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 Here is my dilemma.

 

I am a recently promoted Director of Application Development in IT. I am young in my career. I have been in management for 4 years. All of my training has come from your podcasts.  I am in the process of recruiting for a position that has been open and closed several times in the last year. It has currently been unfroze for the last 60 days. I have interviewed countless developers for this role. Prior to this role I filled a similar position and waited it out for 6 months till I found the right candidate. We are a privately held company with a “shoe string” budget.

 

I have a candidate now that has everything I am looking for. He is a lead developer at a prominent corporation in Redman. He claims to be relocating to Dallas because his wife and kids want out of Washington. His career history has been very stable. 3 jobs total with 4 years the shortest duration, and the longest being his last 8 years.

 

What is holding me back? I have a gut feeling. I have seen it happen before. Someone wants to relocate to Dallas from a big company and takes the first decent well-paying job. Using the smaller company as a safety net till they can find what they want. Then they are gone. Now we are not paying relocation fees and have no investment other than time and training. Dallas is the meca for software developers. Our current unemployment rate is @ 2%. Good developers stay on the market less than 2 to 3 weeks.

 

Any suggestions? 

rossrader's picture
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The best hiring advice I've ever received is "You can't hire too slowly or fire too quickly". Its a bit glib, and in practice, if you are slow to make the hire, you usually don't ever need to get to the nasty firing bit at the end.

In this case, I'd go with your gut. Even if you are wrong, you've got a preconception about how this employee will behave. Suspicions are hard to deal with, even when they are unfounded. I'd advise you to wait it out and find someone you can hire free of preconceptions. My gut says that you'll be in a much better position to fully invest in the relationship and take a stake in their success if you do. 

tsnarr's picture

 Thanks RossRader! Your last sentence hit home with "fully invest in the relationship".