also get specific examples of failures and successes. Everyone wants to give you just the strengths.
- If the candidate is being considered for a more senior role than he has played before, what challenges will he/she face?
- Ability to hire well: Get examples.
full list here

From a job seekers’ and perspective, both Jason Antman and provide advice on crafting job reqs to specifically attract engineers. The two most interesting takeaways:

1. Engineers should write the technical specs… and be very specific about critical skills and nice-to-haves.
2. Pay as much attention to the non-technical specs as the technical. Describe the job, the team and work environment, etc.

According to both bloggers, the majority of engineering ads fail these two bullets.

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