Smart and Gets Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent

by Joel Spolsky

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Editorial Reviews
Product Description

A guide to attracting, recruiting, interviewing, and hiring the best technical talent.

A comprehensive system for hiring top-notch technical employees
Packed with useful information and specific advice written in a breezy, humorous style
Learn how to find great people--and get them to work for you--in an afternoon!

The top software developers are ten times as productive as average developers. Ten times. You can't afford not to hire them. But if you haven't been reading Joel Spolsky's books or blog, you probably don't know how to find them and make them want to work for you.

In this brief book, Joel reveals all his secrets--from his years at Microsoft, and as the co-founder of Fog Creek Software--for recruiting the best developers in the world. You'll learn:

How to create a pipeline of excellent developers using internships--and why this is not optional
How to build a workplace where the best programmers want to work
The secrets to reading resumes, interviewing technical people, and deciding when to make an offer

If you've ever wondered what you should be looking for in a resume, if you've ever struggled to decide whether to hire someone at the end of an interview, or if you're wondering why you can't find great programmers, stop everything and read this book.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2 out of 5 stars

How to identify the smart hiring manager , 2008-11-10
One problem remains for those who in fact are smart and get things done:
More often than none the hiring manager is not smart at all :)
I experienced that programmers who were hard working and were really good were fired because the managers were not smart after all.
So the theory that those 3% have always a job may be correct if they are in an environment where they can show their talent. But if they work in an enviroment where they are in fact the smartest but surrounded by stupid peers and stupid managers well that is an other story.
Also it is an old story about the smart PhD, who did not get things done (prooving some kind of programming concept etc.). For me hiring a PhD means that you only have to deal with the question if he gets things done and not if he is smart, since that he already did proove.
Anyway please write a book about how the smart programmer might identify an applicable working environment for himself. (I.e. find the smart hiring manager / smart group / peers who get their stuff done etc. )

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Good repackaging of old content, 2008-10-20
This is a nice little package that hits a lot good notes in a short, nifty, easy to read package.

However if you are a Joel fan then there's nothing in here you haven't read elsewhere.

Not a criticism but be aware of what you are getting.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Full of tidbits, 2008-09-03
Reviewed by XPSD Member Jane Prusakova

This book is full of tidbits on how to go about the business of
software development: find and attract smart people, interview and
select people to hire, build and manage teams, even how to delegate
decision-making. Most of the wisdom makes sense, if only in some
circumstances, and the rest is either nonsense or simply outdated.

Joel writes a very popular blog (check out
http://joelonsoftware.com/), and most (if not all) of the book is
composed from the entries on that blog. The style of the book
reflects that. The writing on the Internet tends to be more
controversial and less proven or even thought-out; with lots of
metaphors thrown in whether they fit or not. "Smart and Gets Things
Done" is not so much a guide, as it is a thinking-out-loud by Joel,
delivered to a group of admirers in a highly informal way.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Not much new here, 2008-08-11
I've been developing software for fifteen years but picked up this book to gain insights into hiring practises of a solid software company in Fog Creek software.
Honestly, I did not learn much new here. Find the brightest developers you can find (hiring them right out of college is best Joel says), pay them well, give them good working conditions and treat them with respect.
Also, value problem solving skills over technical knowledge in the hiring phase.
OK, maybe I did learn a bit but these tips apply to attracting the best employees in any industry. Maybe I've been lucky but most places I've worked at follow these ideals.
A quick read.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

4 out of 5 stars

A perfect reference, 2008-06-07
Confession: I'm a long time fan of Joel Spolsky and his writing, and this book is no exception.

In usual Joel style, it's a very easy, witty and insightful read. He tell you to set the hiring bar high and shows some simple ways of separating the potentially high performing from those less capable.

Contents:
- Hitting the High Notes
- Finding Great Developers
- A Field Guide to Developers
- Sorting Resumes
- The Phone Screen
- The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing
- Fixing Suboptimal Teams
- The Joel Test

This book can easily be related to all recruitment and not just those in the technical fields.

In an age where finding talented people is becoming increasingly difficult, this book is a certain must read.

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