undefined | Better HN

0 pointslsc12y ago0 comments

>"all jobs are sales jobs."

some jobs... more than others. If an employer can find a programmer or sysadmin who can't get a job elsewhere because of poor sales skills, well, it sounds like they could either pay less or get someone with better technical skills than they could otherwise.

(That and my personal feeling? the guys who are 'always selling' are hard to deal with. I can handle maybe one day a week, if that, dealing with those folks.)

Seriously. Not everyone needs to be the team lead. The kid in the corner who is really good technically, who solves technical problems has a lot of value even if his or her social skills are poor.

I mean, sure, they'd be /more/ valuable with social skills, too... My whole point is that you can't get the perfect candidate. Quite often it makes sense to take a hit on social skills if it gets you someone who is better technically. (and sometimes the converse makes sense, too.)

I'm just saying, there is a place in the workplace for the introverts who don't interview or argue well. As an employer, if you only hire technical people who can get dates, well, you are limiting yourself.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

SomeCallMeTim12y ago· 1 in thread

>Quite often it makes sense to take a hit on social skills if it gets you someone who is better technically.

Yes and no.

If it's just about being socially awkward, that's something that can be dealt with. But at the same time that socially awkward kid can potentially cause conflicts on the team.

But what I see far more often is someone who has poor communication skills. If I tell someone to do XYZ and they come back with XAB because they didn't quite understand and were too shy to ask for clarification, then I've just wasted time and money because they couldn't talk to me.

And I think it's very rare for someone with good communication skills to not have basic sales skills.

I guess I have yet to meet the perfect introvert with poor social skills who can understand everything that I ask him (or her) to do, who gets the work done quickly.

Honestly, I think that the myth of the really awesome social introvert/recluse is far more rare than it would otherwise appear. And that the costs of working with people like that may actually be higher than the benefits in a lot of cases. I say that as someone who previously was one of those social introverts, but who decided it was valuable to learn some social skills.

The moral of the story is that it's valuable to learn how to talk to people. And how to get dates.

lscOP12y ago

>I guess I have yet to meet the perfect introvert with poor social skills who can understand everything that I ask him (or her) to do, who gets the work done quickly.

Well, if you are looking for perfect anything, you are bound to find much disappointment.

I suggest that your inability to communicate with introverts has as much to do with your own communication style and abilities than with theirs.

Personally, I have the opposite problem. I can handle introverts; interacting with extroverts is where I screw it up, usually. I'm not terrible at it, by the standards of my people, but I'm not good at it. (I am terrible at it by the standards of a normal person.)

Obviously, the manager needs to be able to communicate with the programmers, so yeah, if you can't deal with introverts, you probably shouldn't be managing them. But recognize that you will be paying a lot more money, usually, for a lot less programming skill, if you go for a more extroverted and confident looking programmer.

>The moral of the story is that it's valuable to learn how to talk to people. And how to get dates.

Nobody is arguing with that. my social skills massively inflates my bill rate. Even very rough social skills and very rough confidence can dramatically increase your salary. If you can level up in that arena, it will benefit you greatly.

I'm just saying, on the manager side? with effort, you can get people who are dramatically better than me, technically speaking, for dramatically less than you'd pay for me, if you are willing to work around their communications and confidence issues. The pay and skill difference is sometimes quite dramatic, so just like most programmers can do well to learn how to deal with extroverts, most managers would do well to learn how to deal with introverts.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse