There are really just two parts of this that work reliably and they are sufficient on their own:
* Listen carefully for badmouthing of previous jobs and co-workers. With a–holes, you will hear a lot of answers that amount to “everyone was stupid but me,” “no one wanted to hear the truth,” etc.
* And, if you do happen to hire an a–hole, act immediately.
It can be that simple: trust your instincts when hiring, and ask people to leave if they turn out not to be a good fit. Keeping them on board is a waste of their time too.
I don't consider myself to have an extensive experience with a broad range of people. So trusting my instincts would not have been a good measuring stick whether I am interviewing an a-hole or a team-player.
I'd be more concerned working for an organization where "a-hole" is the norm. Either say asshole, or use a different term altogether. Similarly, n-word and f-bomb.
Everyone's an asshole to someone at some point about some thing. It's simply a matter of perception and unmet expectations.
You expect something from someone for which ever your reason might be and what ever their relationship to you could be. That expectation is unmet and you'll most likely think of them as assholes.
Jobs was an asshole in more than one way. Having a "bold, opinionated leader" is one thing. Having a partner who stiffs you of a fair share is something else. (Good thing is Woz is so forgiving.)
> “everyone was stupid but me,” “no one wanted to hear the truth,” etc.
I feel bad now. Even though I would never talk like this I can't help but feel this way sometimes at my current job. I feel like I am genuinely asked to do retarded shit sometimes, and no one else seems to mind.
That doesn't mean you are an asshole. I could be the smartest (I don't think calling people stupid is a good way of putting it) person in the company/department and you could be in a position that requires you to do pointless stuff that your skill level is much higher than.
I would suggest that if you feel this way for more than a couple of months then perhaps you should look at finding another place to work. Being smart doesn't make you an asshole. Just don't bad mouth your previous colleagues.
If someone I interview is to say that they "grew beyond the technical capabilities of the role and the company was unable to support further growth of my skill set due to the direction the business was going" then I am cool with that. It happens. Hell it SHOULD happen. You should out grow your old position if you want to move up. It is all in the way you not only say it but how you BELIEVE it too. If you just say something like the sentence I wrote above but really believe that you are some "rock star" and everyone else is an idiot then I am probably gonna pick up on it even if you phrase it in a nicer way.
It's OK to feel that way, just don't say it in an interview.
I have had people in interviews confess to me that they are (1) subordinate to their spouse, (2) very concerned about personal safety in a big city, and (3) afraid of scorpions. These are OK things for those people to feel, but to bring them up in an interview does not improve their chances.
There is nothing wrong with feeling this way - it is often the truth. I've hired many people who were frustrated with their jobs, and I've quit jobs for this reason. But there is a way to communicate it professionally - simply say that you didn't feel challenged with the work and that you weren't learning anything. Just don't rant about how they were a bunch of idiots.
Some consider it profanity. It doesn't bother me reading a post with a few s' or f' words. I myself tend when the point I'm making calls for it to write a few.
However, some really go over the top and it becomes irritating to read either both ways whether it's spelled out or masqueraded. So I guess it's a personal preference.
I wouldn't for my business blogs, but my business readers are mostly corporate types. I'm slipping a "damn" or a "hell" in every now and then, but that's about all.
For HN, I'm moving much more towards using "fuck" and the rest. The crowd is 20-something, and they still think if you say fuck every other word that you must be saying something worthwhile.
So no, I think he did it right. But I were just writing for my HN buds, I wouldn't be so cute.
Following that advice will create a bland company of mediocre people. But hey, no a-holes! </sarcasm> :-)
To me the evidence to how misguided this advice is, is that the author first assumes people are assholes (so it's a quality of the person), but in the last section they assume that it is useful to give "stern feedback" so people can correct their behavior... so people behave as assholes and are free to change if they choose.
Which brings me to the other point. What if these people were the most important contributors in the past jobs? What if theirs skills are more important than the rest? Should they describe themselves as simply "part of a team"? That would be completely hypocritical.
Equally, all the markers they give are completely unqualified by ifs and caveats, and as such are very misguided.
Here's how you don't hire an asshole. imo:
* You use your own empathy to understand if you can work with this person, if they fit culturally
* You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually
(I would not hire someone with a similar blog post)
On the we vs I point, there is a class of interview where you get marked down for using we instead of emphasizing your own contribution. I'm thinking of the competency based interview that is typical of internal positions and promotion boards in big companies. If someone has been through a lot of them, they may be inclined to emphasize their own contribution over the team. The feedback I got on my first failed promotion interview mentioned too much we and not enough I!
I don't mean this glibly, but just in case you aren't playing devil's advocate: you sound like an asshole, and I would not hire someone who made a comment like this one. ($0.02 and all.)
Oh god, really? Is that what we have now- people on HN telling each other "you're an asshole i won't hire you" "no you're an asshole I won't hire you"?
Really?
* You use your own empathy to understand if you can work with this person, if they fit culturally
* You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually
Does that really sound like an asshole? Someone who uses empathy to determine if people would work together well?
Assholes generally don't use empathy.
Sometimes there are teams where there is a key player that runs the show, and the team would be lost without. That doesn't mean they do all the work or take all the credit. What I would be asking is how they were a key player, what made them important, what they did to emphasize the success of their teams, etc. This will quickly make them show their true colors.
1. Hire based on ability, experience, and if the candidate has a good attitude and approach.
2. Hire based on company and team fit - this does not mean six of the exact same profile (i.e 3.25 years J2SE developer from a tech background), but instead look to build a well-rounded team with a variety of backgrounds and approaches to tackling the project. But they should all be able to sing the same song, even if in different keys, it is no good where each sings a good but unique and competing song.
3. Do not discriminate, especially in a so-called "positive" way. It is just bad policy.
4. If you say your company will provide training, make sure you do.
5. Avoid bell-curve based staff evaluation schemes.
6. No point number six, the first five should be enough!
First, "asshole" and "people who don't collaborate well" are not the same. "Assholes" are people who piss other people off. "People who don't collaborate well" can be any number of things. Mostly shy folks, in my experience.
Second, pissing people off isn't that bad of a trait -- as long as you are a friendly person and mean well. People will forgive a plethora of communication faults if you put their interests first and genuinely care about them. So what you're really wanting to avoid is "selfish assholes"
Finally, there's a tremendous danger in avoiding conflict in companies. Healthy conflict is a good thing, and over time we tend to want to hire people that mostly agree with us and are always on our side. This is a terrible thing to have, because it limits your creative potential. Give me a mixed team of radically different personality types and political leanings, all willing to push and be gruff with each other, yet all in good sport. We call this "passionate opinions, lightly held"
So no, the goal here isn't just to identify douchebags and keep them from the room. The goal is to maximize the mental diversity while maintaining civility and a family-like atmosphere. Much tougher.
"Don't collaborate well" was poor writing on my part - I'm talking about a specific type of poor collaboration, including undermining and attacking co-workers. I clarified in the post. There are other kinds of poor collaboration skills that have nothing to do with assholeness.
Pissing people off and conflict are fine in the course of honest and healthy debate to get to the right answers. Good companies encourage that.
Assholes actively undermine healthy conflict by 1) cutting off debate so that their ideas win, and 2) resorting to personal attacks. This leads to an "unsafe" environment where people don't want to speak up.
Unfortunately the boss is often the asshole, which creates an environment where people just keep their mouths shut since speaking up is not worth the trouble.
Isn't this just a vulgar, shallow rephrasing of solid, old-fashioned management principles that have been around forever?
Everyone knows that there are difficult personalities out there. You have to look at what every candidate brings to the table: skills, experience, creativity, communication, etc. It's usually a mixed bag.
Some people are brilliantly creative but very difficult to get along with in an office environment, and others are extremely smooth and diplomatic but unproductive. I've run into both kinds, though most people tend to be somewhere in between.
For a start-up situation, it seems to me you want to hire more from networking than from cold-call applications. When a new hire is 25% of the work force, he or she is going to have a huge impact on the culture and productivity of the team and it's very helpful to have met and interacted with them already.
When a new hire is 1/1000 of the work force, they're going to have less of an impact unless they're C-level, so you can afford to cold-hire based on established procedures.
I don't see much value in statements like "A-holes usually are not very introspective". It seems this person has a very specific image of what an undesirable team member would be like, probably based on his own brief experience in the working world.
After a couple of decades of working experience, I find it hard to generalize what an "a-hole" would be. It's all over the spectrum, from good hard working team players to borderline or sociopathic personalities whom you feel like strangling.
I guess the bottom line is, leave your ego at the door while interviewing, try to see the value in each person, figure out what they bring to the table, and maybe get them in for a day or two to interact with the team and see if the chemistry is OK.
Most people who work in tech end up working with some of the same people over and over again, and they bring each other into their companies.
Oh GOD that's a huge red flag for me. Because that clique will always have priority over your needs and career track. Not all of those people are brought with because they were super-competent and worked in complete psychic harmony with their peers. Sometimes people just need a parachute out of whatever company they were struggling in.
Nepotisms and cliques are not good, and I'm not defending them - you should never recommend someone into a company unless you think they kick ass, and if you are a founder you should work very hard to keep the number of people who have worked together to a minority, otherwise the new folks will feel like outsiders.
But it certainly is the case that the kind of people you want to hire are the kind where anyone who has worked with that person would say, "I'd love to work with them again."
I have never gotten any useful information from references ever. A lot of them are afraid to say anything substantial and just confirm "yes, so and so worked for us", at best you get a vague "they did their job well". I stopped checking references completely because it was entirely a waste of time.
What an employer is doing is asking for something written by some one they have likely never met, and taking that as some how equally or more valid than the person sitting in front of them in interview. Prospective employers have no idea what context a reference is written in, they cant even judge tone of voice or body language. They cant ask questions or anything. Its completely blind faith. The candidate can be questioned, tested and generally judged.
Real assholes, those who are truly dangerous for coworkers would pass interview and get accepted by the author at any time. Such people are smart enough to not badmouth their former employers or coworkers.
Closing note is most important: act immediately and give feedback. Employers usually don't do that, because it would hurt their image of successful interviewer.
Based on this, I'm an a-hole. I did 90% of the IT work for this last client because I was 90% of the IT department. I literally begged upper management for help at one point. I kept pushing to give this part time contractor in Russia more work because he did great work, but his management stopped responding to emails because, as it turns out, they were tired of getting stiffed on payment.
Eventually I wised up and quit, but in an interview, how do you explain such a situation where you did most of the work for 4 years without looking like a braggart or an idiot? Things have changed so much in the past 5 years and I'm afraid I'm obsolete already because this client was clueless and ignored every suggestion on how to use the latest tech or do things the right way.
The best way to detect the a-holes is to try to gauge their integrity from the start. We did hire someone at the beginning to build the front end while I built the back, but after 6 months of constant yammering about marketing related issues and constant "I'm almost dones", the kid bailed and said he couldn't do any more because his full time job was too busy. He then handed me a pile of half finished ^$&^^&!!. Then I figured out he had been giving access to the codebase to some Russian he'd hired to do his work for him...
So if someone is sort of arrogant... you have to expect that of 20-something young men overly enamored of their intelligence. But if they at least care primarily about the project, and not themselves, then they have a work ethic and that's what you want for your team. A-holes, liars, fools - none of them have a work ethic.
Even if your previous employer was utter shit, there's almost no way to talk badly about them without sounding like an asshole. In that situation, your best bet is to spin it in a positive light. Leave in the fact that you did 90% of the work but refrain from talking about how bad management was. Talking bad about the previous management does not help you in any way. Even if you left the job because of it, you're better off saying you left "to learn new technologies or whatever, rather than saying it was bad management. Saying it was bad management leaves the possibility open that you could have been the problem. So rather than take a risk on you, an employer may choose to go with someone who says they worked well with everyone at their previous company.
Yeah, I know. Even though there were 3 people in the company, including me, and I managed myself... It was a brute force lesson in office politics, it seems. At least I've graduated from the Clueless level now.
This code of omerta in the business world allows the unscrupulous to thrive. The person who introduced me to the CEO finally told me some stories about when they had been a co-worker with them, that if I'd been told from the outset, I'd never have gone to work for the CEO or at least would have had a lawyer on speed dial. But my friend had the same "don't speak bad about people" theory.. Interviews require following a different script. But the Internet has different rules... See my forthcoming blog.
Gossip does play an important role in communities; it is a back channel for info that social niceties or conventions prevent from being disseminated. But it is an unreliable channel too, hence the connotations about "gossip". Bottom line, I did not do the due diligence I should have, and ignored the warning signs I was picking up about how unethical the people I was working for were. So I see my responsibility clearly. I only offer up my story for others to use as observational learning.
Sorry for the late response. To clarify, I meant that you shouldn't talk bad about your employer at an interview. If you're starting a blog, you may want to consider writing it under a pseudonym--at least if you do plan to ever try to get employed by another person or company. Employers almost always Google prospective employees these days and online criticism of an employer would probably be ten times worse than speaking bad about that previous employer at an interview. I know people in this situation and it's not good.
And yes, I agree, finding out about previous employers is great. Check out Glassdoor.com. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good for what it is.
Hey guys, author here. I just re-read this post (it was originally from a Quora thread a couple of years back) and realized that it is not my best. I didn't take the time to discuss my definition of "asshole" nor took the time to do the topic justice since it requires more than a few bullet points ("The No Asshole Rule" devoted an entire book to the topic)! I will make some mods to flesh it out.
I have also discovered that the downside of writing about assholes in the workplace is that criticisms of the piece usually end with the commenter calling you an asshole.
Well, to start with, go look in a mirror and fire the first person you see.
What is an asshole any way? Difficult to get on with? Racist? Right wing nut job? Religious myth believer? Loner? What?
All I know is that some of the best skilled and most productive people I have worked with have between called some thing similar by others. Well, screw them. If they have time to be slagging off skilled and productive workers for not coming up to their social standards, they sure as hell aren't being of any use to me.
I think all you can do is test the skill set and take some decent amount of time to try to get to know the candidate. Then simply go with your guts. Plus, be prepared to fire the person if it turns out you are wrong. I trial period is always a good safety net, for both.
BTW, how do you avoid working for an asshole? Much harder.
Okay, this is stupid. I currently work on a team where I do all the development. We have another developer that really shouldn't be a developer, by because of unions and such, we can't get rid of him. I try to work with him as much as possible, but in two years, he hasn't produced any code that could possibly go into production. But he has a great attitude, and can at the very least be the cover off I need for vacation.
So, maybe I am an asshole, but I find it hard to use the term "we developed this", or "we wrote this" when he's effectively written none of the code. So in order to conform to the criteria set out here, I would be lying, and I also wouldn't be a passionate developer who cares about my contribution. So sure, you don't get assholes. But I'd rather have an asshole than an liar.
I think I would prefer to work with "assholes"-only if they could get the job done, because a lot of these non-"assholes" are only good at bullshitting their way out of responsibility.
I would prefer to have a person say to my face that he thinks I'm an idiot than to have one being nice to me and stab me in the back.
How social a person is one thing, how good a person is is totally different.
55 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] threaddon't be a fucking asshole boss in the first place.
* Listen carefully for badmouthing of previous jobs and co-workers. With a–holes, you will hear a lot of answers that amount to “everyone was stupid but me,” “no one wanted to hear the truth,” etc.
* And, if you do happen to hire an a–hole, act immediately.
It can be that simple: trust your instincts when hiring, and ask people to leave if they turn out not to be a good fit. Keeping them on board is a waste of their time too.
I don't consider myself to have an extensive experience with a broad range of people. So trusting my instincts would not have been a good measuring stick whether I am interviewing an a-hole or a team-player.
Jobs was an a–hole.
You expect something from someone for which ever your reason might be and what ever their relationship to you could be. That expectation is unmet and you'll most likely think of them as assholes.
I feel bad now. Even though I would never talk like this I can't help but feel this way sometimes at my current job. I feel like I am genuinely asked to do retarded shit sometimes, and no one else seems to mind.
I would suggest that if you feel this way for more than a couple of months then perhaps you should look at finding another place to work. Being smart doesn't make you an asshole. Just don't bad mouth your previous colleagues.
If someone I interview is to say that they "grew beyond the technical capabilities of the role and the company was unable to support further growth of my skill set due to the direction the business was going" then I am cool with that. It happens. Hell it SHOULD happen. You should out grow your old position if you want to move up. It is all in the way you not only say it but how you BELIEVE it too. If you just say something like the sentence I wrote above but really believe that you are some "rock star" and everyone else is an idiot then I am probably gonna pick up on it even if you phrase it in a nicer way.
I have had people in interviews confess to me that they are (1) subordinate to their spouse, (2) very concerned about personal safety in a big city, and (3) afraid of scorpions. These are OK things for those people to feel, but to bring them up in an interview does not improve their chances.
#winning
I hate when amateurs try to psychoanalyze other people, or put any sort of faith in their theories. Reading people is hard.
However, some really go over the top and it becomes irritating to read either both ways whether it's spelled out or masqueraded. So I guess it's a personal preference.
I wouldn't for my business blogs, but my business readers are mostly corporate types. I'm slipping a "damn" or a "hell" in every now and then, but that's about all.
For HN, I'm moving much more towards using "fuck" and the rest. The crowd is 20-something, and they still think if you say fuck every other word that you must be saying something worthwhile.
So no, I think he did it right. But I were just writing for my HN buds, I wouldn't be so cute.
To me the evidence to how misguided this advice is, is that the author first assumes people are assholes (so it's a quality of the person), but in the last section they assume that it is useful to give "stern feedback" so people can correct their behavior... so people behave as assholes and are free to change if they choose.
Which brings me to the other point. What if these people were the most important contributors in the past jobs? What if theirs skills are more important than the rest? Should they describe themselves as simply "part of a team"? That would be completely hypocritical.
Equally, all the markers they give are completely unqualified by ifs and caveats, and as such are very misguided.
Here's how you don't hire an asshole. imo:
* You use your own empathy to understand if you can work with this person, if they fit culturally
* You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually
(I would not hire someone with a similar blog post)
Come on guys.
* You look for lack of empathy in the candidate because that's the sure sign of a person that will break your culture eventually
Does that really sound like an asshole? Someone who uses empathy to determine if people would work together well? Assholes generally don't use empathy.
Sometimes there are teams where there is a key player that runs the show, and the team would be lost without. That doesn't mean they do all the work or take all the credit. What I would be asking is how they were a key player, what made them important, what they did to emphasize the success of their teams, etc. This will quickly make them show their true colors.
1. Hire based on ability, experience, and if the candidate has a good attitude and approach. 2. Hire based on company and team fit - this does not mean six of the exact same profile (i.e 3.25 years J2SE developer from a tech background), but instead look to build a well-rounded team with a variety of backgrounds and approaches to tackling the project. But they should all be able to sing the same song, even if in different keys, it is no good where each sings a good but unique and competing song. 3. Do not discriminate, especially in a so-called "positive" way. It is just bad policy. 4. If you say your company will provide training, make sure you do. 5. Avoid bell-curve based staff evaluation schemes. 6. No point number six, the first five should be enough!
First, "asshole" and "people who don't collaborate well" are not the same. "Assholes" are people who piss other people off. "People who don't collaborate well" can be any number of things. Mostly shy folks, in my experience.
Second, pissing people off isn't that bad of a trait -- as long as you are a friendly person and mean well. People will forgive a plethora of communication faults if you put their interests first and genuinely care about them. So what you're really wanting to avoid is "selfish assholes"
Finally, there's a tremendous danger in avoiding conflict in companies. Healthy conflict is a good thing, and over time we tend to want to hire people that mostly agree with us and are always on our side. This is a terrible thing to have, because it limits your creative potential. Give me a mixed team of radically different personality types and political leanings, all willing to push and be gruff with each other, yet all in good sport. We call this "passionate opinions, lightly held"
So no, the goal here isn't just to identify douchebags and keep them from the room. The goal is to maximize the mental diversity while maintaining civility and a family-like atmosphere. Much tougher.
"Don't collaborate well" was poor writing on my part - I'm talking about a specific type of poor collaboration, including undermining and attacking co-workers. I clarified in the post. There are other kinds of poor collaboration skills that have nothing to do with assholeness.
Pissing people off and conflict are fine in the course of honest and healthy debate to get to the right answers. Good companies encourage that.
Assholes actively undermine healthy conflict by 1) cutting off debate so that their ideas win, and 2) resorting to personal attacks. This leads to an "unsafe" environment where people don't want to speak up.
Unfortunately the boss is often the asshole, which creates an environment where people just keep their mouths shut since speaking up is not worth the trouble.
Everyone knows that there are difficult personalities out there. You have to look at what every candidate brings to the table: skills, experience, creativity, communication, etc. It's usually a mixed bag.
Some people are brilliantly creative but very difficult to get along with in an office environment, and others are extremely smooth and diplomatic but unproductive. I've run into both kinds, though most people tend to be somewhere in between.
For a start-up situation, it seems to me you want to hire more from networking than from cold-call applications. When a new hire is 25% of the work force, he or she is going to have a huge impact on the culture and productivity of the team and it's very helpful to have met and interacted with them already.
When a new hire is 1/1000 of the work force, they're going to have less of an impact unless they're C-level, so you can afford to cold-hire based on established procedures.
I don't see much value in statements like "A-holes usually are not very introspective". It seems this person has a very specific image of what an undesirable team member would be like, probably based on his own brief experience in the working world.
After a couple of decades of working experience, I find it hard to generalize what an "a-hole" would be. It's all over the spectrum, from good hard working team players to borderline or sociopathic personalities whom you feel like strangling.
I guess the bottom line is, leave your ego at the door while interviewing, try to see the value in each person, figure out what they bring to the table, and maybe get them in for a day or two to interact with the team and see if the chemistry is OK.
Oh GOD that's a huge red flag for me. Because that clique will always have priority over your needs and career track. Not all of those people are brought with because they were super-competent and worked in complete psychic harmony with their peers. Sometimes people just need a parachute out of whatever company they were struggling in.
But it certainly is the case that the kind of people you want to hire are the kind where anyone who has worked with that person would say, "I'd love to work with them again."
What an employer is doing is asking for something written by some one they have likely never met, and taking that as some how equally or more valid than the person sitting in front of them in interview. Prospective employers have no idea what context a reference is written in, they cant even judge tone of voice or body language. They cant ask questions or anything. Its completely blind faith. The candidate can be questioned, tested and generally judged.
Closing note is most important: act immediately and give feedback. Employers usually don't do that, because it would hurt their image of successful interviewer.
Eventually I wised up and quit, but in an interview, how do you explain such a situation where you did most of the work for 4 years without looking like a braggart or an idiot? Things have changed so much in the past 5 years and I'm afraid I'm obsolete already because this client was clueless and ignored every suggestion on how to use the latest tech or do things the right way.
The best way to detect the a-holes is to try to gauge their integrity from the start. We did hire someone at the beginning to build the front end while I built the back, but after 6 months of constant yammering about marketing related issues and constant "I'm almost dones", the kid bailed and said he couldn't do any more because his full time job was too busy. He then handed me a pile of half finished ^$&^^&!!. Then I figured out he had been giving access to the codebase to some Russian he'd hired to do his work for him...
So if someone is sort of arrogant... you have to expect that of 20-something young men overly enamored of their intelligence. But if they at least care primarily about the project, and not themselves, then they have a work ethic and that's what you want for your team. A-holes, liars, fools - none of them have a work ethic.
This code of omerta in the business world allows the unscrupulous to thrive. The person who introduced me to the CEO finally told me some stories about when they had been a co-worker with them, that if I'd been told from the outset, I'd never have gone to work for the CEO or at least would have had a lawyer on speed dial. But my friend had the same "don't speak bad about people" theory.. Interviews require following a different script. But the Internet has different rules... See my forthcoming blog.
Gossip does play an important role in communities; it is a back channel for info that social niceties or conventions prevent from being disseminated. But it is an unreliable channel too, hence the connotations about "gossip". Bottom line, I did not do the due diligence I should have, and ignored the warning signs I was picking up about how unethical the people I was working for were. So I see my responsibility clearly. I only offer up my story for others to use as observational learning.
And yes, I agree, finding out about previous employers is great. Check out Glassdoor.com. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good for what it is.
Often one is a-hole because he insist on basic principles, such as unit tests.
I have also discovered that the downside of writing about assholes in the workplace is that criticisms of the piece usually end with the commenter calling you an asshole.
What is an asshole any way? Difficult to get on with? Racist? Right wing nut job? Religious myth believer? Loner? What?
All I know is that some of the best skilled and most productive people I have worked with have between called some thing similar by others. Well, screw them. If they have time to be slagging off skilled and productive workers for not coming up to their social standards, they sure as hell aren't being of any use to me.
I think all you can do is test the skill set and take some decent amount of time to try to get to know the candidate. Then simply go with your guts. Plus, be prepared to fire the person if it turns out you are wrong. I trial period is always a good safety net, for both.
BTW, how do you avoid working for an asshole? Much harder.
So, maybe I am an asshole, but I find it hard to use the term "we developed this", or "we wrote this" when he's effectively written none of the code. So in order to conform to the criteria set out here, I would be lying, and I also wouldn't be a passionate developer who cares about my contribution. So sure, you don't get assholes. But I'd rather have an asshole than an liar.
I would prefer to have a person say to my face that he thinks I'm an idiot than to have one being nice to me and stab me in the back.
How social a person is one thing, how good a person is is totally different.
Relevant video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elrnAl6ygeM