Who May Find This Useful

You’re reading an excerpt of The Holloway Guide to Technical Recruiting and Hiring, a book by Osman (Ozzie) Osman and over 45 other contributors. It is the most authoritative resource on growing software engineering teams effectively, written by and for hiring managers, recruiters, interviewers, and candidates. Purchase the book to support the author and the ad-free Holloway reading experience. You get instant digital access, over 800 links and references, commentary and future updates, and a high-quality PDF download.

This Guide includes material of interest to anyone involved in the hiring process, including hiring managers, founders, interviewers, recruiters, engineers, and candidates. As a hiring manager, you might find this Guide useful if:

• You work at a startup. You might be a founder or one of the earlier engineers or engineering leaders. You may have been a part of the recruiting process at other companies, but have never had to design and build out a process yourself and are not sure where to start.

• You work at a larger company. You likely have a more developed recruiting process, and want to understand how to best be effective within that process and how to improve that process—why your company recruits the way it does.

Recruiting processes might look very different at small startups and large companies, but the principles we present can apply at any stage of company or team. We believe it is valuable for small, growing companies to understand the structure and processes of larger companies, and that it is equally valuable for large companies to learn from the resourcefulness and lean practices of startups. Practical advice may differ depending on the size and stage of the company as well as the needs of the team.

​startup​ Startup-specific strategies and concerns are marked with this icon.

• Engineers usually want to understand how their role fits in with the broader technical recruiting and hiring process. Most likely, engineers will act as interviewers or otherwise be involved in the interviewing process. We cover interviewing and interview training at length, helping engineers be more effective and engaged at this important part of their job.

• Recruiters and other non-engineers involved in the hiring of technical positions also care about hiring process. Pitfalls often stem from lack of a shared understanding of best practices or clear communication between recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates.

• Candidates seeking a new role can read this Guide to understand the systems they will be navigating and how companies make decisions. We consider candidates full participants in the hiring process, not as passive receivers of the systems of companies.

​candidate​ Areas that are specifically important for candidates are marked with this icon.