Review on the book "Smart and Get Things Done"
Smart and Get Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent is written by Joel Spolsky, published by Apress, in May 2007.
Joel Spolsky runs the famous Joel on Software web site. This is his book on how to recruit the best possible developers. This is a short and easy to read book, useful for both hiring managers and developers because the latter can also learn what to check for when interviewing.
In the beginning, the author makes the case why it is more important to have great developers than to have a great idea because great developers produce much better quality code in much less time than mediocre developers.
If you agree with his reasoning, then you can read on to see the unconventional ways he suggests on how to find great developers in Chapter 2. The next chapter describes what developers deem as important and gives suggestions on how to create such an environment that they can enjoy working in.
In the next few chapters he discusses sorting resumes, phone screening and onsite interview. One of the chapters titled "The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing" is also available online and is useful for the hiring team when they prepare the interview.
In Chapter 7, the author discusses how to deal with suboptimal teams where you may have some mediocre developers. The Appendix contains the Joel Test that contains 12 questions to help you to evaluate your current development practice and suggests ways of improvement.
Overall this book contains useful insights and tips on hiring developers and is worth reading for both software developers and managers alike.