Hiring web staff
Summary: Good staff contribute to the overall quality of the site, and help other staff understand the importance of the web as a key communication tool.
Understand your needs
Creating a qualified web team requires that you, as a manager or supervisor understand the needs of your website and how they support the objectives of the business.
The first step in hiring web staff, as when you are building a web site, is to understand your requirements. The scope of the role or work will determine the type of person you need.
- Will they be working on a large scale web site with many sub sites? This will require someone with more strategic, leadership experience.
- Will they be working in a team or on their own?
- Can they use the tools provided?
- Will this be an evolving site or one that is updated on a needs-only timetable (i.e yearly documentation)
All people involved with creating web sites at the University should have a basic understanding of HTML.
Staff should be able serve as internal mentors and help to create a dynamic and responsive attitude to web based problems.
If you don't have existing staff with web capabilities you ultimately have two choices; training or hiring. There is also a third choice- contact the Web Design Team who can offer some practical advice and even build a great site (with training for site administrators and editors).
When hiring a juggler, watch them juggle..
"It would be ludicrous to think of hiring a juggler without first seeing him perform. That's just common sense. Yet when you set out to hire an engineer or a designer or a programmer or a group manager, the rules of common sense are often suspended. You don't ask to see a design or a program or anything. In fact, the interview is just talk." [1]
When hiring web staff you should ensure that they are able to create web content or applications to a basic level of quality - it is always a good idea to ask to see examples of previous work, rather than just go by a resume.
The best approach is to ask the interviewee to actually write, edit or review example content or code - in this case the interviewee should be notified in advance. It will help you to consider the person best suited to the type of work, and the overall organisational 'fit'.
Learn more
Related topics
- Web development framework
- Writing and publishing for the web
- Quality assurance
Books
- Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister (University library record).
Footnotes
[1] Hiring a Juggler, Chapter 15 of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister.