Talent Litmus

“The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.” This quote, famously coined by Steve Jobs, perfectly sums up the importance people play in your business. And, as a co-founder at Altar.io, I’m always looking for new processes to onboard the best talent possible. The last book I read on the subject was by Geoff Smart & Randy Street. Who: The A Method for Hiring After reading it, I was impressed. I could see why the book featured on both the New York Times & Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list. I took to LinkedIn to share some of the ideas the book had taught me about how I could improve my hiring process. It was nice, then, to receive a message from thanking me for my post. Geoff Smart I asked Geoff how he would feel about sitting down with me to talk further about his hiring process, and how entrepreneurs can improve their ability to onboard top talent. And in the conversation that follows, Geoff not only shares his insights on hiring but also gives his advice for entrepreneurs on all aspects of the startup journey. Interview with Geoff Smart, Author of Who: The A Method for Hiring Paolo: What’s your view on the saying “Hire slow & fire fast”? When it comes to hiring, it’s not about fast or slow, it’s about best practices. In my book , there are four steps that I think you should complete quickly. Geoff: Who: The A Method for Hiring The A Method for Optimal Hiring Step One – Scorecard List: Exactly what you want a person to accomplish in this role. The outcomes and competencies which ensure: Behavioural fit, e.g. Intelligence, analytical skills, attention to detail, proactivity, etc. Cultural fit. Step Two – Source Systematically source talent before you have roles to fill. The best way to source candidates is to tap into your personal & professional networks to ask for referrals. Step Three – Select Select through a series of structured interviews which build on each other and allow you to fill out your scorecard. Step Four – Sell Persuade them to join your team. To read the full process for optimal hiring check out Geoff’s book here . If I talk to an audience of entrepreneurs and I tell them hiring is a slow process and firing is a fast process I think it gives them the wrong mindset. The mindset should be one of process, discipline and speed. If you can write a scorecard quickly. If you can get through your screening interviews quickly. And if you design your second interviews well you’ll be able to move fast. But my advice is you have to follow the four steps I mentioned, without cutting corners. You don’t get a 90% success rate when you cut corners, you’ll get 50% success rates. It’s less a game of fast vs. slow and more of a game of adhering to the best practices. I do think firing can be fast. But in this legally sensitive world, if you treat people with disrespect and fire them too quickly, you’re going to get sued! However, you should make that decision quickly. If you think you need to fire someone, put them on a performance improvement plan, give them three months plus to prove themselves, meet with them weekly, try to coach and develop them and if it doesn’t work out you fire them. “I think hire slow, fire fast is stupid advice for entrepreneurs. If you follow it you won’t be hiring the right people quickly enough and you’ll end up in a lot of legal trouble.” The Brass Tacks According to , it costs employers 33% of a worker’s annual salary to hire a replacement if they leave. To put that in dollars and cents, if an employee is earning $45k a year, it’s going to cost you $15k to find their replacement should they leave. Employee Benefit News Maybe the focus shouldn’t be on hiring slow and firing fast, but on hiring right an avoiding unnecessary staff turnover. P: In Who: The A Method for Hiring, You write about the characteristics of A players. How do you detect high-quality candidates in a short space of time? There are a lot of bad ways to evaluate a candidate. Let’s start with bad methods. Take The Handbook of Industrial and Organisational Psychology for example. This is filled with different methods for evaluating a human being. G: Starting with psychology tests – which are always filled with obvious questions. For example, there’s a question on a psychology test for Sales Leaders that asks “Where would you rather be on a Friday night? At a library or at a cocktail party?” So psychology testing is far from accurate when it comes to evaluating candidates. They can be good for team building, like the can be a great way for teams to understand each other’s psychology. Myers-Briggs Psych tests don’t work, they’re too easy to fake and you’re not going to get the truth from someone. Next are brain teasers. This is a very limited way of evaluating people. Google, McKinsey, all these big firms that were known for doing brain teasers have moved away from that. Because they realise if you ask someone how many bowling balls you can put into a Boeing 747 it shows you a very narrow slice of their problem-solving skills. You don’t learn anything about persistence, project management, interpersonal communication, etc. by asking people brain teasers. You end up over-indexing on good mathematicians, but they may not be good and managing people, managing deadlines and the long list of things that also matter. “Brainteasers in an artificial setting aren’t a good litmus test for how people will perform in their job.” The next one we hear about a lot is going with your gut. Don’t hire with your gut. 60 years of research on psychological assessment and interviewing methods suggest that people who follow unstructured hiring methods have a sub 50% hiring success rate. So that doesn’t work. If it worked it would be great! I could say “Cool I like that guy, I don’t need data or real information I know he’s the right fit.” Next, the “Tell me about a time when…” question. “Tell me about the time when you were creative?” sure they’re gonna tell you about a time they were creative at least once in their life. But can you just take that one example that they chose to provide to know if they’re creative? No, of course not. Finally, the hypothetical questions. For example, “How would you resolve a conflict with a colleague?” question. Unfortunately, the way they reply in an interview situation is probably going to be very different from what actually happens when issues arise in the workplace. “With all of these bad methods, you’re gathering information but that information doesn’t enable you to make a better hiring decision.” So, as boring as it sounds, you should find out: What did they accomplish? Who did they work with? How did they do it? What would their bosses say their strengths and weaknesses are? That kind of data is very useful because it happened in the past and you can pair that with reference checks to verify what they said. Those two things give you 90% accuracy when hiring. In terms of finding out if they’re persistent. Well if I talk to candidates about every accomplishment, low point, their education, their work experience, etc. All of those aspects will paint a relatively clear picture as to how persistent they are. Even creativity, you can tell from the way someone describes their accomplishments. Imagine a marketing candidate who’s telling you they increased brand awareness by 28%. If you ask them how they did it and they reply, we bought ads – not very creative. But if they tell you: “We came up with a whole new way to access a whole different market and it boosted our sales by 400% and we won awards.” – That’s a creative candidate. “All the answers to these characteristics are in the facts and the data. It will tell you how persistent or creative.” As for honesty, it’s about asking those who, what, how, tell me more about… questions. For example, I interviewed someone once, and when I asked them why they left their previous job they told me: “I didn’t agree with some of the strategies or policies of the company.” So I asked him, Like what? And he kept talking and as it turned out the guy falsified some sales information to inflate his bonus pay and got fired for fraud. This same person admitted that they were put in jail for selling drugs in college. So if you ask the right questions people will tell you a lot. Then you have your references where you can crosscheck what the candidate is saying. And when talking to references outright you can ask them, “How creative is this person from 1-10?” The Brass Tacks According to Statista, it takes an average of 41 days to onboard a new member of staff for companies with 1-500 employees. It’s important to start thinking about onboarding new team members before you need them, so you don’t rush the onboarding process. P: You write about not hiring generalists but hiring specialists. In a startup environment, one could argue that in the beginning, you need some generalists. What’s your opinion on this? Generalist vs. specialist as it relates to startup and entrepreneurship. Let’s start with the idea that startups need generalists, the argument always goes like this: G: “Oh, my college roommate is good at a bunch of things. He’s willing to work for little to no money and a bunch of stock options. Also, we don’t have a lot of startup capital so I can’t hire a bunch of specialists. I need to hire people who can wear lots of hats and then when we get bigger we can bring on the specialists.” Where I think that’s flawed is that I firmly believe that humans aren’t good at lots of things. From my 25 years of assessing thousands of people is that there aren’t that many generalists who are good at lots of things. There are people who are willing to do lots of things, but they’re not great at it. I also believe that only a small number of things matter in a startup. Proving the product, landing key first customers, raising startup funding. In any stage of a business, there are very few things that are important and that people are only good at a small number of things. Therefore if you find a specialist who’s a rockstar at the given thing you need at your given stage of growth then you’ll end up having a lot more success than if you hire generalists who’re generally lousy. “It’s very rare to meet a generalist who’s great at everything they do.” Very early on I hired a CFO. I didn’t hire a CFO who was a generalist who was going to sales and marketing and finance and IT, etc. Instead, I hired a guy named Ron who’s really good at financing and accounting at the startup level. I didn’t have a marketing person or salesperson, because I could do some of the rainmaking myself. What I needed was a counter-balance to my skills and that was a CFO. With that, we were able to grow the company until we could look at bringing in more specialists in the roles we were missing. I don’t know that you’re going to have the power to move your business to the next stage if you just hire generalists. Whereas I’ve seen in hundreds of cases where they went without certain specialities until later. They prioritised what they needed at the moment to get to that next milestone, and found the best person for that job. I talked with 26 self-made billionaire entrepreneurs and these folks were telling me: “At any given time you’re only really hiring one or two key people, and if you hire someone who’s outstanding at that specific thing you’re going to get better results.” Related to that is strategic priorities: “Startups that have 55 priorities generally don’t do as well as a startup that has one to three really clear and focused priorities.” With that in mind, you should hire people with a clear focused talent in what you need. The only place for a generalist I can think of in any business is actually the CEO of a very large company. If you’re running Pepsico or JP Morgan Chase, etc. Then you should hire a CEO who is capable of having a point of view and can manage leaders across different function layers. But I don’t think startups deserve generalists until they’ve grown and managed collections of leaders. But between 0 and 1 billion+ in revenue, you should hire the specialist your business needs. Expert Tip “Most startups fail because of some sort of HR dynamic. The vision might be good, the market might be good, but if your team can’t execute against it, then you’re already one foot in the grave.” Yaron Samid , Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Founder P: What should founders who aren’t HR specialists do to improve their ability to hire? The interview scripts that I write in my book serve the purpose of helping anyone, regardless of experience, ask good questions and collect good data. That will make things clearer as to whether or not a candidate can do the job or not. G: If you’re a young founder and you’re not used to hiring someone outside of your functional area, or you don’t have an HR background, I think that’s ok if you’re willing to be coachable and humble and can ask lots of questions using the framework we’ve offered. If you follow Step One of the Who book and you create a scorecard you can interview experts outside of your field very successfully. Like when I hired my first CFO I didn’t know what I should be looking for. So I talked to other entrepreneurs and asked them what the different flavours of CFO were. I discovered the flavour I needed and made that into a scorecard of criteria and asked candidate questions surrounding that. And as I ask them questions I’m listening for them to say the things that I already have on my scorecard and I’m checking it off as I go. It’s about identifying the criteria in a scorecard format then identifying the existence, or non-existence, of that criteria in the interview. “If you follow my framework you can effectively assess whether or not someone is going to be able to do the job you need them to.” I helped a unicorn tech founder create a nano-tech research lab. Neither of us knew the first thing about nano-technology. What we did was create a scorecard based using expert input to find out what we would need from the head of this research lab to do and what competencies were important and we applied it to the interviews. Then because of that, we were able to find a list of candidates who were the right fit. I remember this one candidate told me he didn’t like to follow processes. He liked to be very intuitive, and we didn’t need that. Our scorecard said we needed a process-oriented candidate. So with that scorecard that we developed with the help of experts, we were able to build the research lab. The Brass Tacks According to CB Insights , 36% of startups that fail do so because of team-related problems (23% because of the wrong team for the jobs, 13% because of disharmony among team members). It’s not only important to onboard a team of top talent, but you also have to make sure you have a positive environment with healthy company culture. P: How do you make sure that founders and managers hire for company culture, and not just hiring people who are similar to them? G: Firstly, it’s a mindset. A bad mindset is feeling safe hiring people who’re similar to you. It’s natural human behaviour but it’s not good for business. A better mindset is to say to yourself: “I want to hire people who’re outstanding performers in their field.” “Hiring people based on whether you both like golf or steak is a horrible way to hire. You need a mindset of hiring for performance, not chemistry.” The second part is how you source people for the position you’re hiring for. You want to source talented people from diverse backgrounds. When you’re doing the sourcing step, sometimes you have to explicitly tell people we’re looking for sales talent and we want diversity in background, gender, ethnicity. Otherwise, you will end up getting people just like the people you asked for candidates, or just like you. In that case, you’re not seeing the full range of talent available to you. Finally, putting company culture aspects on your scorecard and looking for them in the interviews can really help. For example, the pace of communication is a cultural aspect of many companies. Some companies are very methodical where you have to do a lot of work before you speak up. Others are more agile and fluid where it’s more of a test and learn environment. So that’s really important to ask people about their work styles and having your company culture on the scorecard can really help in that respect. It’s said that around half of the hiring mistakes out there happen because of some kind of culture incompatibility. “Make sure that you don’t just hire clones and you’re hiring for excellence from a diverse background.” P: How do you spot the perfect co-founder and handle the interview process? You should find a co-founder that has a one-third overlap with you in skills and a two thirds complementary skills. G: There are hundreds of examples of this where there is a small overlap and a large aspect of complementary skills – take Jobs and Wozniak. Jobs has some basic technical background, but Wozniak was the tech brain. Wozniak had knowledge of promotion and sales and marketing but nowhere near as much as Jobs. You’re experts in different fields but you’re able to speak the same language. Then it’s about making sure that values and cultural aspects are consistent between you as well. As well as how hard you’re going to work you need to be on the same page about that as well. But the main thing is to hire for skill complementarity. Do NOT hire someone just like you with the same skills as you, I’ve never seen that work. P: What other advice would you give founders starting their journey? Before you start your company have: G: At least 10 customers lined up to buy from you Two-five great hires lined up Have enough cash lined up (whether it’s debt or equity) to give yourself two years of runway before launching. P: What resources, other than your book, do you recommend to founders? It can be a book, a podcast, or anything you feel like. by Jeff Timmons. It’s the bible for startups. G: New Venture Creation Thank you, Geoff I want to thank Geoff for taking the time to sit with us and share his insights on hiring the best talent for your startup. It’s important to remember, as you move through your startup journey, that it’s the people around you that will carry you towards success. Your product might change, your market might pivot, but it’s your team that will adapt to these changes and help your startup become a valuable asset for all stakeholders involved. This interview was originally published here by Paolo Dotta.

Interview with Geoff Smart: How To Hire Top Talent

Web3 builders are only starting to realize the importance of sustainable and meaningful web3 marketing. There are web3 marketing companies and tools that are now helping web3 projects achieve traction. Another aspect of web3 that’s growing rapidly is the involvement of more women in this space. To discuss all of this, I had the opportunity to interview Victoria Vaughan, the co-founder of a marketing and PR firm InCryptoLand and the former CEO of Cointelegraph. Let’s dive in. Q. Hello Victoria, it’s great to be talking with you. Can you please introduce yourself, and share your professional journey with our readers? Hello, and thank you for having me! I'm Victoria Vaughan, and I am a co-founder of , a premier PR and marketing agency for the Web3 and tech sectors. InCryptoland My journey in Web3 started about nine years ago when I dived into the digital asset and blockchain world. I joined the Cointelegraph team as a project manager. Later, I was promoted to CEO and successfully grew the company to over nine million monthly readers across 10 languages. Impressive, right? But it's a team effort, trust me! Along the way, I've collaborated with some of the industry's most influential brands like Coinmarketcap, Etoro, Moonpay, and OKX. These collaborations expanded my expertise in growth hacking, marketing, and business development. Before all this blockchain excitement, I was deeply rooted in the tech scene, working for a tech startup as a product manager. So, you can say I've seen the industry from various angles, which has been super helpful in my current role as a tech PR agency co-founder. Q. Before we talk about InCryptoland, tell us how Web3 marketing agencies can solve the problems that Web3 companies face. Are PR firms an essential component of the Web3 ecosystem? If so, why? Yes, I think PR firms are absolutely essential in Web3. In a highly competitive blockchain ecosystem, you need a specialized marketing strategy. A tech-savvy PR agency can connect you with the right partners and investors while providing you with crucial media coverage. This makes the path to deal-closing and client acquisition much smoother. But it’s more than just PR. Crypto marketing agencies bring in a whole arsenal of growth hacking techniques. We're talking Twitter spaces, Discord AMAs, and some strategic Twitter shilling to grow your followers with minimum spend. Plus, a robust content marketing campaign can kill two birds with one stone: it boosts your SEO ranking and educates potential clients, essentially greasing the wheels for your business development. And let's not overlook the value of expertise. An experienced crypto marketing team brings a wealth of knowledge to your project, helps you sidestep common pitfalls, and executes effective campaigns. They've got connections too; a trusted network of influencers and partners that can take your project visibility to another level. Working directly with influencers can be a hit or miss, but agencies can pick the right ones to amplify your message. So, all in all, it's a win-win. Q. The volatile crypto market makes it difficult to run any Web3 company. How should someone build a team, develop a strategy, and make a Web3 marketing company successful? I totally get what you're saying about the rollercoaster ride that is the crypto market. So, first and foremost, you've got to be nimble with your financial planning. The ups and downs are wild; some companies go on a hiring spree in a bull market and then, bam, they're toast in a bear market. The key is to stay agile and adjust your strategy in real-time based on market conditions. On the subject of teams — I think a strong team is non-negotiable. You want a mix of people who are deep into Web3 but also some who come from more traditional sectors. That blend can help you craft a balanced strategy that's got both innovation and tested wisdom. Partnerships are the cherry on top; they bring cross-marketing opportunities and long-term support, which are gold in this fast-paced landscape. Now, the bear market isn't just about surviving; it's a land of opportunity. Companies that stay transparent and keep the conversation going with their community during the rough patches end up building trust and credibility. Not to mention, PR and marketing opportunities actually multiply. News outlets are more receptive, influencers are keen to partner, and the advertising costs are generally lower. So, it's all about turning challenges into stepping stones, really. Q. Tell us about InCryptoland and how it helps Web3 businesses. What are the fundamental working principles of your marketing agency? InCryptoland focuses on organic PR campaigns, social media management, and community growth. Our agency also developed a wide network of selected channels for media buy campaigns. What really excites us is collaborating with founders with a burning passion for meaningful causes and advanced technology products. For their PR campaigns, the strategy leans heavily into authentic storytelling that resonates with the audience and highlights the expertise of the team. ICL's guiding principles are Drive, Excellence, and Commitment. These principles really shape the way we approach each project. From crafting the ideal PR pitch to building up a strong community around a client's vision, our aim is to give it our all. We're continually seeking the best opportunities for reaching audiences and driving engagement in this fast-paced Web3 landscape. And speaking of capturing attention, our clients have been featured in the most recognized high-profile publications, like the New York Times, WSJ, Associated Press, USA Today, Cointelegraph, and Coindesk. So, we know a thing or two about getting a story out there in a way that strikes. Our experience spans different verticals of Web3 from DeFi to NFTs, infrastructural protocols to AI, and general tech. This helps us to know what works and what doesn’t. We use these insights to help clients avoid common mistakes in their communications and focus on effective strategies instead. Q. You’ve been working in the Web3 space for almost a decade. What has been your experience as a woman in Web3? Do you have any suggestions and advice for budding women entrepreneurs in the Web3 domain? There is no doubt that navigating the Web3 space as a woman has its own unique challenges. While the industry is generally welcoming, the large networking events can sometimes feel like "boy's clubs." You often have to break the ice yourself, put your expertise on display, and then—finally—you get taken seriously. I've had my fair share of awkward moments where people thought I was there to just hand out flyers. But the silver lining? As you broaden your network, each event becomes easier. The faces get familiar, introductions happen more naturally, and the atmosphere becomes genuinely inviting. The evolving role of women in Web3 is so exciting to watch. There's more to this space than just crypto and blockchain; we're seeing women lead the charge in areas like digital art, fashion, and health. For instance, the rise of NFTs has been a game-changer, especially for female artists. They're not just participating; they're shaping the narrative, moving the industry beyond just financial applications. Advice for budding women entrepreneurs? First, find your tribe—initiatives like WOW, Mybff, and Boy's Club are doing awesome work in enhancing women's awareness of the industry. Second, don't be discouraged by the technical jargon and male-centric vibes; there's room for everyone's talent here. Organizations like UnicornDAO and AthenaDAO are setting brilliant examples by focusing on inclusivity and women's health. Lastly, for the industry itself, the roadmap to diversity is clear: more shared stories, women-centric educational platforms, and an unequivocal commitment to diversify from the top down. Let's keep that conversation going. Q. Do you have any last comments on the current state of the Web3 industry? Where do you see it in the next three to five years? What will be the role of Web3 marketing firms in the coming years in shaping the overall industry? Honestly, the bear market often acts like a litmus test. It separates those who are genuinely committed to building something meaningful from the ones who are just riding the hype train. Remember, some of the most groundbreaking companies were born during downturns. Looking forward, regulation is inevitably coming down the pipeline. And while some might see that as a damper, I think it'll actually make the industry less of a wild west, which could attract more serious investment and innovation. We're already seeing AI making inroads into Web3, and that's a trend I only expect to accelerate. I also believe the infrastructural projects will grow a lot during the next several years. They're the bedrock that'll support the flashy apps and services everyone loves. So, where do Web3 marketing firms fit into all of this? As the industry matures, the role of specialized marketing agencies will only become more crucial. They'll help navigate the regulatory landscape, tap into AI's potential, and spotlight those infrastructural gems. Essentially, we'll be the architects of perception, shaping how the world views and engages with Web3.

Importance of Web3 Marketing and Women in Web3: An Interview With Victoria Vaughan

Web3 মার্কেটিং এবং Web3 তে নারীর গুরুত্ব: ভিক্টোরিয়া ভনের সাথে একটি সাক্ষাৎকার

Bedeutung von Web3-Marketing und Frauen in Web3: Ein Interview mit Victoria Vaughan

Importancia del marketing Web3 y las mujeres en Web3: una entrevista con Victoria Vaughan

Importance du marketing Web3 et des femmes dans le Web3 : une entrevue avec Victoria Vaughan

वेब3 मार्केटिंग का महत्व और वेब3 में महिलाएं: विक्टोरिया वॉन के साथ एक साक्षात्कार

Web3 マーケティングと Web3 における女性の重要性: Victoria Vaughan へのインタビュー

Web3 마케팅의 중요성과 Web3에서의 여성: Victoria Vaughan과의 인터뷰

Importância do marketing da Web3 e das mulheres na Web3: uma entrevista com Victoria Vaughan

Важность маркетинга Web3 и женщины в Web3: интервью с Викторией Вон

Web3 Pazarlamanın Önemi ve Web3'te Kadın: Victoria Vaughan ile Bir Röportaj

Tầm quan trọng của tiếp thị Web3 và phụ nữ trong Web3: Cuộc phỏng vấn với Victoria Vaughan

Web3 营销和 Web3 中的女性的重要性：维多利亚·沃恩 (Victoria Vaughan) 访谈

In the life of every project, there comes a moment when an application gets too complex, and manual testing resources are just not enough to produce a quality application. At this point, a project manager may face a dilemma: should they grow the manual testing talent, take a leap into , or maybe combine both approaches. test automation Below, we cover everything you need to know to solve the manual vs. automation testing riddle for yourself. Let’s start with the basics. Manual vs. automation testing — what’s the difference? Manual testing During manual testing, a test engineer mimics the behavior of a real user and manually checks whether an app under test behaves as it should. While doing so, a QA engineer may either rely on test scenarios and test cases — the instructions defining what to test and what behavior to expect from an app — or let their mind wander freely in search of non-trivial bugs. The types of testing that call upon a human touch span: As the name suggests, this type of testing relies on the tester’s free exploration of the test item. A tester leverages their domain knowledge, creativity, and previous experience to detect uncommon defects that can be overlooked during formal testing. Exploratory testing: This type of testing needs no preparation and doesn’t require a tester to follow any specific test design techniques or execution workflows. The goal of ad-hoc testing is to find defects by randomly checking the application’s functionality. Ad-hoc testing: For usability testing, the human perspective is vital. A tester evaluates whether an app is easy and convenient to use and measures users’ satisfaction with the application. Usability testing: The goal of regression testing is to ensure that recent changes introduced to software haven’t affected the existing functionality. For that, a test engineer reruns all or some of the already executed test cases. In short-term projects with a small number of tests to run, manual regression testing is a cheaper and more flexible way to go. Low-volume regression testing: A common misbelief has it that the key factor underlying the manual vs. automation testing dilemma is the reliance on tools. In reality, use various software tools that help make manual testing more agile and reliable and vary from testing documentation management to cross-browser testing apps. Here’re the most frequently used of them: manual testers . These help conveniently create, manage, and modify test cases, as well as record and track test results. Some tools offer an opportunity to generate reports on test runs, team workload, and test coverage, too. The most popular testing documentation management tools include TestLink, Zephyr, TestLodge, and others. Tools for managing testing documentation . Such software helps manage defects, keep all of the defect data in one centralized space, facilitate communication within the project team, and notify team members of changes. The prevalent issue management tools include Jira, Trello, BugZilla, and RedMine. Defect management software . With the help of cross-browser testing tools, testers verify whether an app runs equally well across browsers, devices, and platforms, manually checking the response levels. The well-known tools span CrossBrowserTesting, SauceLabs, LambdaTest, and others. Cross-browser testing software . These tools help make sure an app’s email functionality is working correctly by offering an opportunity to view how emails render in different email clients. So, testers may skip having to install multiple email apps and sign up to numerous accounts. The popular tools include Litmus, Mailtrap, Putsmail, Email on Acid, Stripo, and others. Email testing tools Test automation Let’s now dig into the second component of the manual vs. automation testing pair. Test automation aims at running more tests in less time. For that, test automation engineers develop test scripts for automated test execution. Designed based on frequently executed manual test cases, test scripts allow running multiple checks simultaneously, with no human assistance. There are two common approaches to test automation: API-level testing and UI-level testing. With API-level testing (or integration testing), testers ensure that the requests sent to the software’s business logic and other applications integrated with the test item are handled correctly. UI-level testing, in turn, stands for checking software’s functionality via interacting with its UI elements. For that, test automation engineers can either develop custom automated test scripts or turn to visual comparison tools that allow analyzing an app’s UI against its previous version. So, what are the types of testing that are worth automating? is the number one candidate for automation. Although it requires some preparation to set up an environment for running automated checks, design a test automation ecosystem, and develop test scripts, the time saved outweighs the initial investments. High-volume regression testing Here’s an example from , QA automation expert at ITRex, to support this statement: replacing manual regression testing with test automation in a project dealing with insurance software featuring complex calculations allowed the team to reduce the regression testing runtime from two weeks to just two hours. Slava Markovski To ensure your test automation initiative yields guaranteed time and cost savings, it is better to evaluate the need for automation and start rolling out test automation activities, like preparing the needed environment and developing first tests scripts, at the beginning of a project. Another type of testing worth automating is , though it lies outside the immediate area of responsibility of test automation teams and is usually executed by performance engineers. To test the response times, throughput, resource utilization, stability, and scalability of an app, performance engineers simulate the behavior of several simultaneous users to check an app’s performance characteristics. performance testing While developing test scripts, test automation engineers rely on tools that serve different purposes and span: These tools help verify the functionality and the user interface of an app by ensuring all of its controls, like menus, buttons, links, text boxes, and other elements look and work as expected. UI testing tools popular among testers include Selenium WebDriver, Protractor, WebdriverIO, and others UI-level test automation frameworks. Unit testing helps verify the quality of an app’s code at the early stages of development. Although used mainly by developers, unit testing tools can be of help to test automation engineers as well. Test automation teams leverage unit testing tools, like NUnit, TestNG, Jasmine, JUnit, Microsoft unit testing framework, and Mocha, to set off automated script execution. Unit testing tools: These tools are designed specifically to simplify the , both native and hybrid. Many of the mobile testing tools available on the market allow writing tests for multiple OSs and support scriptless test creation. Appium is the most popular mobile testing tool that offers support for multiple platforms and languages. Mobile testing tools: testing of mobile apps These tools help build by aligning development and test environments. So, any code changes introduced to the software are verified immediately or in batch at a set schedule. The common CI/CD tools include Jenkins, CircleCI, TeamCity, and others. CI/CD tools: highly efficient delivery pipelines These tools allow generating test reports for test automation teams to visually present the results of test runs and see how they evolve. Report Portal and Allure are among the widely used ones. Reporting tools: Manual vs. automation testing — is the latter better? According to a , only 12% of companies have full test automation in place, and 35% are halfway there, meaning more than half of the surveyed organizations have little to no test automation. While prioritizing manual testing is justifiable for small and mid-sized organizations, overlooking automated testing in large-scale projects with high volumes of tests limits companies from tapping into many benefits. If you’re navigating the automation vs. manual testing problem, check our recent article to get an in-depth look into the . recent survey benefits of automation testing And here’s a quick overview of those worth a mention: . Due to simultaneous test execution, test automation allows running more tests in the same amount of time. And while manual testing can only cover a certain number of devices and OSs, test automation scripts can be easily extended to more devices, platforms, browsers, and operating systems with little to no effort, thus helping unlock more defects. Higher test coverage . The ability to run multiple checks in parallel and shift a larger share of tests “to the left” — that is closer to the start of the development lifecycle — allows to make testing more agile and provide feedback on the quality of an app way faster. And with , testing may even become continuous so that developers get immediate feedback on the quality of changes. Speedier and more efficient testing automation testing integrated into a CI/CD pipeline . Automated tests can run unattended, so you can schedule tests to run during out-of-office hours, saving work time for the tasks requiring a human perspective. Also, test automation frameworks allow rerunning test scripts and deploy checks for multiple users and environments. Reusability and scalability . Automated testing is reliable and resistant to human error. Moreover, some rare bugs can only be discovered during parallel testing. Our test automation team, for instance, spotted an app returning the 500 error when several simultaneous users submitted refund claims, which would have been difficult to detect with manual efforts only. Reliable test results . Test automation helps detect more bugs earlier in the development cycle when they are simpler and cheaper to fix. On the contrary, with manual testing, a larger share of defects gets discovered closer to the end of a sprint, which often leads to delayed releases and incurs additional costs. Optimized testing costs For well-rounded testing, abundant and representative test data is crucial. Test automation helps generate sufficient volumes of test data through a series of simple API calls. Fast generation of test data. Challenges in automation testing to look out for To tap in all the benefits above, you have to plan your test automation adoption journey carefully. Here’re common issues you may face in automation testing and some ideas you can use to solve them: Creating, managing, and updating test scripts takes both knowledge and time. And as software grows, so do test script management efforts. But you can take those efforts to a minimum if you pay close attention to the scalability of your test automation ecosystem from the very start. It may take an experienced test architect to design the ecosystem. Still, it is worth it in the end — a skilled test automation engineer can help roll out a test automation initiative in one to two weeks, making sure test scripts are easy to maintain. Time and effort investments. . Test automation requires specific skills, so if you’re lacking the right competencies, you’ll have to decide whether you would hire test automation engineers, breed the team in house, or turn to a for vetted test automation talent. No matter the option you choose, you would have to put in the time to get your test automation initiative up and running talent-wise. Accessing the right talent QA outsourcing vendor Developing and maintaining test scripts and using test automation frameworks incur additional costs. To get a guaranteed pay off, it is crucial to follow a balanced test automation strategy. Ensure your software is stable, start with automating a small share of regularly executed regression tests, and grow your test automation suite step-by-step. Balancing costs. . When approached carelessly, test automation can, too, be subject to errors. Both false positives (detecting bugs that do not exist) and false negatives (missing bugs that do exist) may halt the test process. To combat both, set some time aside to review your test scripts and see if they are in tune with recent software changes. This will help reduce the risk of errors to a minimum, keeping your tests fresh and preserving trust in your test suit. Tackling false positives and false negatives Manual testing vs. automation testing: so, what’s the deal? Manual testing and automation testing are not mutually exclusive. In fact, both approaches work best when balanced according to the size of your project and the complexity of the software under test. Still, test automation is a more cost-effective, efficient, and reliable way to go in large-scale, long-lasting projects. Check out the table below that summarizes everything said above to sort out the way out of the manual vs. automation testing problem for yourself. The difference between manual and automation testing: Don’t let the manual vs. automation testing dilemma halt your deliveries. , and their testers would set up the test process that’s just right for you! Drop ITRex team a line

Manual Testing Vs. Automated Testing: Which One Is The Best Fit For You?

Chances are, if you’re here, you’re excited about tech. You read startup stories on Medium, LinkedIn, or Hacker Noon. The idea of creating a product, launching it, and then raising a Series A is enthralling to read about. You may be an “increasingly technical” analyst or young professional with no technical experience at all. All things aside, you are hungry to learn, develop, and grow your technical skills and you can’t get enough. However, an enormous gap lies before you. You’re not where you want to be and you desperately want to add technical value. You want to know which software and technologies to pick up so you can add maximum value because, for you, the more technical value you can add, the closer you’ll be to the action. Then there’s the money part. Tech companies want top technical talent and they’re willing to pay top dollar for it. Recent grads are making six figures coming out of college-that alone could be a motivator. But acquiring any technical skill can seem like an arduous path-it’s intimidating for a number of reasons. For starters, there are countless free courses, tutorials, and learning paths out there. The number of options can be confusing and overwhelming. Then there’s the question of how you’ll learn. Are you willing to get a four year degree? Will you learn best by completing an interesting project? Enroll in a bootcamp? Finally, there’s the matter of applying what you’ve learned. How do you take that DataCamp Python course and Udemy Scraper project and turn them into the next step in your career? It’s a lot, I get it. Technical skill acquisition can feel intimidating and, most of all, uncertain. When I first started acquiring technical skills, I wish I had someone who could help show me the way. I needed to know I was headed in the right direction. Given such, I want to provide a few tips that will help give you the confidence you need to learn and apply your skills effectively. Solve Problems Outside of Your Learning Context You just finished a beginner Python course on Codeacademy (amazing!). You created several variables and wrote for loops and functions. You’re feeling great and your eyes are on the intermediate Python course that Codeacademy’s just made available to you. While you move on to the next course, I want you to know something you probably already know. The journey is just beginning-it doesn’t stop at the expert level Python course Codeacademy will eventually offer you. What I mean is, even if you completed multiple courses or tutorials, you should focus on your ability to solve related problems outside of your learning context. Let’s use the Python example. If an interviewer gave you 25 random numbers, would you be able to order them from greatest to least? How about if that interviewer gave you the numbers 1–50, could you print every third number? Rest assured, these aren’t must-know interview-type questions. But they are litmus tests of how well you might know Python. Many online courses want you to be excited as you complete each of their modules and, frankly, you should. Just remember that the real learning takes place when you can apply the course material outside of the classroom. If you’re looking for problems to solve, check out Google’s hub of coding problems . here Understand How You Solved the Problem So let’s say you’ve made some progress on a coding course and watched a few online SQL tutorials. You even took my advice and solved a few problems from the Google link I referenced. Amazing. This may surprise you, but this is where many people stop making progress and ultimately fail to find a job. Many people have a preconceived end destination in mind. “If I devote 25 hours a week to Python, I’ll be able to write Python.” “If I get this SQL certificate, I’ll be well on my way to being a database developer.” Mindsets like these are true, but they’re not the whole truth. The reality is that most people do not understand what they are learning. Many learning resources overemphasize results. Write this, delete that. Manipulate this, produce that. Reach this checkpoint and you’ll be okay. If you want to see if you understand what you’re learning, try explaining it in the simplest of terms, as if you were talking to a five year old. As an example, Y Combinator challenges founders to explain their startup idea in one sentence. This exercise not only forces founders to simplify their idea, but proves they understand what they are trying to build. The same applies to the technical skill you’re learning. This tip is especially important for the interview process, particularly for your resume and in-person interviews. I’d like to share a personal story that illustrates this point. I landed my first job out of college with very little experience. Interestingly enough, that job offer came from a cold application. Meaning, I didn’t have a referral and I applied directly through the company’s website. I was probably one of a couple hundred resumes and I didn’t load my resume with key words. How did I get chosen? My resume conveyed that I understood what my skills could do. I used phrases such as “built custom web scrapers that pulled data from a URL and stored it in a file”. This phrase conveys a few things: The ability to build web scrapers for different websitesI understand web scrapers are meant to pull data from websites via URL and subsequently organize that data in a file or database When the hiring manager interviewed me, he listed a few of the projects he wanted to work on, specifically web scraping, reporting, and predictive analytics for music-related metrics. While I was unfamiliar with music data, I understood what my web scraping skills could do and that those skills could be applied to any music data displayed on a public website. Knowing this, I conveyed exactly that. Based on what I understood about web scraping and data, I explained how my web scraping and analytical skills could help his team complete those projects. I received a job offer a few weeks later. As you solve problems, make sure you can explain your solution in the simplest of terms. All this being said, I want to make sure I make something clear. You still need to be able to produce results, don’t just talk your way through an interview! Acknowledge Impostor Syndrome, Then Beat It As you develop your technical skills, you may feel a couple of emotions, namely uncertainty and intimidation. You may feel you don’t belong because other people are more technical than you. There’s this voice in your head that says you’ll never be proficient enough, that you’ll always need a tutorial or outside help with your technical skills. That’s called impostor syndrome. The reality is that everyone has room to grow and most definitely requires help. I’ve heard time and time again that even the most established software engineers still use technical help forums like StackOverflow and GitHub. The most important thing for you to know is that your proficiency will be measured by your understanding and results, relative to what you’ve already accomplished. Keep Pushing. Keep solving problems. Never stop learning.

What Nobody Tells You about Building a Technical Skill Set: The Struggle

...and set them up for success In recent years the number of coding schools and bootcamps have exploded, with the number of graduates growing from around 3,000 in 2013 to over 20,000 in 2018 according to an industry report by . Course Report The coding school market is now a $240M+ industry with more than 100 full-time programs in the US and Canada alone. Coding school programs, whether they take place in-person or online, offer students an accelerated and more cost effective path to learn computer programming. And the number of graduating students is rapidly encroaching on the estimated 93,000 students who earned an undergraduate degree in computer science in 2017. While coding schools and bootcamps offer an attractive alternative means of breaking into a technology career, students graduating from these programs enter the workforce with a different trajectory and set of experiences than students graduating from a typical 4-year university. And while many employers are attracted by the possibility of hiring from this new pool of talent, most are still flying blind when it comes to figuring out how to hire coding school graduates and integrate them into their engineering organizations most effectively. We’ve talked to coding school graduates and employers alike to pull together this guide on how to make the most out of hiring coding school graduates. If your company is interested in hiring these students, start here. Understanding the Anatomy of A Coding School The moniker “ ” or “ ” is often thrown around loosely, and the first step in successfully hiring graduates from these programs is to learn the nuances of each—not all coding schools are created equal. coding school coding bootcamp Most coding school programs are unaccredited and vary greatly in duration and format, so begin by getting a sense of the curriculum and rigor required to graduate from any program you are thinking of hiring from. According to , the average coding school program lasts for about 14 weeks and the vast majority of programs meet in-person, although the prevalence of online offerings is growing. On average students pay $11,900 in tution—far below the cost of the typical undergraduate degree—but many alternative forms of financing are becoming available. Course Report Here are a few examples of the different models employed by some of the most popular coding schools. Andela focuses on identifying and training software engineering talent in Africa, before placing graduates in full-time roles on global engineering teams. The company actually pays students throughout the course of their training (there’s no cost to the student), and graduates technically become Andela employees although they work day-to-day on the engineering teams of . Andela Andela’s partner companies Hiring managers interested in hiring Andela graduates must technically become an Andela partner in order to work with their engineers. Lambda School Lamda School offers students the option of completing their program by attending full-time for 9 months or part-time for 18 months. All classes are taken online, and students have the option of either pre-paying for the program or paying nothing up front but then paying Lambda back 17% of their salary for two years once they land a job (payback is capped at $30,000). Trilogy Only about 5% of coding schools or bootcamps are university affiliated, but companies like partner with universities to help them deliver skills-based training programs often through extension school style bootcamps. —a 24 week web development bootcamp offered through the University of New Hampshire. Trilogy Education Here’s an example of one such program General Assembly General Assembly offers perhaps the largest range of coding classes offering both full-time and part-time courses that are available either online or on campuses in major cities throughout the world. Regardless of educational model, more than half of coding schools focus their web development courses on learning full-stack Javascript. HTML and CSS are often also taught as foundational skills, and courses focused on Python and Ruby on Rails are also particularly popular. Understanding the Coding School Student According to a , coding school students range in age from 18 to 75, with the average student being around 30 years old. Interestingly, or higher—many are either trying to level up their technical skills or are switching careers altogether. survey by Switchup 80% of students have already earned a bachelor’s degree Nearly three quarters of students cited career advancement as their reason for attending coding school, and 58% of students had little to no programming experience prior to their entering their coding school program. For employers, this is important context—a vast majority of students are starting the process of learning to code from scratch. The good news? Students are generally getting what they hoped for out of coding school programs and bootcamps. On average, graduates see a salary increase of about $20,000 after finishing their program, raising their salary from an average of $42,000 prior to the program to $62,000 upon completion. This is also important context for hiring managers—while coding school graduates are in most cases relatively junior engineers that will need continued mentorship and training once hired, graduates tend to be hired at very affordable rates compared to more experienced engineers. How to hire the best coding school graduates? Once your company has decided to give hiring coding school graduates a go, the challenge quickly becomes, “OK, but who do we hire?” With more than 20,000 graduating students each year the process of finding your next great developer from within this talent pool begins. 1. Look for Students who Geek Out over Code The hiring process should start by really delving into the reasons that the student wants to build a career in software development—understanding their underlying motivations is the first step in making a great hire. “Look for the really curious, smart and passionate people,” says Jane Jaxon, VP of People at Wistia. “There are people who go to coding school for the same reasons many folks go for a MD, MBA or JD—the potential to unlock a very lucrative career. Pick the curious person who is genuinely passionate about what they do and wants to learn. If they genuinely geek out about the craft of coding, it's a great start!" 2. Create a coding assessment to pre-screen for basic skills While your potential new hire just completed coding school, it’s totally appropriate to pull together your own to validate that graduates have the basic skills that they’ll need to be successful at your company. Make sure that the assessment is delivered in a language that the student learned during coding school, and focus on testing only fundamental concepts. coding assessment Also make sure that students can work within a development environment that they feel comfortable in—you want to give them every opportunity to showcase their skills. While , you’ll find that coding school graduates often embrace these assessments enthusiastically as an opportunity to showcase their new skills and distance themselves from other applicants. coding assessments are sometimes unpopular with more senior engineers This is also a great litmus test for whether or not the potential hire really geeks out on writing code. 3. Start by hiring out of one program With the competition for engineering talent being so fierce, you may be compelled to look into hiring any coding school graduate that finds their way into your applicant pool. While we can’t blame you for giving those applications a look, if you’re just getting started with hiring coding school graduates we’d recommend that you carefully select a particular program to start with and focus initially on successfully recruiting their graduates. This works for a couple of reasons—first off, with programs like Andela your company will become an official partner and will have access to their graduates as a result. Additionally, schools with a model like Lambda School often don’t get paid until they land their graduates a job. With this model, the school itself is highly motivated to find companies that consistently look to hire their graduates. Finally, by familiarizing yourself with a single school you’ll come to get a better sense of what skills their graduates do and do not possess upon graduation based on the rigor of the program and its specific curriculum. You’ll also have the opportunity to build relationships with the school’s staff, and schools quickly become echo chambers when students and staff alike are consistently hearing great things about working at your company from previous graduates. Want to take the relationship a step further? Ask your existing engineers if they would be interested in serving as mentors or even guest lecturers within the program you’ve selected. Some members of your existing team would probably love the chance to help shape the skills of future co-workers. 4. Hire more than one engineer at once While we’re advocating for hiring out of one coding school to start, you should hire more than one coding school grad at a time if at all possible. This is helpful for a number of reasons—to start you simply have a bigger sample size to look at when assessing the skill level of coding school graduates. This helps you avoid false conclusions about the viability of hiring engineers from a particular school based on one really good (or bad) hire. Secondarily, remember that most coding school grads came into the program without any prior programming experience—suddenly being thrust into a technology company and expected to deliver code can be hugely intimidating! By hiring even small groups of students in cohorts, new hires have the comfort of having peers at the same level, which can also create a healthy sense of competition. New engineers will be ready to prove their mettle! Now that we’ve covered how to hire coding school graduates, let’s turn our attention to how they can best be integrated into your existing engineering team. How to successfully integrate coding school graduates within your engineering team You’ve identified a coding school program that you’re ready to turn into a consistent source of junior talent for your engineering team, and you’ve even found a couple of aspiring engineers that you’re ready to bring onboard. Here’s how you can set those new hires up to be successful. 1. A solid game plan requires pre-work This may sound obvious, but successfully hiring junior engineers begins with carefully scoping what you’re expecting to get out of them. Identify work that can be successfully completed by junior developers, and have a realistic model for how long these tasks may take. Use your task management software to label simple bugs and small improvements that would be not only good experience for new developers, but also helps them develop a deeper knowledge of your code base. “They started me out with small tasks for a front-end engineer like, ‘Fix this CSS bug that we have,’ or ‘the product team wants this text changed,’” , a front-end developer who graduated from Lambda School before being hired at . says Chris Atoki Neat “Even though they knew I could change text it was more of just getting in that flow of making a pull request and getting it reviewed and merged. It helped me get a feel for how the code base works. They didn't demand that I start pushing code that first week, it was more of, ‘take your time, it's a huge code base, get familiar with it.'" Talk to your existing team and find senior developers who would like to gain supervisor or management experience, and are willing to step into a mentorship role. They can help you pull together some of the items outlined below—you need to have these items ready before you start hiring. 2. Assign new hires an internal mentor Generally speaking coding school graduates are going to be a better fit at larger companies that have teams of more senior engineers that can help mentor them and level up their skills. If your company is a resource constrained start-up with a development team that doesn’t have time to spend developing junior engineers, chances are your hires won’t be too successful. “I came in pretty confident that I knew the job that I had to do,” says Atoki. “Neat hired me as a junior developer and one of the things they did was assign me to a senior developer that I worked very closely with. I knew React and the front-end technologies pretty well, but he had years of experience with the things that I may not have encountered doing projects on my own, so he was able to fill in those gaps for me.” When bootcamp graduates join your team, assign each of them an internal mentor that they can go to to ask questions and get feedback on their work. After initial onboarding, make sure your new hires have 1-on-1 meetings with their mentor at a minimum of once per week. “Pair bootcamp grads with a great mentor who is interested in becoming a manager,” says Jaxon. “It's a great way to get two people exactly what they need in order to grow their careers and both parties have equal stakes in the success of the relationship." 3. Clearly lay out a professional development plan Remember that coding school graduates will typically have only learned the basics of programming in a particular technology. It’s very likely that your company leverages other technologies or has certain development practices that are critically important to learn in order for an engineer to start contributing in earnest. Whatever those technologies or practices are, clearly outline them for your new hires and present them with a curriculum that they’re expected to follow to continue to level up their skills while on the job. Allocate at least 10% of your new hires’ time to continued professional development—they may think that they just completed coding school, but it’s your job to continue to invest in their education so that your investment in each new hire continues to appreciate and add increasing value to your team. "Don't underestimate the value of time,” says Jaxon. “There's only so much you can learn in such a short period of time and bootcamp grads haven’t had that many opportunities to run into issues and learn from them. Folks with more traditional computer science training likely have the benefit of more time engrossed in engineering problems and have had more learning opportunities as a result. If you view the early employment of coding school graduates as an extension of learning, you'll be much better positioned." 4. Reinforce learning by continually assessing core concepts Your new hires will appreciate that you’ve clearly laid out a professional development path for them—but make sure you have the ability to continually assess and objectively measure their learning. allow companies to continually assess their engineers, providing not only valuable insight into the relative skills of your engineers but also an opportunity to continually reinforce core concepts with new hires. Code assessment platforms like Qualified The team at Andela has started doing this with new hires, with significant success. “For internal leveling, we test learners multiple times,” , Senior Product Manager at Andela. “One use case we tried was testing knowledge and behavioral reinforcements by continuously testing our developers on important use cases like certain types of testing or debugging. says Maya Neria We wanted to make sure that developers are consistently being tested throughout our training program on those things. We saw that Qualified helped with knowledge retention, which was really promising.” 5. Give coding school grads opportunities to immediately contribute to your code base Nobody wants to make it to the big leagues only to sit on the bench—the same is true of software engineers! After completing coding school, students are eager to get to work and put their new programming skills to work—it’s your job to harness that excitement and continue to build on it. While it’s common for junior engineers to start off by focusing on squashing bugs, look to provide opportunities for new hires to contribute new code to your code base as well. It’s probably not going to be your company’s next major new feature, but seeing your first code push go live and seeing customers actually interact with functionality that you built is a high for most engineers that are just getting started. Celebrating small contributions is a requisite step in reaching higher level contributions. 6. Encourage new hires to work on side projects This one may sound strange at first blush, but one of the best things you can do for a junior level engineer is encourage them to work on side projects. While they’re beginning to contribute to your company’s pre-existing code base, encouraging coding school graduates to build a side project has a plethora of benefits. First off, it gives them additional experience outside of working with your code base. They can build a project based on their personal interests, and in addition to writing code will gain valuable experience in requirements gathering and designing a software product from the ground up. They may even choose to build their side project in an entirely different or complementary technology to your own, further diversifying their skill set. Encourage new hires to share their side projects with their mentor or with other engineers on your team during 1-on-1’s or team lunches, or leverage communities like to share their side projects with other developers to get feedback and celebrate milestones. You’re trying to stoke the embers of your new hires’ excitement for programming, and shouldn’t view side projects as being in conflict with their primary role at your company. IndieHackers If you’ve followed the guidance outlined in this guide, your new hire will be appreciative of these opportunities and loyal. 20,000+ coding school grads are looking for jobs… now go get ‘em! As the number of coding school graduates continue to increase, so does the opportunity that your company has to turn these programs into a valuable source of new engineering talent. Going to coding school is an investment each student chose to make in themselves—it’s your job to continue to invest in these individuals so you avoid any failure-to-launch type of scenarios. Pair students that demonstrate basic skills and a genuine passion for coding with a clear professional development path and who knows—your next CTO might just be enrolling in a coding school today.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Hiring Coding School Graduates for Your Engineering Team

Why Developers Hate Coding Skills Tests (And What Hiring Managers Can Do To Change That)

A good product or service is wonderful, but great talent is your life force. You’ve taken the plunge and started a business. You’ve never done anything so exciting — or difficult — but customers are rolling in, and the business is starting to grow. You’re now building out what’s arguably the most important asset you’ll ever have: your team. After all, a good product or service is wonderful, but great talent is your life force. show that an engaged workforce leads to increased productivity and decreased turnover — and can spell the difference between a business’s success or failure. Every minute your people spend feeling unclear, unfocused or unhappy is a moment that could otherwise be devoted to customers. Studies It doesn’t happen by accident. I know this from having built and nurtured teams (sometimes from scratch) at many companies, including several startups as well as OpenTable, Upwork and Amazon. Here are some lessons I learned about how to craft high-performance teams: 1. Know what you stand for. Articulate it often. If you were to ask everyone at your company what word they’d use to describe the culture, would they all choose the word? Is it the word you want? It’s never too late to proactively define your culture and give it purpose. same At my startup, NakedPoppy, we’ve explicitly chosen to build a culture of joy. Part of this is because, in my long career, I’ve consistently seen that when team members feel upbeat and cared for, they dig deep and do their best work. The other part is because it’s authentic; my co-founder and I both love to be happy. And our brand is all about injecting joy into customers’ lives. It isn’t easy to serve customers so well that they’d credit us with bringing them joy. So, this cultural value plays another important role: It sets a high bar for attitude and for performance. 2. Master the art of motivational goal setting. Start by painting an inspiring vision and then communicate how each person has an impact. For example, if you are running a chain of blow-dry bars, you might tell your team that they’re empowering women and giving them confidence, one beautiful hairstyle at a time. Follow up with written goals for each team member. The act of writing forces you to work out any kinks in your thinking and to be crisp. It leaves no room for ambiguity, so they can focus on results, not on second-guessing what you mean. Finally, don’t forget to spell out the behaviors you value. When people see concrete guidelines like “exudes positive energy,” “goes the extra mile for customers” or “is respected as a team player,” they have a way of adopting those behaviors. Working on set as a team. From my Instagram 3. Model your obsession with customers. This one doesn’t need much elaboration. People follow their leaders. If you’re constantly listening to your customers, learning from them and going to the ends of the earth for them, your team will too. 4. Turn mistakes into opportunities. It goes without saying that you should celebrate exceptional work. If the appreciation is genuine, the team can tell, and it begets even more good work. But what about those mistakes? Those terrible mistakes that make people swing between feeling upset, defensive and demoralized? One way to make the situation is worse is to tell them what they did wrong, especially when you’re frustrated. Instead, collect yourself and ask, “What did we learn?” You might offer time to reflect before responding. By putting your team members in charge of their own learning, you have empowered them, respected them and freed them to get better. It’s a rare person who will not feel grateful and work harder as a result. 5. Do the tough stuff swiftly. You can create a wonderful culture, but not everyone will shine. Preserve it by nipping problems in the bud. If someone tends to dominate, take credit for other people’s work or behave in other ways that damage the culture, for example, confront them privately. Give them a chance to improve, but keep a close eye. Trust me, the team senses it all. And if, despite every effort, someone doesn’t improve their performance, don’t delay. The kindest thing you can do is to gently move them along. It’s better for everyone — and your team will also understand that their excellent performance is truly valued. Letting go of a poor match is also often better for the team member in question. A few years ago, I had a talented employee who seemed incapable of bringing her full self to work every day. After a couple of weeks that began with asking her how she was feeling about her job, it was no surprise when I asked her to move on. Her small team was pleased to get a new supervisor. And, she got a clean start at another job where she’s now very successful. 6. Make use of the two most empowering words in a manager’s vocabulary: “You decide.” This does not mean you never step in, especially when stakes are high. In general, though, if you err on the side of giving people your trust and confidence, they will feel empowered, learn more rapidly and do their best work. 7. Stay calm. This matters. Every business has those moments. A competitor makes a threatening announcement. A product falls short. You’ve been there, right? Well, keep your doubts to yourself. uh oh — we’re dead Productivity can be lost during these storms. Either you can join the distraction, or you can show a steady hand. This is a marathon and not a sprint. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems. A great team can turn a challenge into an even better business — and go on to win. How can you be sure you’ve created a high-performing team? One litmus test is what happens when you’re not there. Do they slow down? Await your instructions? Or do they power ahead, and perhaps do an even better job than you would? The reality is when people know what they’re striving for, feel motivated, empowered, respected and valued, you free them up to do the best work of their lives. And you know you’ve created something truly extraordinary if you ever hear them say, “It doesn’t feel like work!” This post originally appeared in Entrepreneur .

Does Your Team Love Coming to Work? Follow These 7 Strategies to Make Sure.

Thinking as a CEO will help you determine which tasks you need to be doing right now One of the biggest and sneakiest traps that keeps a lot of solopreneurs struggling to attract clients and make money in their service-based businesses is this: They get caught up in doing a lot of the things that make the difference to their bottom line. It’s an easy trap to fall into, especially when you’re just starting out. smallest Until you’re booking enough clients or filling your signature programs and courses so that you have consistent revenue, it can sure feel like you have to do in your business yourself. While it’s true that entrepreneurs wear a lot of hats, a lot of time we heap a lot more on our plates than is necessary. It’s my goal with this article and to help you obliterate overwhelm by dramatically cutting down your to-do list in a way that makes sense for your business and personal life. everything the previous one , I showed you one strategy for knowing exactly where you’re focusing your time, talent and energy for the biggest returns in your solopreneur business. When you use the strategy outlined, you’ll get either an answer of “yes, this is a worthwhile activity” or “no, this isn’t worthwhile for my business”. As a result, your business to-do list should already be significantly shorter. In this previous article Today we’re going to take it up a notch. Plus I’ll help you see how you can afford to outsource certain tasks even if you don’t think you can right now (and why doing so may make or break your business). I’m going to show you how to determine of the tasks you need to do yourself and which ones you can and should outsource. which Have you fallen into a common solopreneur’s trap? Are missing out on booking more clients, making more money and having the kind of business you dream about simply by letting yourself get mired in activities that other people can and should be doing for you? Here’s the truth: a lot of those things you think are critical that you do yourself to book more clients and grow your business probably aren’t. When you think of yourself as “just” a coach, nutritionist, Facebook ads manager or whatever your title is, you can too easily allow yourself to get caught up in serving your clients and the day-to-day administrative tasks that don’t actually result in a steady stream of leads, clients or cash in the bank. A simple litmus test is to track how you spend your average working day and see how much time you’re spending doing activities that: Don’t directly contribute to bringing in new clients Don’t drive sales and bring money in the door Don’t grow your brand/ brand awareness Don’t help you improve your skill set in the areas that help you get more clients, make more sales and grow your brand awareness. But when you take on the role of the “real CEO” of your business, you focus your time, energy and talent on the big vision for your business and on the areas that make the biggest difference to growth and profitability, which are Marketing + Promotion, Sales and Revenue-Generating Programs + Products and Business Development / Personal Skills Acquisition. Now, I know when you’re starting out and before you’ve hit a certain income threshold, you may feel like you can’t afford to outsource. Let me help you shift your thinking around that with a simple exercise that will show you exactly what you should be outsourcing in order to bring in more money. All the other stuff — the daily operations, administration, customer service — can and should be delegated to someone else to do. Here’s what you should outsource in order to bring in more clients and income While there are certain client-getting and income-producing every business owner needs to be doing on a regular basis , the exercise below will help you determine which of the activities in your personal business you can and should outsource now and the dollars-behind-the-reason bottom line. Grab your to-do list and get ready to take a hard look at where you’re investing your time (and where it may be smarter to let someone else do things for you). (you can grab that list here) Step 1: How much is a client worth? How much is one client worth to you and your business? You can take the average amount that a client invests to work with you, whether it’s through individual coaching sessions, a freelance job or through a paid program or course, for example. Write that amount down on a piece of paper. (If you’re just starting out and don’t have any clients yet, you can skip to Step 2.) For example, let’s say you sell a 3-month coaching program for $2000 per client with no other sales. A client is worth about $2000 to you. Step 2: How much is your time worth? How much is your time worth? To make it easy, think of it as dollars per hour, even if how you get paid isn’t according to an hourly wage. For example, if you said in Step 1 that your average client is worth $2000, then divide that amount by the amount of time you invest into that client to come up with your “hourly rate”. Of course, there are some nuances here for services rendered through group programs, individual coaching packages that include more than the sessions and so on, but this will give you a rough idea of what dollar value you’ve placed on your time. To continue with this example, let’s say you spend 10 hours preparing for sessions and working with a client over the 3-month coaching program. Your hourly rat is therefore $200. Step 3: How much will it cost to outsource or delegate certain tasks to someone else? Now take a look at the list of all the things you handle in your business. You’ll need to add in the personal tasks you take care of, too, if you’re a solopreneur and find that you sometimes take time out of your workday to take care of personal to-dos. Which are the activities that you could reasonably hire someone to take care of for you and for less than you determined the value of your time to be in Step 2? (And, like I discussed in , which are the ones you could stop doing altogether?) this article Tasks like uploading and scheduling blog and social media posts, creating graphics, replying to routine inquiries, grocery shopping, housekeeping, bookkeeping and the like may be necessary, but they probably aren’t something you need to handle yourself. Are you seeing that you spend a great deal of your time on $15 per hour activities instead of the ones that directly contribute to you signing up a $2000 client? Circle those items on your list that you should or would like to outsource or delegate to someone else and write a dollar figure of what it would likely cost to hire someone to do each task for you. Step 4: Which tasks should you outsource first? At this point I bet you’re looking at a list of tasks you could outsource for not that big of an investment. But if you have no budget or a very small budget for hiring some help, where do you start? I suggest you start with the easiest task to outsource that will give you the highest return on investment. For many solopreneurs who also take care of many of their household’s day-to-day responsibilities, the best investment may be in a housekeeper or personal shopper who can get the groceries and run errands for you if you find yourself doing these kinds of activities at the expense of your work time. Or your best move might be in a virtual assistant who takes care of many of the administrative tasks that need to be done but which don’t directly bring clients in the door. While having a housekeeper or virtual assistant may seem like an unnecessary luxury or indulgence, they’re not. They’re a smart investment in the success of your business when you use the recouped time wisely. f someone else can reasonably take your place and do the task for you and for less money than your time is worth, you should consider letting someone else handle it for you. Even if you only recoup a few hours a week, when you use those hours to focus on the big income-generating activities in your business, you should see a high return on your investment. Step 5: Which tasks should you prioritize for the biggest returns? Now, what’s left over? What are the tasks that you’ve determined you’ll still be handling and are they the ones that will help you attract and book clients, create income and grow your business quickly? You can download the free to see if you’re focusing your time, talent and energy into the kinds of activities that will make the biggest difference in your business in the shortest amount of time. The activities listed in the checklist help you do three things: attract and book clients, generate income and grow your business. 6-Figure Business Checklist for Coaches, Consultants and Other Service Providers As your business grows and becomes more profitable, you’ll want to re-examine which activities you commit to doing personally instead of outsourcing to someone else. Where can you leverage your time even more? Which activities are truly important for you to handle yourself? Please share your thoughts I’d love to know… What will you stop doing immediately or delegate to others? What business-building activities will you focus on during your recouped time? Wishing you amazing success in your business and life! Originally published at christineparma.com .

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