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

Joel Spolsky

Apress, Jun 1, 2007 - Computers - 200 pages

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 more productive than 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.

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.

Table of Contents

1. Hitting the High Notes
2. Finding Great Developers
3. A Field Guide to Developers
4. Sorting Resumes
5. The Phone Screen
6. The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing
7. Fixing Suboptimal Teams

What people are saying

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

User Review  - Sebastian Pereira Pereira - Goodreads

Joel is a great writer, if you want to know how to setup an ISV (Independent Software Vendor), this is the book for you!

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

User Review  - Eric Smith - Goodreads

This is a small, specialized book on how to hire programmers and other technical folks and, if you need to do that, it is a must read. I have read the book twice and my copy is heavily marked up. I ...

About the author

Joel Spolsky is a globally recognized expert on the software development process. His web site Joel on Software (JoelonSoftware.com) is popular with software developers around the world and has been translated into over 30 languages. As the founder of Fog Creek Software in New York City, he created FogBugz, a popular project management system for software teams. Joel has worked at Microsoft, where he designed Visual Basic for Applications as a member of the Excel team, and at Juno Online Services, developing an Internet client used by millions. He has written two books: User Interface Design for Programmers (Apress, 2001) and Joel on Software (Apress, 2004). Joel holds a bachelor's of science degree in computer science from Yale University. Before college, he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a paratrooper, and he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Hanaton.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Smart and Gets Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent
• Author: Joel Spolsky
• Publisher: Apress, 2007
• ISBN: 1430202548, 9781430202547
• Length: 200 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Human Resources & Personnel Management; Business & Economics / Industries / Computers & Information Technology; Computers / Software Development & Engineering / General