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

I heard about this book on a .NET Rocks podcast, and it was as good as they indicated. There are some general software development project DOs and DON'Ts mainly from the point of management, but the focus is on selecting and building a top-notch cohesive team. My goal was to get a fresh insight into the hiring processes of top software development companies, and the factors considered in outsourcing decisions. This book gave me that insight and it was a "hoot" to read. The author boils down the key points into bullet item guidelines - for example, one was for the interview process, and one was for the physical environment, software tools, and everyday practices required for productive software development. This book is worth purchasing and passing around to your friends and colleagues. The book itself is physically smaller than most books, but this makes it easy to tote around.

As someone who has read practically every article on Joel Spolsky's blog, Joel on Software, nothing here came as a surprise. Most of the general concepts, and some of the specific stories and anecdotes were repeats. But it's still an excellent book. And if you're in charge of hiring, you certainly have more than the $9.99 price for the kindle edition in your budget, and an afford to buy this book versus re-reading his entire blog to find the relevant bits.If you've never read Joel on Software, you should. And after you read this book, you'll want to, because Joel is fun to read (even if you're not in the business of software, you'll be entertained by his style).The book is well organized, and presented in a logical fashion. Some key points you'll learn to address are:* How to advertise your open positions to attract the most qualified candidates, while not attracting the least qualified candidates* How to read a resume to identify the most likely candidates for your position, without relying on buzzwords* How to do a phone screening* How to conduct the in-person interviews* How to treat candidates like royalty to make them WANT to work for you* How to transform an existing team which may be floundering* And a bit of a "bonus" section on management styles and techniques, especially as it relates to motivating and retaining good talent

The book is a quick read at 169 small pages and engaging. The book meets its intended goal of finding the best rock star technical talent for product development. He acknowledges that rock stars are not needed for many types of development (page 16).Knowing that he was concentrating on rock stars, I bought the book anyway, looking for tips that I translate to my world where my customers are late adopters of technology and development is usually mixed in with O&M.I did find some tips. Some just confirmed what I already believed to be true. The most useful chapters for me were Chapter 4 - Sorting Resumes (3 of my 6 dog-eared pages are in this chapter), and Chapter 7 - Fixing Suboptimal Teams.

A Good read.If you are in software development and have never heard of Stack Overflow or Joel, then you need to make more of an investment in your craft. Joel is entertaining, thought provoking and has useful advice. The challenge in hiring smart people is that they may have poor social skills, lack personal hygiene and think everyone is stupid. They get bored with work that is not challenging. So they either over complicate simple requirements, so no one else can understand what they did, or get distracted and annoy the other inmates. Hence the deceptively simple title ladened with meaning and experience.

This book goes over so many of the simple things we know but don't realize how important they are in the big picture of things.The author does a great job of sitting down with the reader and going over in detail many of the things that can actually hurt a business instead of help.He also gives you a chance to see the other side of the coin and just how much better some decisions can actually help a company if they took the time to consider and implement things.I agree with many of the things he brings up because i think the author is looking at the big picture of things and definitely working towards having a better company for owners, employees and clients.If more businesses took his advice i think they would be more happy and profitable at the outcome of their business decisions then they have been lately.

Unfortunately I find this book is outdated now. This was the case when technology companies weren't a dime a dozen. Most of the topics talked about in here are no longer present in the technology industry: private offices, quiet working quarters, etc.

Joel hits the nail on the head with this quick read on recruiting the best technical talent (Joel talks about hiring developers, but the principles can be applied to any technical role). As a long time reader, first time reviewer of Joel's works, I know from experience that he speaks the truth. If your job has anything to do with hiring, interviewing, recommending, managing, or investing in technical staff (developers in particular) you must read this book. It is short (I read it in about 2 hours), to the point, fun, and has some great footnotes supporting Joel's thoughts. I already gave my copy to the CEO and will be passing around a few other copies to HR and a Venture Capitalist or two.

Overall I think the book is worth the read but I feel that the author does take some things a bit too far (pick interviewees up in a limo!?). The book has enough good points to outweigh the bad. Nice short read that can be read in a day and worth the $10.

The item was meritorious! Quality of the wrapping was grand. Notably fast dispatch. Seller is peerless and exquisite. A+!

Short, straight to the point. Must have for building a team

Fantastic book - well notebook almost - on hiring and managing very technical people.

A short book, well written and easy to read.Full of common sense, good ideas and insights on how to recruit and keep the best technical people (and why you want to).Buy two copies, and give one to your manager.

This book is essential reading for every hiring manager in software development.It helps you pick the stars out from the also ran's, and gives you some good guidelines for how to interview, test, and figure out who is the best candidate.In today's incredibly hot market, some of the ideas are a little hard to pull off unless you are among the top 5% of companies that people want to work for, but even those "out there" ideas have nuggets you can use for yourself.