What I've tried to do over my career has been to hire people who showed ability to learn and grow, and then offer them the ability to step up to challenges. What I've gotten has been a rather bad mixture of incompetence, cluelessness, etc. They were eager to pass the interviews and get the job. They were not eager to do the work under the timelines we needed.
This isn't just devs. This was sales, ops, and finance.
I don't believe in any hard and fast rules about good vs non-good. I do believe that past performance is no indicator of future ability. That at least has been my experience.
Even more relevant, pedigree is of no value in estimating potential success or failure of an employee at their mission. The best dev I'd ever worked with had a GED (high school equivalency diploma), and never went to college. The worst had a top-of-heap pedigree.
Hiring is hard. You have to be an optimist. In the case of a small company, a bad hire can be a fatal mistake.
If everyone you hire in every department is "not eager to do the work under the timelines you need", then perhaps your timelines are not realistic and you either need to adjust them, hire more staff, or both?
A commander can blame his soldiers for losing him the war, but is it more their fault or his?
This isn't just devs. This was sales, ops, and finance.
I don't believe in any hard and fast rules about good vs non-good. I do believe that past performance is no indicator of future ability. That at least has been my experience.
Even more relevant, pedigree is of no value in estimating potential success or failure of an employee at their mission. The best dev I'd ever worked with had a GED (high school equivalency diploma), and never went to college. The worst had a top-of-heap pedigree.
Hiring is hard. You have to be an optimist. In the case of a small company, a bad hire can be a fatal mistake.