No secrets to finding great IT people — just hard work and expertise

Brian used to stay up late at night trying to figure out new and inventive ways to solve impossible questions.

“It wasn’t because I enjoyed doing things like that,” the computer engineer says, “but I’d gotten it into my head that I was going to work at Google, and so I was always trying to figure out these ridiculous riddles.”

From “How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?” to “How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?” Google was infamous for asking job applicants to answer brainteasers. And, like it’s famously secretive search algorithms, it wasn’t exactly clear how the questions worked into the hiring equation.

Now we know: The questions actually didn’t work at all. Senior Google officials now say they were “a complete waste of time.”

Bryan — who did eventually get an interview with Google but didn’t get an offer — is none too happy about that.

“I made peace a long time ago with the fact that I wasn’t going to work for Google,” says the 34-year-old, who traded his dreams of working for Silicon Valley’s most powerful company for what he says is a better overall quality of life with a tech company on Utah’s Silicon Slopes. “But I’ll never get all that sleep back.”

Here’s the thing: There is no clever trick to finding great employees. There’s no secret algorithm for perfect hiring success. And, as it turns out, the things that works best for finding people who will be great workers are the same things that have always worked.

1. Find people who are really good at what they do.

2. Find people who are good at working with other people.

3. Be honest about what they can expect from you, and be clear about what you expect from them.

But that takes work. You have to go through a lot of people to find the best. And you have to have a very detailed understanding of what employers need.

That’s what Smith Johnson Group does. For a quarter-century, this IT recruiting and placement solutions company has been helping identify the best of the best among IT professionals — and helping connect them to employers who will value the vital work they do.

SJG’s goal isn’t to keep employers or employers awake at night — it’s to let them sleep peacefully, knowing that they’re going to be a great match.